The generation to which my parents belong has been referred to as the Great Generation. These were the people who endured the Great Depression and World War II, and then watched the nation they had defended metamorphize into something they now barely recognize. Many of them were second generation immigrants, raised by refugees from the Old World who flooded the land for work and hope of a more comfortable life for their children. This ethic became the mission of this remarkable group, many whom have passed away and many who are now in the most advanced stages of old age. We, their offspring, were given educational opportunities, consumer goods, and an extended adolescence in which we continue to wallow. There are vestiges of their convictions in our hearts, but our day to day lives have been equally molded by the self-absorption which was borne of our bequeathed leisure and  middle-class privilege.

I have pondered the difference between this passing generation and our own, and in spite of the litany of explanations which can be trotted out, I think I have discovered the one quality which the Great Generation had in abundance but somehow does not live on in profusion in their children. It is humility. Webster defines the word as a noun which means “the quality or state of being humble.” That word derives from the Latin humus, meaning “earth” and is defined as “not proud or haughty, not arrogant or assertive.” Of the earth, as it were, connected to the source of our incarnation. One cannot be truly connected to his humble origins and at the same time possess a disproportional sense of his own significance in the big picture. In short, the Great Generation placed others above themselves while their children seem to insist on rushing to the mirror to worship their own inflated sense of stature. We refuse to age gracefully, we rush to bumper-sticker-slogan judgments and we delight in singling our individual selves out as more worthy than the rest.

What brought this to mind was a piece that I heard on NPR about Bobby Doerr, the oldest living member of the elite Baseball Hall of Fame. Doerr played for the Boston Red Sox from 1938 until 1951, a career span which encompassed the birthdays of the majority of Baby Boomers. He did not compile headline-making statistics, he was not a power hitter who regularly rounded the bases after a towering home run. He was a contact hitter with a respectable lifetime batting average of .288 (that’s one of the things I love about baseball, you can fail in your attempt to hit a pitched ball more than two-thirds of the time and still be considered hugely successful). His real claim to fame was his fielding percentage, a remarkable .980, which means he rarely made an error. His value to his team was incalculable, a fact to which his teammates attested, including Ted Williams, one of the greatest and most renowned players in the history of the game. It took until 1986 for Doerr to reach the Hall, when the veterans committee voted his admission. What is even more enduring about Bobby Doerr, who quietly went about his business with methodical devotion and self-effacing consistency, was what he said in an essay after he was elevated into the ranks of his sport’s elite. Here are some excerpts from that essay:

I’ve found that when I make a good play and take my pitcher off the hook, it’s just natural for me to feel better than if I made a flashy play that doesn’t do anything except make me look good for the grandstands. It works the same way off the ball field, too. Doing a good turn for a neighbor, a friend, or even a stranger gives me much more satisfaction than doing something that helps only myself. It’s as if all people were my teammates in this world and things that make me closer to them are good, and things that make me draw away from them are bad….. Maybe that’s the most important thing of all. Doing good in order to deserve good. A lot of wonderful things have happened to me in my lifetime. I’ve had a long, rewarding career in organized baseball. The fans have been swell to me, and I’ve always liked my teammates. But what really matters is that I’ve got just about the best folks that anyone could ask for. Doing what I can to make things more pleasant for my father and mother, and for my wife and our son has been one of the things I have enjoyed most because it seems to be a way for me to pay back something of what I owe them for all the encouragement and pleasure they’ve given me.

Can you even imagine hearing that kind of talk from one of today’s sports prima donnas? I doubt it. We are in the age when in-your-face displays of self-importance are the norm. Baseball sluggers routinely stand at home to watch their drives leave the field and then round the bases slowly, as if to emphasize their dominance over the pitcher who delivered the ball. Basketball players furiously slam the ball through the hoop to deflate their hapless defenders and then glare into the TV cameras as they turn to head back down the court. Football players thump their chests in rooster-like displays of self-congratulations after simply making a single tackle, a feat which is in their job description, a job for which they are already grossly over-rewarded financially.  Lip service is given to “the team” but the behavior is unmistakable egomania. Sportsmanship, with all of its implied sense of proportion, is dead, dead, dead.

I use sports as a glaring example of our contemporary lack of humility, but the syndrome can be found in every arena of our culture. How else can you explain Bernie Madoff or George “Bring ‘em on” Bush or the enduring popularity of bling-bling weighted gansta rappers? I’m not trying to make a religious point, but there seems to be a common thread running through all of the philosophical/spiritual paths which mankind has enunciated during his short tenure on the planet. That is that the farther we stray from the connection to our unfathomable source of being, the more we become mired in our own narcissistic self-destruction. The more we value “I” over “we”, the more we separate ourselves from true fulfillment. We can take pride in our meager accomplishments, but only by recognizing our limitations can we construct a society which honors intrinsic truth above self congratulation. In such a society, charity, co-operation and mutual regard triumph over self interest. In such a society peace replaces war, justice triumphs over inequity, and contentment is the norm rather than the anomaly.

Thanks, Great Generation. You had your flaws and made your mistakes, but you grasped a piece of the truth which currently seems to elude us. You set one hell of an example. Now if we could only find the wisdom to follow it.

I noticed something the other day that gave me cause to reflect. I was led to a Facebook profile from an e-mail, and I noticed that nearly all of the “friends” of the person whom I was visiting were people exactly like her. She is a very attractive woman, and most of the men and women who were listed at her site were also very attractive. She is also very involved in New Age pursuits, including Eastern philosophy, mantra-like exotic music, and Native American anything at all. She eats organic food and avoids corn syrup. Likewise, her group of listed friends was largely the same. I began to ponder the question that I’m sure most of us have considered at one time or another. Why do we and why should we pursue relationships with people just like us?

