Lileks has a long but entertaining (and, can you believe it?--dripping with snark) screed disguised as a bleat today, on childish pseudointellectuals who fancy themselves courageous for speaking truth to the Man. Errrr...actually to the Mouse.

Three hundred years from now they’ll be performing plays about the Red Scare ( it’s really an allegory about the Salem Witch Trials!) or showing “The Front” to adoring cineastes who secretly wish they’d been Communists in the 50s. It was so romantic. Oh, to live in an age where you could be blacklisted. you didn't go to jail, you were ever so tragic, and you had lovers and smoked angrily and wrote a novel about it that just showed everyone. But this play, as noted, has a new twist on the usual scenario: it’s about brave young idealists working for Walt Disney, who, as we know, was an FBI agent and rabid anti-Semite. Hence those famous cartoons “Pinocchio the Jew,” “Snow Aryan and the Seven Undermenschen,” and all those pro-Allied cartoons. Why did Donald make fun of Hitler? Because he wasn’t getting the job done fast enough, that’s why.

For a notorious Jew-hater, Walt did a remarkable job of keeping it out of his work; after all, the point of Dumbo isn’t the need to sterilize the defective elephant.

In any case, the play seems to get a little bit of history wrong. As the Cartoon Brew review notes, a brash idealistic newcomer who tried to unionize the cartoonists in the 50s would have been informed that they’d had a union since 1942. But that matters little to the playwright, because the premise is so delicious. It matters not a bit that millions of people enjoyed Mickey cartoons; what counts is pointing out that an actual mouse would have carried disease and left behind fecal matter. And here it is! Fecal matter! We found it! Ergo . . . uh, well, ergo something, and thank you, we are brave. Very.

He's not impressed with his generation, the boomers.

He's not impressed with his generation, the boomers.

Has he met their snotty, everybody owes me, ill behaved, self-centered kids? They're worse than the boomers, and I know boomers when I see them, I are one!

re: Boomers

Now, now. You are talking about the offspring of The Greatest Generation here. Then again, factor that in, and they become the "Break Even Generation", at best. (Assuming the Boomers don't cause any more damage to the country...)

I don't think the generational disrespect is deserved. My take is that the babyboomers are responsible for both completing the final run of the Cold War and a major crackdown on the Mafia and corrupt government. Both of which were great threats to the US's future. And the newest generations look pretty promising as well doing such things as actually driving the current startups that are building space infrastructure.

Boy, can that guy WRITE.

Actually, the dark side of the boomers, circa 60s and 70s is long overdue for some major ridicule. The seeds of a PC that makes the Tail Gunner Joe era look like a libertarian paradise were planted by the infantile radicalism of the New Left.

If you want to understand the Boomers, read Generations by Strauss and Howe. Ours is the generation responsible for this:

"During an Awakening, rising adults are driven by inner zeal to become philosophers, religious pundits, and hippies, alienating children [in this case, Generation X] (who see the adult world becoming more chaotic each day) and older generations alike. Civil order comes under attack from a new values regime."

We're also political pundits (duh). And that last statement would be more accurate if it read "competing new values regimes."

Idealists tick off everybody. Civics (WWII generation) are builders, and Adaptives (Silent Generation) thrive on stability, and hate to see us wrecking the place.

Idealist have great hopes in their social experiments, but social chaos is the overall result. Reactives (Gen X) are thus born - hyper individualists (opposite the hyper-conformist Adaptives) who tend toward social alienation and recklessness. Idealists are miffed that Adaptives didn't turn out as expected, and Adaptives resent the finger-pointing moralism of the Idealists.

The best Idealists are sages; the worst are totalitarians. The best Adaptives are street-smart and resourceful; the worst are gangsters.

Oops, mixed up Adaptives and Reactives in the last two paragraphs. They should read:

Idealist have great hopes in their social experiments, but social chaos is the overall result. Reactives (Gen X) are thus born - hyper individualists (opposite the hyper-conformist Adaptives) who tend toward social alienation and recklessness. Idealists are miffed that Reactives didn't turn out as expected, and Reactives resent the finger-pointing moralism of the Idealists.

The best Idealists are sages; the worst are totalitarians. The best Reactives are street-smart and resourceful; the worst are gangsters.

There.

Great screed. I will say that I didn't take it as a generational argument, other than his discussion of the Adolescent culture. IMO, this is ironic, because I do blame the Disney company for much of this phenomenon today. Watch any show for young adults on the Disney channel, and you'll find one common theme: The Parents are incompetent and the children are the only ones who can save the day. This creates children as role models, and we end up with Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan.

Of course, being a parent, I don't need to take my children to some play that portrays Walt Disney as some evil character. It's far easier to moderate what my children see and get them to participate in other activities for entertainment other than sitting on their butts watching either TV or a play. If I'd say anything was better pre-1950, it was that entertainment of most sorts required participation rather than just being a spectator. With the cheap availability of television and radio, that concept changed.

> The Parents are incompetent and the children are the only ones who can save the day.

Boomer stereotype parents of the kind portrayed ARE incompetent.

You'll also notice that the parental change (if any) towards competence is away from the stereotype.

Note that there's usually an older adult who actually is competent, an adult who isn't boomer stereotype.