A Brief Weekend Reading List

Some Articles and Essays Worth Considering

Hank Kalet Sep 16 ∙ Preview

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Here is a brief overview of what I’ve been reading this week. I’ll try to continue posting these things on Saturdays. Feel free to send me recommendations, as well, and to comment on my brief notes. I’ll post a link to Substack Notes for discussion.

Justin E.H. Smith, “My Generation,” Harper’s Magazine

Justin E.H. Smith offers what begins as a lament for what I’ll call the Invisible Generation, or what the demographers and press call Generation X or Gen X, but ends as a critique of everybody’s favorite target, “cancel culture” —  or “the widespread philistinism and prissiness that prevails with regard to art” that he says prevails in our current moment.

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Much of the essay is personal reflection, which makes clear that he might not be a common representative of his generation — showing himself to be artier, more of an outlier than the vast majority of Xers who went to college, accumulated debt, and went to work, with many ending u living back at home. Smith is focused on the forces the Boomers unleashed, but doesn’t talk much about how their move from Hippie to Yuppie not only damaged our relationship to art and authenticity but also endorsed the shift in our economy from makers to takers.

In the end, his is a purely art/cultural analysis that leaves one major question unanswered: Why have we allowed ourselves to by into this false generational narrative in the first place?

I am a boomer, based on the demographics, but those of us born in the 1960s have only a nominal connection to the boomer generation. We grew up after the Sixties, but in its shadow, and came of age as AIDS took center stage and the economy choked our opportunities. At the same time, we were lucky to avoid the extreme college debt that has burden Xers and those who come later.

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