Another Week Ends

1. I’m told that one of the hallmarks of being a Gen X-er is that you’re indifferent to discourse about Generation X. Or you just find it irrelevant, as if generational traits could never apply to y-o-u. Besides, you are deeply skeptical that such traits could exist with any cohesion in the first place. If that’s true, then I guess I’m a Gen X-er after all.

So I’ve got to hand it to Justin E.H. Smith for making the subject so compelling in his phenomenal new essay for Harpers, “My Generation.” The guy almost makes me proud to have been born in 1979. It probably helps that the new TMNT movie is so darn good (and Pavement is touring!).

According to Smith, Gen X attempted to carry forward the anti-authoritarian idealism our boomer parents had pioneered and then betrayed (as evidenced in the invention and subsequent corporatization of rock n roll). But we did so by gazing inward and embracing an inherent darkness that our children would find, well, “problematic.” Thus, grunge music and Seinfeld and David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Wurtzel — all cultural shibboleths that look with near-derision on capital-P Politics. No wonder so many commentators have remarked that we’ll never have a Gen X president. I wouldn’t go so far as to label Gen X the Low Anthropology Generation or something like that, but there are some points of intersection worth highlighting:

Today the dominant view, at least in elite institutions where millennials have made significant inroads, holds that the art cannot be separated from the artist, and that where the artist is bad the art therefore is bad — “bad,” that is, in a way that precludes the possibility of being “good.”

Whether in its nationalist, socialist, or post-liberal progressive variant, this attitude toward art is inherently authoritarian. It wants good art to be made by good people — or more precisely, by good representatives of the relevant nation, social class, or identity — and because this is generally just not how things work out, it has to do the extra work of coercion to ensure that people speak and act as if it were.

What is art in the fullest sense? It is impossible to give an answer that will please everyone, but we might say that it is a distillation of the spirit of its time that somehow succeeds in breaking out above its time, speaking to us across the generations in a way that transcends the limitations of its own local idiom and its own myopic present. It is shaped by its historical period but ends up saying something quite general about human suffering, human hopes, perhaps the possibility of human redemption (or not).

In order to be a suitable candidate for redemption, a being must of course be flawed. It was long thought that to be this way was simply the general condition of humanity, but today, if you were to seek to learn about our peculiar species by studying the daily tide of social-media discourse, you could easily come away with the impression that it is the condition of only some people (roughly half of them) while the rest are consistently righteous. Those who work to sustain this impression, through the daily volunteer labor of online takesmanship, tend not to use adjectives like “flawed,” “imperfect,” or “fallen.” By contrast, “problematic” has been made to do a great deal of work in the era of philistine pseudocriticism.

… It is a weasel word, employed by people who lack not only the courage of their convictions but also anything beyond convictions, any of the aesthetic or moral virtues that engagement with art was, for some centuries, believed to be essential to cultivating: taste, curiosity, imagination, fellow feeling with the wretched and the fallen.

“Fellow feeling with the wretched and the fallen” — AKA recognition of our cross-generational plight as sinners in need of redemption — if that’s part of what the current wave of Peak Nostalgia is grasping after, then I say bring it on. Bring on the Hot Wheels and Pocket Polly movies! Bring on the Masters of the Universe, too! A little grace for the grayskulls would go a long way.

2. Maybe I just loved that essay because Smith found his way into universal subjects like “human suffering, human hopes, and the possibility of human redemption” through music. Frankly so do I. Which might be why I was so crushed by the death of Robbie Robertson a couple of weeks ago. I mean, what was Music from Big Pink if not a record thoroughly out of its own time and therefore that much more resonant?

Robertson’s songs have been an anchor in my life since the day, as a nine year old, I stumbled across my father’s beaten-up copy of The Brown Album and was intrigued by the picture of what appeared to be a bunch of Civil War vets on the cover. At boarding school I was in a band called The Mountain Men and all we played were Band covers — that’s how obsessed I was. Over time I came to adore his solo music as well, especially the self-titled debut and the Music for the Native Americans record (“Skinwalker” above being my all time fave). But it’s all great. If you want to go deeper, here’s a playlist. Robertson’s solo work pairs well with the gorgeous new songs Peter Gabriel has been bestowing upon the world this year. Fun fact: Sinead, may she rest in peace, wrote “Thank You For Loving Me” (above) about PG.

Not that the Gen Xer’s have been silent this summer. Blur’s new record The Ballad of Darren may be their all-time best, and GNR itself released a new single last week, the remarkably solid “Perhaps” (see bottom). Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Now all I need is the Gaslight Anthem’s forthcoming History Books and life can continue.

