Emergency Cultural Lessons Still Rejected by the ’60s Elite – The American Spectator

Lessons are either considered and then taken or ignored and dismissed. The elite of the ’60s generation has, above all, been given every opportunity over these roughly 60 years (counting from the age of reason) to right itself — to become real. Responsible actions have singularly and increasingly not occurred in our generation’s so-called political leadership. Our establishment leaders have become a parody of our younger anti-establishment selves: preachy, uninformed, vain, fundamentally disinterested, and really staying too late at the party. We ’60s “kids” are trapped in our dream of ourselves and can’t seem to get out. We believe our lying eyes.

And why is this? Why are we still the Most Important People? Here, we can only speculate, because the answers involve our country’s history — about which nobody agrees and few really know anything. Looking at our own personal histories must be the start of our understanding the “now.”

My own journey of 70-plus years has been in many ways atypical, I suppose. I am a devout, “returned” Catholic and a conservative. I was educated and raised in what might now be called “privilege.” My father, William S. White — a poor boy made good from Texas — became a famous and respected political, syndicated journalist and author, winner of the Pulitzer Price and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. My D.C. experience was of a happy childhood in the city; a miserable, Vietnam-fraught protesting adolescence; an ambiguous adult return to Gotham circa Watergate; and, ultimately, a happy, real, middle-aged Catholic wedding — again back in the now-behemoth sweltering D.C. My father is the deepest influence on my life, with a close second being my mother and, later, my indispensable husband. I am fortunate to have these benign and stirring models. 

The quality of education was — certainly by our high school years — already being ideologically co-opted from What Has Always Mattered to What I Say Matters. It was not until I returned to get my Southern Ivy League degree by credit transfer — years later as a young mother supporting my family — that I then saw clearly that It’s the Singer not the Song, as far as teaching goes. I met teachers who only cared that I learn, whereas before I was used to the celebrity teacher who deigns to take a break from his important research and publishing career to deliver oracle to a student public who better be adoring. So, I finally had vocational, involved, and serious teachers in my last literature courses, for credit transfer to Snoot University to finally get my suspended B.A. And I took those final courses where? At a small, obscure land-grant state college, overwhelmingly black. The not-uncommon arrogance, vanity, sloppiness, and dismissiveness of my previous Ivy League profs in history and English were nowhere to be seen. (READ MORE: McConnell, It’s Time to Resign)

There must be still more other elements at work in our present failures that are common to the elite of the ’60s generation. Let’s peek back over the past and those other generations, our forebears who walked the walk (and, no, we haven’t, didn’t, and don’t). Let’s see: the fight for national independence, the Civil War, World Wars I and II — any takers? No, not really. Our parents gave us the ’50s like a special childhood package: peace, prosperity, their attention. Most of these parents, stoically, never gave us more than a glimpse of the horrors of the Great Depression, the savagery and loss of their war experiences. The price of freedom paid for by at least seven American generations, all to redeem the cost of our protection and prosperity, was largely passed over in thought and deed by the ’60s generation. We are being justly punished now for our thankless indifference and ignorance of our heritage.

Always in front of us, we have the scourging and hoped-for death of one typical of our old-time ’60s nemeses: Donald Trump. Now, there’s a guy we can really hate — a businessman, no less, and a capitalist (whatever that means). We can intuit that the younger Donald didn’t do much to further our anti–Vietnam War sprees in D.C. and afield, that he didn’t really go for Woodstock, and that he wasn’t a big druggy guy and still doesn’t drink, and whyever not? Because he was, has been, and is working? And all this Trumpian egregiousness that millions of the stupid American people afield ignore! How can they tolerate him?

Because they either never bought into, or quickly grew out of, the ’60s dream? Are they the millions who never got to participate in our enduring fantasy to begin with — because, why? Were those millions of dummies otherwise engaged in fighting wars or simple survival? Were they just working to eat? Because, to the ’60s cool guys, the American people were too dull and boring to be bothered with, let alone reported on — and, certainly, never to be featured — or pummeled with — as valued MSM heroes and heroines? Yes, to all that, and more. 

The ’60s elite generation need to, and need to very very soon, disbelieve our lying eyes. We still cannot admit what a freaking free ride we have had thus far. We all have a virtual freezer full of pricey ice cream and are grinning at the cameras and yakking into the microphones with our virtual booty. Meanwhile, Congress, its friends, and its extended bureaucratic family, overseen by the exhausting ’60s senility crew, investigates ad nauseum, hints at negotiating another one-sided impeachment, nods at a massively terrifying domestic intelligence presence, effectively ignores the serious and urgent needs of the country, and evades a widely, publicly disputed protection racket op for a ’60s peer, Joe Biden —who is really showing wear, tear, and corruption. For almost 50 years, what did this man Biden really do? Maybe we privileged ’60s kids dislike Trump because he did a lot of what really matters, and quickly. He saw that his country needed him, and he served. Donald Trump didn’t get Biden’s 50 years to “earn” the protection of the major media and the Swamp; he never had a chance.

The youthful ’60s elite rule-breakers just changed the rules, that’s all: We did it our way and still, if more feebly, are. Even though everyone should be able to do what everyone wants, we still say: Don’t ever be the guy caught wearing a suit at Woodstock!