A generation too long ago

A 30-year-old colleague of mine just complained to me about how “ruled” his generation is by today’s society.

“If you party on the beach now, you get hassled because people think you’re dangerous.”

 I was stunned: that’s being repressed?

 My colleague, like too many of his age I’m afraid, has little idea of what society was like before his. Not that he needs to know – he is, after all, living by today’s realities – but knowing how his realities came to be would give him a greater appreciation of what he has.

 “As little as 35 years ago guys could still get beat up for having long hair on the beach,” I said.

The rules back then were rules: don’t step or say anything out of line. Don’t, if you’re a woman, ask (let alone demand) to be treated the same as men in the business world. If you’re a visible minority (and back then in Toronto, that generally meant being Italian), stay within your social class and lay some bricks, sell vegetables or run a pizzeria or pasta joint. If you’re black or oriental, stay well within your community. Be brave (some would say stupid) enough to let others know you’re gay or lesbian, and put yourself at serious risk of physical harm. Divorce your spouse and be labelled a failure, even within your own family.

 Born when I was in 1959, I was just a few behind those who fought the rules. In my pre- and early teen years I watched the Rolling Stones, Vietnam War protestors, Gloria Steinem. Pierre Trudeau, Jan Wenner and Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Lear – heck, even Sesame Street – all of whom had the same message: “Take another look, a different look, at the world.”

 They challenged, were vilified, shunned, and some were beaten and even jailed. But they kept going because they had a common unifying goal: the rules. Rules I’m certain their parents didn’t like either but (barely) put up with.

 It’s that “barely”, I think, that made the changes possible. Those who were then in charge of enforcing society’s rules didn’t fully believe in them and had been victimized by them for too long, and when the next generation came along and asked “why”, they answered “why not” (Google that one, Gen-Yers) and let change happen.

 Change happened in some places slower than it did in others, especially here in Toronto and Ontario. (Notorious fact: it was illegal to have an alcoholic drink outside a building – including your own house – before 1979 if passersby could see you doing it. A neighbour of ours called the cops on another in 1977 because he was having a cold beer on his porch while taking a break from cutting the lawn on a scorching hot day. They actually came, though, to their credit, just asked him to take it inside.)

 Don’t take this as a “the-young-don’t-appreciate-what-we-went-through-and they-should-be-eternally-grateful-to-us-for-it” lament. I wasn’t one of those who changed things, but I did enjoy the new freedoms society had to offer, with at least a nod to my predecessors.

 Take this for what I guess it is: a stark reminder that I am middle-aged, and the time of my youth is a long time ago for many of my colleague’s generation.