3. In humor, the Hard Times offered up the brilliant “How I Forgave Myself for Hitting That Guy With My Car and Found the Strength To Keep Driving” and the Onion nailed bougey mid-life with its “Study: Living Happy Life Strongly Correlated To Thinking About Property Values All The Time.” The Beaverton made me chuckle with its “Man Who Doesn’t Care What Anybody Thinks Definitely Should.” And over on Twitter, Amy Mantravadi gave us an inspired history of the Reformation in GIFs from The Office. Lastly, I have to — have to — make it out to one of the Brooklyn Cyclones Seinfeld nights:

4. This next one is just plain interesting, especially for those of us who like to talk about just-IFICATION. Writing for the New Yorker, Lauren Michele Jackson explores “The “-ification” of Everything“:

In addition to “HGTV-ification,” The Atlantic has covered the “flu-ification of COVID policy.” A recent piece in Esquire considers the “merch-ification of book publishing,” and the Daily Beast, writing on the Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan,” declared the “Gen Z-ification of the royal couple.” Vox has lately published articles on the “old man-ification” of television, the “Easter egg-ification” of celebrity beefs, and the “ ‘You’re doing it wrong’-ification” of TikTok influencers. Last year, Teen Vogue announced the end of Pete Davidson’s “Kim Kardashian-ification” after the actor, who’d sharpened his look while dating the image-conscious star, wore a hoodie at a film première following their breakup.

“Enshittification” clarifies something about the suffix in question, which is that it rarely announces good news. Nobody wants “app-ification,” “Uber-ification,” “Airbnb-ification,” “Marvel-fication,” or “Walmart-ization,” except, perhaps, shareholders. All of these nominalizations, rather, seem to point to interrelated worries about the monopolizing, homogenizing pattern in which our culture is moving. On the one hand, the words grasp for the precision required to keep up with the swiftly tilting present. On the other, they risk impeding understanding rather than facilitating it.

The quest to describe our convoluted times ultimately leaves us with words that are bespoke but imprecise, which grab attention through novelty but have little to say in the long run. That, too, is nothing new. As [author and poet Helen] Sword told me, “it’s an interesting combination of trying to do something original that is, in fact, already quite derivative. That’s how culture works.”

5. Speaking of the, er, boomerangification of novelty/rebellion, Richard Beck makes a strong point in his “Witchcraft Is the Pagan Prosperity Gospel“:

It is often assumed that the prosperity gospel is a uniquely Christian phenomenon. But that is wrong. The prosperity gospel flourishes throughout America, and paganism has its own version. As do all sorts of secular forms of self-improvement and self-help, many of which also have a quasi-mystical aspect to them.

Basically, the prosperity gospel isn’t a Christian product, it’s an American product.

If you look through the Table of Contents of The Spell Book for New Witches you’ll see that the spells are broken down into the categories: Romantic Love; Money Matters and Prosperity; Work and Career; Friends and Family; Health and Healing; Protection and Forgiveness; and Well-Being, Success and Abundance. There are spells to help you attract lovers, get rich, secure a work promotion, strengthen friendships, handle anxiety, get physically healthier, be protected during travel, develop better self-esteem, and become happier. Basically, all the spells you need to have your best life now. The final spell in the book says it all: “The Witch’s Ladder for Success and Abundance.”

6. We try not to cast aspersions too often on here, but while we’re on the takedown train, the WashPo’s recent column about leaving church but missing community (none-nostalgification?) was too vacuous to let slide. I mean, church can be rough for oh-so-many reasons but the thrust of Mr. Bacon’s gripes boil down to what Mbird contributor Ben Maddison commented on FB: “I want a church where I’m not required to believe anything, not expected to attend, don’t want my life changed, will never hear anything that challenges me, and I’m never asked for money.” To which Ben responds, “Sir, you are talking about a library and it’s just down the road.”

My hunch, as ever, is that you can’t subtract the vertical element (God) from a worship community and expect the horizontal (human) element to remain the same. But you can certainly try! #seculosity

As if in response, and to drive home what historical liturgies attempt to safeguard, John Deepak Sundara penned a beautiful piece for Covenant titled “From Law to Grace: The Gospel in the Holy Eucharist.”

I’ve spent a lot of time in parachurch ministries where most of my peers and colleagues were not Episcopalians. One of the strongest criticisms leveled against us [Episcopalians] is that we don’t preach the gospel. I would counter that immersed in our tradition, we preach, through our liturgy, nothing but the gospel. It is a gospel that takes seriously the weight and burdens of the law, and acknowledges weekly that we can’t do it. We are unable to fulfill it, as hard as we have tried. Yet, by the mercy and grace of God, he forgives us our sins, and gives us everlasting life, through his Son, in the sacrament of his Body and Blood.

