We the Baby Boomers ....at 60

Sixty, sixties
Mick Jagger is 63. Paul McCartney is 64. And now George W. Bush and Bill Clinton too have reached the magic treshold, both having turned 60 this summer. It has been noted by many that a notorious generation is gradually moving on to the autumn of its existence in our ‘valley of tears under the moon’, as my grandfather once called it.

Symbolically it is perhaps apt that we remind ourselves who we are at 60 as a generation which so much cherishes everything ‘sixties’ - indeed - as a source of magic remembrance and of an undiminished belief in a better future.

Education and prosperity
One commentary pointed out that never in recorded history one single generation has been so well educated and so prosperous as the generation that came out of the rubbles of WW II (*). And it serves as yet another – symbolic – irony that it has been our generation too which invested so much energy first of all to challenge the world order that was being (re)built to produce this education and wealth.

We vigorously wanted to change our world; our dream was to eradicate every single authority and all the bossiness that history had erected to secure the orderly conduct of human affairs and to safeguard what we considered highly rigid values and codes of conduct dominating the style and tone of the society in which we were born. We came a long way to change all this indeed, but we also set out to enjoy with equal vigour the seemingly boundless fruits of our heritage (and what we progressively made of it) in an unprecedented way.


1963: Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy

The icons of our age
Many symbols accompany the shared memory of our generation and many icons can be found along the road of our lives’ history: noisy youngsters on motorbikes, the Cuban Revolution, Dallas 22 November 1963 and its aftermath, The Beatles, Paris 1968, Anti-Vietnam protests, HAIR and flower power, new democracy and social experimentation. To a large extent all of us are the children of John F. Kennedy, and Winston Churchill is our grandfather.

In the end, most of us focused on the need of a good career and the dreams of our youth regressed or they transformed into other pursuits such as the development of new management concepts, progressive government policies, new fashion and architecture, new institutions. Subsequent generations have already made their own mark or are finding their way to do so.

Our generation in the balance
We all now wish to be happy grandparents, and some have already reached this blessed situation. The great – last – challenge we face is to achieve that other emerging guiness record: a healthy and vital old age.



I am well aware that much of the achievement of our generation is the result, directly or indirectly, of the silver spoon with which we were born. Our wealth, our education and our health – all of this would have been unthinkable without the efforts – and sacrifices - of our own parents and their generation. And yes, some sacrifices were made in our generation too, most notably by those who were sent out to Vietnam.

But otherwise, our generation is a generation of great enjoyment, of unprecedented leasure and entertainment. One could say: well, yes – but they are a great value of life, and happiness is a fundamental human pursuit.

Not their utopia
Still, we developed our life style of enjoyment – and massive consumption – at a cost. Let’s not forget. In our Western world we deliberately created a paradise of entertainment beyond imagination, exploiting every capacity of our environment that we could extract.

And however prosperous our world may appear, it does not resemble any of the utopia's conceived in human history. In the eyes of many, particularly in the non Western world, we have created not a paradise but a horror story of mass depletion. We are essentially leaving it to the next generation to solve the great dilemma that has already become apparent. Bush at 60 may scoff at Climate Change, but if he is still alive at 80 and then has difficulty to breathe fresh air, he should not complain.

Bot otherwise, nearing 60, I do not complain. Whatever downsides I too can see, I will always tell my story of the sixties and beyond as a tale of adventure, inspiration and progress. And may it so be.

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(*) And perhaps never in history so much wealth followed a period of so much devastation.

On the Scale of Ignorance

Public opinion about evolution graphic

Science vs. God - again?
I have already touched upon this subject a number of times (see below: God and the Divinity of Life). I do think it is a pertinent issue. So forgive me.

The above scale (published in Science Magazine) illustrates a highly salient insight. I would bluntly describe it as a ranking of countries according to their prevailing ignorance or – less bluntly – as an indication of the average quality of their common sense.

When reporting on the underlying research, a Dutch newspaper – just a few days ago – stated that in the past twenty years, the percentage of Americans who have serious doubts about evolution has increased threefold. This of itself is noteworthy of course, but the above scale puts the issue in a broader perspective.

And let us not overemphasize the difference between Europe (as a whole) and the US (as a whole). For instance, if you could pick out New England and compare it with, let’s say, France, you probably won’t find much difference.

