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.