Voices Online Edition
VOICES - Vol.
XX No. 1 - Eastertide 2005
What Shall We Call the New Generation
by Donald
DeMarco Donald DeMarco
is professor of philosophy at St. Jerome's College in Toronto,
Ontario, author of many books, and is co-author of Architects
of the Culture of Death (Ignatius Press). He is a past contributor
to Voices, and was a speaker at a WFF conference. One day past
Christmas in 1904 The many things
her parents taught her In time, with
Mark, she would decide Next, amiable
aunt to nephew and niece When evening
shadows did appear, And then, great
grandma came to be, Nine luminous
Landmarks along the way, **Women for Faith &
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The story is told of an airline captain who announced some "good
news" and some "bad news" to his passengers.
The good news was that the plane was traveling smoothly at 30,000
feet and steadily at a speed of 500 miles per hour. The bad
news was that the pilot had no idea where he was going. We are
only too familiar with innumerable ways in which technology can
provide us with progress without purpose.
G. K. Chesterton once defined progress as a "comparative
of which we have not settled the superlative". We could
also say that choice is an elective of which we have not
settled the correlative.
We have become an aimless society. We believe in progress but
not in direction, choice but not in what is chosen. We seem
to have little or no time to link our actions to the objective
correlatives that give them meaning. Hence, we believe in speed.
We believe, as is symbolized by the cult move classic, Fast
Times at Ridgemont High, in fast food, fast cars, fast sex,
and fast-acting drugs. Speed, unfortunately, kills, and in more
ways than one. Yet the thrills it provides along the way can
distract us from the fact that, despite its mercurial pace, it
is taking us nowhere.
World magazine has informed us that NARAL Pro-Choice America
(formerly National Abortion Rights Action League) is dubbing
the new wave of young people as "Generation Pro-Choice":
"If you support access to birth control, sex education,
and abortion, and you've never lived in a time when abortion
was illegal ... then congratulations, you are Generation Pro-Choice".
It is a most fascinating act of Orwellian doublethink to believe
that by closing our eyes to the precise nature of what we choose,
we thereby enlarge our vision -- myopia as the key to farsightedness.
Jill Stanek, whom World magazine named one of the 30 most
prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years, has another
way of describing today's youth. In a presentation to 1,100
teenagers who were preparing for the annual March for Life in
Washington, DC in 2004, she said that a more fitting title for
their age group is "Generation One-Third Dead", because
that fraction represents how many of them were killed by abortion.
(see www.wf-f.org/
04-1-ProLife.html)
We could think of other unflattering, yet pertinent appellations:
"Generation Eyes Half Shut", "Generation Apathy",
"Generation Moral Myopia", "Generation X Minus
X", "Generation Death", and "The Generation
that is Indifferent to Re-generation".
Mrs. Stanek's criticism, of course, is directed not at today's
young people, but at NARAL's ideological caricature of them.
Mere choice, severed from object, consequence, and purpose,
is mere willfulness, something that has never been deserving
of either admiration or praise. Her view of the new generation
is far more positive than NARAL's, which fails egregiously in
trying to conceal an insult under a trite euphemism. She is
buoyed by a Gallup poll's report that 72% of American teens believe
that abortion is morally wrong. This would suggest that the
new generation is far more pro-life than pro-choice-whatever-that-choice-may-be.
It is an interesting point that the term "whatever",
so central to teenage discourse these days, has become a term
of derision. "Whatever" has come to signify, "don't
bother me, it doesn't matter". Because of the belief, essential
to groups such as NARAL, that it is only the choice, not
what is chosen, that matters, the so-called "Generation
Pro-Choice" could more aptly be characterized as "Generation
Whatever". This is hardly a compliment, but it does reveal
the utter shallowness of NARAL's manner of labeling.
Pepsi Cola has dubbed young people as belonging to "Generation
Next" (presumably in contrast to "Generation X").
But, as Jill Stanek has cautioned, if Generation One-Third Dead
ever does become Generation Pro-Choice, there may not be a next
generation.
Below is a poem Professor DeMarco wrote for as a tribute to his
mother, Marion, in honor of her 100th birthday, on December 26,
2004.
Landmarks
Along the Way
Heaven opened its treasury door
And sent the Woods a present fine,
Baby Marion, number nine;
Inspired her growth as dutiful daughter,
And role as special sister, too,
Quietly causing much ado;
Happily to be his blushing bride,
Then loving wife and caring mother
Quickly followed, one after the other;
In times of strife, in times of peace,
The added parts she would acquire
Never made her fret or tire;
Gracious grandma filled those years -
The flowing life, the rich cascade
Her children's dozen children made -
Her crowning glory, last victory;
Life replenished multifold,
Rewards just as the Book foretold;
One hundred years, and we can say:
You have not aged, that we can see,
You have become our legacy.
