Every now and then, more often that I wish it occurred, I need to deal with boomers. Of course using this pejorative term is an explicit call for conflict in itself, as whether they preemptively know it or not, the concerned party will often get triggered by it.

Not the best way to start a constructive discussion about important topics such as sexual harassment, racism or colonialism you may say. True, but at the same time it’s become a perfect symbol of the problems we currently face with that typically older generation that wants to hang onto its outdated sets of values as if we were threatening to pull out their souls from their bodies.

Hegemonic distress

I cannot claim I fully understand the perspective of someone older, and probably wiser than me. But within this perspective lies a good deal of emotional distress. The distress of someone realizing their engrained version of “how things where”, “how things are” and “how things should be” is being challenged, and not willing to take on the intellectual challenge of rethinking their own version of reality. It takes a toll on you to revisit some of your core values that often were exemplified by specific acts in which you took part.

In addition, while it may be relatively conceivable to change your mind about what you are thinking today about a given topic, it is much harder to face the past in an objective way, as such objectivity is inherently tied to a given context. That context is the core of the matter. “What was culturally the norm then is not anymore”. This is their core weapon, and they will wave it in the air like some kind of protective shield. “You will not cancel us”, they exhale ferociously, limping back and forth in a defensive motion. In academia, they warn against “presentism”.

And how challenging it is to question some norms filled with emotional nostalgia. Nostalgia of a time when you were strong, energetic and full of ambitions about the future. Thus challenging the norms of that time is felt as an indirect threat to the validity of your own history and past. “It was a better time, a time of emancipation and progress” they laud together in harmony. As if every westerner from then was a Che Guevera in their own right. Liberators, romantic heroes, very much a Hollywood narrative with edges becoming increasingly rounded as years go by.

Moral relativism

It is thus a simple step forward to fall into the dark alleys of the cultural defense of western identity and hegemony that makes the extreme right successful today. Clearly, they have more tricks up their sleeves and the boomers are just one part of their audience, but playing on the reminisce of their past cultural glory and achievements is a direct appeal to emotions, praising that nostalgic past. At the same time, they can point at new norms and paradigms as direct threats to “what used to be good”. The search for scapegoats is on, they need to find a culprit to excuse their decreasing might and glory.

And what better a scapegoat than those who are only now emancipating themselves? Women, blacks, arabs, they all threaten the white man’s lion share of the loot. Thus bringing us to the core of the problem, where we scramble for some accountability for past excesses. Their questioning of the abuses of western cultural hegemony are framed as a threat leading to a cultural genocide.

Colonialism is one of the best examples of such a situation. Aside from the most flagrant excesses of such systems on local populations, which boomers most often recognize as abusive, lies a net of more complex latent issues such as the gaze of west-europeans on immigrants coming from countries that are past colonies. “Their culture is a threat to us all and our women”, “If we let them get what they want, we will soon loose all of our freedoms”. The examples are many, and the “us vs. them” narrative so dear to the extreme right is increasingly popularized. Perhaps the lessons from Edward Said deserve more spotlight.

Perspective of the discriminated

I believe the core of the issue has to do with power dynamics. The most vocal defendants of these past ideals are no other than those who were overrepresented on top of the chain: white men. Because of their unfair and unobstructed position in history, every new bit of emancipation of oppressed communities that takes the form of a challenge of past norms and practices is criticized as a potential distortion of “what actually happened”. They will often claim that “back then we didn’t think like that, you cannot condemn what happened with a present lens”, but they say so while keeping the white man’s gaze in mind.

As explained by Steven F. Lawson in a guest column:

with respect to slavery and race, historians, influenced by the present, have uncovered new data by raising new questions about racial issues. They have discovered, for instance, points of view and behavior among the enslaved that contradict older histories told primarily from the perspective of slaveholders

Another concrete example could be Roman Polanski, his abuse on minors who only dared to come out and speak out about what they went through after facing that trauma and exposing themselves in public to this white male front, which quickly stood together as a united front under the name of cultural glory.

Even if I’m not able to change their minds, I hope that these lessons will at least resonate with me as I become my own version of a boomer. I hope this wokeness will provide the seeds of a more flexible set of opinions, and that changing one’s mind does not bring emotional distress that I cannot deal with but also wisdom that elevates one’s intellect to new highs.