Beautifully put. Though speaking as an Episcopalian, a little non-liturgical proclamation of the gospel now and then might not hurt. The parachurchification of the liturgical, if you will. Heh.

7. Next up, over at the Wall Street Journal, Meghan Cox Gurden reviewed Jennifer Wallace’s new book Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic. Sounds like a worthy diversion for the aforementioned property-value obsessed cohort, full of some very familiar themes indeed:

“Never Enough” is full of people like Amanda: young men and women whose personal accomplishments and affluent, ultra-supportive environments might be expected to guarantee them blissful satisfaction but have instead produced anxiety, loneliness and a feeling that life lacks meaning.

These effects are the unintended consequences of social norms that have come to prevail in many upper-middle- and upper-class families. The desire that young people succeed has morphed into something more like a demand. Writes Ms. Wallace: “Our children are living under a tyranny of metrics.”

Near the end of “Never Enough,” Ms. Wallace describes her revelatory visit to an all-boys Catholic school in Cleveland where teachers encourage students to develop not only their brains but also their hearts. Students at Saint Ignatius High School engage in daily reflection and give their time to charity with the goal not of padding their résumés but of becoming, as the Jesuits say, men for others. Ms. Wallace reports that social science confirms the wisdom of this approach: Living a life “according to a value system that balances others’ needs with our own boosts our well-being.” Such a finding will not surprise parents who are already raising their children in a religious tradition, but it’s nice to see in a book for the secular market.

As someone tells her: “The difference between getting a 91 and a 99 is a life.”

I’ve been told to add Scott Galloway’s recent podcast interview with Wallace to my weekend listening.

8. Last but not least, and in what feels like direct (pastoral) conversation with Wallace’s book, this one from our friend Gretchen Ronnevik on “Repentance and the Life of Christian Parents” was just what the Doctor ordered:

As I wrestled through how much to correct, and when to correct, and when to discipline [my teenage children], and when to overlook, I found in my own heart the Spirit exposing my deep mistrust of grace. If I give them too much grace, it will ruin them. I would have never said it, but I felt it. I did not want to be a doormat.

I did not want spoiled children. I wanted them prepared for the world. And in all that preparation, I had turned parenting into a pseudo-faith of putting my faith in God’s law in heavy doses, while doling out the gospel in teaspoons (with a little dash of shame for even needing it).

I didn’t believe the gospel was practical. I worked hard to get my kids to avoid needing forgiveness. The gospel felt like lowering the standard. The gospel felt like giving in and giving up.

She then lists a treasure trove of grace-in-difficult-parenting formulations:

“You’re shying away from telling the truth, and that’s a mistake. Because you’re afraid I won’t love you if I knew the truth, and I’m here to stubbornly show you that there is no truth that could stop me from loving you. Sometimes it takes courage to walk in truth. But it’s so good when you do—because that’s when relationships get deep and mean something. And I want that kind of relationship with you.”

As the hymn goes: “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because he lives.”

No one teaches their children to sing: “because I’m good, I can face tomorrow. Because I hold myself to a higher standard, all fear is gone. Because I know the future is whatever I make of it, and life is worth the living, because I finally listened to my mom.” Living out my faith for my children meant that we had to live daily in light of the cross in order for our relationships to work.

Our hope is found in the risen Christ, not in my children forming their own righteousness. I needed to trust that as a parent, and stop continually acting toward my teens that salvation was in their own hands.

Strays:

• Some fascinating and honestly pretty encouraging stats about Artificial Intelligence’s already shrinking appeal via Ted Gioia.
• Apparently the US Dept of Health is now recommending that all adults be screened for anxiety by our primary care physicians. Which sounds wise enough. Then again, given the nature of the feelings, I can see why one expert would argue that Screening for Anxiety Will Only Make Us More Anxious. Touché.
• Adam Gopnik’s recent long-read about the Bible for the New Yorker may be a tad cavalier in its historical reconstruction, but its tagline is for the ages, “History may be written by the victors, but the world’s most influential text comes from antiquity’s biggest losers.”
• Speaking of losers — and our aversion to them — Mark Galli plumbed the questionable values instilled in us by The Liturgical Calendar of Sports.
• The Mockingcast returns! We’re recording our first episode following the summer hiatus this coming Wednesday and hope to have it out by Friday.
• Believe it or not, we’ve had a few requests for large-scale prints of the cover of the Mercy Issue. Is this something we should pursue? A show of hands, please.