There is at least one ready answer. We do so because we like to share our common interests with people who understand them, and as a result, will understand us. Having made such connections, we will continue to grow from the knowledge and experience we then gain from the bond. That sounds good, at least on the surface. But if you take a deeper look there, you will see some inconsistencies. If we indeed desire growth, why would we limit ourselves to people who share our perspective? I prefer to consider this: maybe we seek out people who are just like us so that we can feel comfortable, supported, vindicated, and exclusive. Who wants friends who challenge when we can just get rubber-stamped by hand-picked cliques straight from our own mirrors? So much easier, so little angst.

Of course, such a suspicious and cynical observation could only come from an iconoclast who seeks to flagellate himself and anyone in his path. Guilty as charged, but this is only due to the fact that I firmly believe that we are all full of shit. Did you ever see an animal deep in self-absorption, pondering a dilemma about the next move? Me neither. But I’ve seen plenty of people drowning in a sea of self-reflection, weighing how their course of action may be perceived by the clown in the next cubicle. We want to hang with people just like us so we can rest assured that either we are “right”, or at least we’re not the only idiot on the block.

I was taught as a child in school that God made humanity in his own image and likeness. I don’t think so. Maybe if you’re talking about a majestic soaring bird of prey, or a mother canine nursing her pups, or any poised, secure life form comfortably assuming its place in the grander scheme. But please don’t ask me to worship at the feet of a God who created the guy in the purple sweat pants, exposing his butt crack as he bends over to pick up a can of Sterno at Wal-Mart, and then tell me he’s the spit and image of our Heavenly Father. I must then take issue, and most of my Facebook friends would completely agree with me.

I’ve never seen such a pitiful display of smug ignorance passing for political discourse as is currently going on here in the good old USA. Now that corporate America has managed to use their puppets in Washington, puppets that they bought with campaign contributions and five-course dinners, to convince the public that spending the public’s own money on health care, education, national parks, environmental protection, and energy conservation is un-American while the imperial war-without-end machine plods onward under the Stars and Stripes, little is left to the imagination. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so depressing. Tea-baggers are enraged about any plan that the Obama administration proposes, even to the point of questioning the validity of his birth certificate, while U.S. corporations impose a twenty-first century system of serfdom on the masses, distracted as they vote for the new American Idol. It’s bad to guarantee health care to everyone, which would result in a leveling of the economic playing field and a healthier, more secure and productive populace, but the movement of American jobs to the Third World goes largely unnoticed and completely unchallenged. Unions, which for decades took power away from robber barons and returned it to working men and women, are now an evil which must be eradicated. We fear “national security threats” from distant tyrants with exotic names, while the Smiths and Joneses of Wall Street rob us blind and vacation in the Caribbean with the spoils of their conquest.

What makes this scenario doubly disheartening is the fact that information about what truly moves and shakes in D.C. is readily available from a plethora of creditable and verifiable sources, all just a mouse click away. It’s no secret to those who read and explore that the entrenched big money (largely the GOP and their corporate sponsors) began a decades-long campaign to dumb down America, steal the support of the middle class with an orchestrated syllabus of dis-information, and cynically seize on the so called “values issues” (which few if any of the long-winded orators themselves truly embrace) to propel themselves into power after Nixon fell. Suddenly Ronald Reagan, grade-B actor, union-buster, Darwinian capitalist without mercy, and closet racist became the patron saint of a frustrated Middle America. It wouldn’t hurt so much if these merchants of misinformation actually believed in their own rhetoric, but they simply spew their company line in an effort to get reasonable government regulation off their collective back. That way, they can live their splendid life, replete with piggish consumption, arrogant bullying, and “God-fearing” self righteousness. They’re entitled, just look in yer Bible dere, Edith. Little pink houses for you and me, sprawling 25,000 square-foot estates for the dear born and the greedy.

The Democrats, whose modern role as enforcers of fair play began with FDR are no innocents in this affair. Several of the Dem bigshots currently overseeing health care reform are among the largest receivers of contributions from the corporations which stand to gain from nothing changing at all. Who can trust any of these lying bastards. They have taken a page from their so-called “adversaries” in the GOP, posing for family photo-ops while they “reach across the aisle” to get theirs. Anyone who is angry at Ralph Nader for spoiling the 2000 election should remember that: a) the election was literally stolen at the polls in Florida, b) the crown was placed on W’s head by the packed Supreme Court, and c) Nader and any other visible third-party candidate are the only hope for rescuing us from our current one party rule. The Dems and GOP don’t compromise, they collaborate. They don’t represent differing political opinions, just different tailors. They may sit on opposite sides of the aisle in Congress, but their first-class seats on the planes to their tony vacation retreats are right next to one another.

Nothing about the economic and social dynamics has fundamentally changed since the Middle Ages, except that we serfs and peasants now live in an illusion of classlessness, courtesy of credit cards, cable TV, the NFL, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney and Fox News. The good life without soul, Christianity without compassion, freedom without purpose, and ignorance and pride dancing together at the ball. The Paupers’ Ball, that is. Most of us corn-fed yahoos couldn’t even get a job parking cars at the real dance. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never before have so few conned so many with so little. Ain’t that America. Incorporated.