Re: Godot: An Introduction
Brendan McKennedy (suburbantourist@hotmail.com)
Sun, 22 Feb 1998 22:01:32 -0800 (PST)
I too, am one of
>the 1980 kids. People like us turn to Salinger because we are lost. We
>are drowning quietly in an ocean with no surface because we have no
>reference points.
I think that is one of the most brilliant descriptions of our generation
that I've ever heard.
We all burn to 'die nobly' or something, to *believe*
>in something. But it has all been done before, and consequently, we are
>unable to create anything - we revert back to the people of the past
and
>chant their words and become 'wannabes' because we have no values of
our
>own.
But Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassidy, and Burroughs went through the same
thing--Ginsberg in particular, who was told by his professors that all
the poetry that matters has already been written. Luckily for us,
William Carlos Williams asked him to prove that it wasn't true. I
realize that none of the Beat writers represented a generation
(Ginsberg, when asked about the "Beat Generation", replied with
something like, "There was no 'Beat Generation'. It was just a few
friends hanging around together."), but they did offer an example of
escape from their own seemingly inexorable cycle of ennui.
I don't think we haven't got values...I think the traditional values of
society failed, for some reason or another, to pass entirely onto us, so
we've created our own set of values--values that don't necessarily agree
with the established values of our predecessors, hence our dissident
reputation. This all sounds very punk rock and romantic, rebellious and
everything, but I believe that it happens to nearly every generation.
Women wearing short skirts and boys' hair? The Twenties are the End of
the World! Boys wearing flowers and jewelry and girls' hair? The
Sixties are the End of the World! I think that most of us will
assimilate to some degree; those who don't will be remembered
nostalgically by our children as the Rebellion That Failed...a la the
Progressives, the Beatniks, the Hippies.
This is what I call 'Generation Zero', which is the next step to
>Generation X. It doubts the media and everything else, it rejects
>conventional society. It is, as Antolini said 'The whole arrangment's
>designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were
looking
>for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they
>gave up looking'.
Mr. Godot, could this be a reference to your sister Endgame? In a post
nuclear war world, all environmental measurements--thermometer,
barometer, et c.--read zero. There was nothing out there, so all that
was left was to die. Or perhaps a reference to Edgar Rice's "Adding
Machine", where the main character was Zero...his job was replaced by a
machine, so with no reason not to, he kills his boss and is executed.
I can't say I'm exactly sure what you were getting at with this bit of
your post, regarding Generation Zero, but I think the nihilist way of
thinking is vastly overrated. When thinking about things too much
begins to show you that things aren't worth it, then perhaps it's time
to stop thinking so much. I agree with your very broad observations
about the fashion victims and the intellectuals, but I'm also scared of
generalizations that seem to sum up my entire generation. It seems to
me that Tim's reply to this post was a bit more on the money--a spectrum
of students, participating in life in different ways, with different
motivations.
I can't seem to formulate an appropriate response to your post...so if
anything I've just written reflects on me badly, feel free to disregard
it; likewise, if it reflects on me well--why thank you, I knew there was
a bit of brilliance in there somewhere.
Basically, your post was a cornucopia for thought and it'll require a
bit more digestion on my part before I can do you or myself any justice.
I did my best.
Brendan
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