Generational happiness

My Am Con students wrestled mightily with the reality of Americans' seemingly unending dis-satisfaction.  We noticed it in Quicksand and in Ragtime both set more or less in the early 20th century.  (Enich coined a fine term for it; if he reads this, perhaps he'll add it in the comments.) By the end of the fourth semester they were also working on coming to terms with gap between national ideals and aspirations and the realities of national life.  Angels in America gave some of them a handle on this problem.  Hannah's admonition that one must have an "idea" about America combined with Belize's declaration that he did not have to love America gave them a way to recognize that the gap is not always reducible to collective (or even individual) hypocrisy.  There is also something of a "work in progress" quality to the nation, its culture, and its people.

Perhaps these realizations come at a particular developmental stage, to each generation in its own time and in its own way.  Poet Carl Dennis hints at something like that in his poem, "Our Generation," which I take to be about the generation labeled the "boomers."  Here he manages to shine a gentle light both on the pursuit of individual happiness and on the few who notice the gap between the county in theory and the country in fact.  He does it gently and with quiet hope.

Our Generation

Whatever they'll say about our delinquencies,

They'll have to agree we managed to bridge the gap

Between those who arrived before us

And those who followed. We learned enough

At the schools available to fill the entry-level positions

At the extant sawmills our elders managed,

At banks, drug stores, freight yards, and hospitals,

Then worked our way up to positions of trust.

There we were, down on the shop floor

Or up in the manager's office, or outside the office

On scaffolds, washing the windows.

Did we work with joy? With no less joy

Than people felt in the generations before us.

And on weekends and weekday evenings

We did our best to pursue the happiness

Our founders encouraged us to pursue,

And with equal gusto. Whatever they say about us

They can't deny that we filled the concert halls,

Movie houses, malls, and late-night restaurants.

We took our bows on stage or waited on tables

Or manned the refreshment booths to earn a little extra

For the things we wanted, the very things

Pursued by the generations before us

And likely to be pursued by generations to come:

Children and lawns and cars and beach towels.

And now and then we stood back to admire

The colorful spectacle, the endless variety,

As others before us admired it, and then returned

To fill our picnic baskets, drive to the park,

And use the baseball diamonds just as their contrivers

Intended they should be used. And if we too

Crowded into the squares to cheer the officials

Who proclaimed our country as fine in fact

As it is in theory, as faithful a friend to the planet

As any country we cared to name,

A few of us confined to a side street,

Carried signs declaring a truth less fanciful.

A few unheeded, to be sure, but no more unheeded

Than a similar few in generations before us

Who hoped that the truth in generations to come,

Though just as homely, would find more followers.

Carl Dennis
The Kenyon Review
New Series, Volume XXVII Number 2
Spring 2005