Four generations

Nineteenth century Europe was full of discomfort for all but the aristocracy. It was congested. Life was stultified. The young men who were alienated enough and energetic enough, having heard about all the space and opportunity in America, came over.

As American fathers they wanted their children to rise, but, like all parents, they wanted their children to continue their cultural legacy. They didn’t realize how unlikely the latter would be. Nonetheless, they swallowed their resentment upon seeing the rise part materialize.

The last thing their children wanted was to be was Old World. The young men felt support for ambition and by 20 the abundant pathways for them in the American Century were evident. They did rise; and they never looked back.

Their idea was that their own kids, fully and purely American, would keep rising. But it was time for the underbelly of the American Dream, even the underbelly of Western Civilization, to get exposed, critiqued, and disdained. One aspect of that contained some irony: As patriarchy was disdained the girls of the third generation felt support for ambition and discerned new pathways for getting somewhere. But the boys disdained the idea of “rising further.” To where? They refused, withdrew, bailed out, or plodded along.

Well, the fourth generation, their children, were post-Old-World, post-New-World, post-ambition, even post-alienation. They had a vague underlying resentment in regard to all the energy that had gone into trying to get somewhere (spurious) while using up so many material and cultural resources for no good reason. They slogged and coped and settled and just didn’t care all so much. They had little interest in (and no sympathy at all) for all the prior straining. Maybe it was the end of history. Surely it was the end of something.