Mr. Pea sounds pretty pleased that the cookie jar is empty:
After reading some of the garbage here, it finally dawned on me… you
are mad because you can not and will not have what mommy and daddy had!
Never mind that it all had nothing to do with liberty and freedom! Never
mind it had nothing to do with virtue and righteousness! You’re pissed
off because that same cookie jar that you put your hand in… is empty!You
would be perfectly happy to transplant what mommy and daddy had into
your generation… just as long as the cookie jar was just as full for
you as it was for them.But that will never happen. Because all
this time you are lamenting the empty cookie jar… you thump your
chests in self-righteousness and claim virtue above and beyond mommy and
daddy.
Well, yes, to a certain extent. We would very much like for Mommy and Daddy to not burn down the house with us and everyone else in it. We’d very much like to have some seed corn to plant, but we don’t, because Greedy Mommy and Drunk Old Daddy ate it.
And we most certainly do claim virtue beyond the Boomers. Not only are we aware that we’re starting with nothing and can’t count on any help from them, but we’re working hard to make sure that unlike them, we leave something for our children behind. Of course, saying that a generation is more virtuous than the Boomers is the faintest of faint praise; every single generation in recorded history has been more virtuous.
But it isn’t true to say we’d be perfectly happy to be like mommy and daddy. In fact, that is Generation X’s one true satisfaction. Say what you will about we cynical, narrow-eyed Xers, but you can’t say we’re anything like you. We don’t want to change the world, we’re just hoping to survive and perhaps build some sort of rude shelter from the rubble.