Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Gen X: Dare to Do Urban Acupuncture

I recently read “X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking,” by Jeff Gordinier.

This is not a book for everyone, and obviously it will probably help if you are an Xer, as I am. We are a bit of a niche market in that according to Gordinier, the Baby Boomers and Generation Y "both swell past the 70 million mark, whereas Generation X is usually pegged at around 46 million." We are the forgotten step-child of the generations by marketers as well as historians. We're cynical, ironic and fringe. Slackers, low-key and the opposite of whatever self-aggrandizement may be. Gordinier created what he calls the GXAT (Generation X Aptitude Test) to determine if you belong to Generation X.

Question #1: Do you want to change the world?
A. Yes, and I'm proud to say we did it, man. We changed the world. Just look around you.
B. Yes, absolutely, and I promise I will get back to doing that just as soon as interest rates return to where they're supposed to be.
C. Omigod, omigod, changing the world and helping people is, like totally important to me! I worked in a soup kitchen once and it was so sad but the poor people there had so much dignity!
D. The way you phrase that question is so f***ing cheesy and absurd that I am not even sure I want to continue with this pointless exercise.

Question #1 is the only question on the GXAT. Guess which answer means you're the Xer?

Things coalesced for me reading this book. Snippets and scraps that were floating around in my head arranged themselves and formed a quilt. Something with a shape and purpose. A-ha! That’s me!

While reading this book I saw some old episodes of MadTV. They had a sketch called X News. It was like Gordinier wrote those scenes – same language, flavor and attitude. Not unlike The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. When interviewed, both Stewart and Stephen Colbert insist they are comedians, not subversive leaders daring to undermine the repressive social-political environment suffocating free thought. They do fake news. This is Generation X. No illusions of grandeur.

Gordinier discusses how Barak Obama is one of the first Generation Xers to break-out in the political arena. It is one of the reasons Obama seems so free of the old political discord of Republican vs. Democrat, feminist vs. traditionalist, white vs. black, etc. And so it is believable when he talks about change. His language, his perspective is different from the Boomers who have been running the country these past decades. Gordinier writes, “Scan his [Obama’s] first book, Dreams from My Father, and you’ll see that Obama’s way of thinking developed amid the backwash of skepticism that followed the grand march of the sixties and seventies. He’s allergic to anything that smacks of movementism.”

One of the things I liked most about this book is that Gordinier shares what Xers are doing around the planet...and it is amazing. Majora Carter organized Sustainable South Bronx in order to lobby and fight to “green the ghetto.” There is Fritz Haeg teaching others how to create edible gardens and opening his home to conversation and the sharing of ideas. Dave Eggers opened a non-profit writing center for students housed in a pirate supply store (and similar centers have opened around the country). Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr created “Architecture for Humanity” an organization that creates homes and buildings of beauty and function for those who may have lost theirs in a natural disaster, or where a building is needed. One of their projects is building an HIV/AIDS clinic in Mozambique. Their philosophy is that if you create something beautiful, people will take care and value it.

Sinclair calls it “urban acupuncture.” A small-batch solution that can be spread around like a virus (a la You Tube style), hopefully creating a ripple effect beyond the small act itself. Where the underlying belief is that there are a hundred million solutions, not one solution to the problems we face. This is one of the cores of the Xer mentality. No grandiose “greatest generation,” no worshipping of consumerism or emo ego-centrism and no rose-colored glasses…even when viewing our own reflection. Feeling that uniformity is toxic and that just doing a small thing…your thing is enough. Change comes from the fringe; we are in the margins, so who better than us to instigate such change? We have always been on the outside looking in.

It is not unlike what Kanu Hawaii is trying to do. When I think about it, it is very Generation X. Not surprising, since it is a bunch of Xers who created it. Embrace tradition without being sappy or idealistic about it, but look forward in a dynamic way. Not searching for THE answer (in fact not even believing there is only one answer), but utilizing community to discover the many answers. “Join” groups if you wish, but maintain your individual ideas, ideals and commitments.

The last chapter of the book is entitled “I Will Dare.” This is the way Generation X will keep everything from sucking…we dare. Dare to dream, dare to fail, dare to do.

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