We the educated people..
Still, educated Americans can seriously frown when looking at their score next to Turkey, very much at the bottom of this scale: it says, to frame it correctly, that in percentage terms Americans are at the rock bottom heap where it concerns the acceptance of evolution as the fundamental foundation or mechanism of (the diversity of) life as we know it.

The research furthermore indicated that fewer than half of the American adults can provide a minimal definition of DNA, which in the Western world is generally considered basic high school stuff.

In Europe, on average, 10% opposes evolution, and I must say that I don’t look at the Dutch score (which is higher, hence worse: approx. 12 %) with much pride.

It has all to do with religion, the researchers say. For instance, Americans tend to take the Bible’s Genesis much more literally than Europeans. Moreover, they add, the subject of evolution is a much more politicized theme in the US than in Europe. Court cases, such as in Kansas, about the acceptability of teaching creationism versus evolution at school, would be totally unthinkable on our side of the Atlantic. Above all, such processes are highly self defeating and they lead to false illusions (about who wins or looses) only.

Of course, we cannot say that ‘Americans are Ignorant’ simply because of this ranking. I hold the American society in very high esteem, in particular because of the advancement it has made on the basis of science. Still, we are talking of a troubling aspect that deserves our attention.

Fanaticism and selfrighteousness
There is a wider issue, to which much of this must be tied in our time. Let’s take another example where religious conviction and (scientific) common sense seem to collide. In the US there is a President who, without much due process, personally blocks any further progress in a specific type of research (stem cell research). His arguments, I must say, have rather more to to with personal zealotry than with sound and responsible thinking. I am not saying that stem cell research is acceptable at any cost, but in Europe, most of us would handle this question in quite a different, more studious way.

I furthermore do not believe that it is a coincidence, in our time, that in many places in our world - not limiting myself to the Western world - new fanaticism in the religious aspect of humanity has gained considerable momentum.

It is a strange, but hardly innocent irony that so much new dogmatism and disbelief emerges as to almost remind ourselves of the darkest ages of human history when only few but brave people dared to be inquisitive and not accept any truth simply because of somebody’s intimidation. Apparently to many, there is something very frightful in modern times (and sure, 'progress' as we know it is not filled with goodness only).

And I would observe that most of those who are inspired by their disbelief and dogmatism today are very prone to act with similar intimidation. President Bush, in his worst moments, is a true copy of his greatest foe, the current President of Iran.

We see the same phenomena in different parts of our world; in Iran people are being told that the WW II Holocaust is just a theory and not a fact. In the US self styled Evangelists aggressively block regular science education. How close is the Iranian President to the Right Wing Christian Evangelists in the US? Very close, if you ask me.

Love and Science
I am not a proponent of the thesis that there must be a battle between God and Science. If sexual replication has emerged as the key process of evolution – and we know that this has happened in a very early stage of life’s advancement – then we are actually referring to the process that humanity – across religions, across cultures – has come to call ‘love’.



Love is the key to life as we know it. And for many Christians, God is Love. Religion and science are two sides of the same coin. They are an expression of the Ascent of Man in all its richness. I would hate to see Religion go, simply because it cannot compete with our common sense of Nature. But I also hate to see Religion continue to be a source of fierce adversity between people - Christians and Arabs -who essentially share much of the spiritual and scientific heritage that we are talking about.

There are Religious leaders who at this moment carry a grave responsibility to allow the freedom of common sense and science to do its work, whilst a the same time to guide their following towards the goodness of their faith. They are not opposite – or should not be, regardless the Religious sentiments one may have.

What history may come

I would not be surprised if a few thousand years further down the road, bits and peaces of the greatest fiction of our age will turn up in official history. Many seemingly credible records of our time are likely to survive as accepted facts many eons hence. Think of all the wonderful movies we will leave behind, think of the total mixup of these movies with tons of documentaries and filmed reconstructions? Who will be able to tell the difference between fact and fiction for every one of these accounts of the 20th and 21st centuries?

I don’t believe we will actually be able to really influence this. Even in our time we live with legends of the past which we readily wish to take for real. We might be capable of scratching the walls of old tombs and caves to correct – or confirm – these legends to some degree, but we don’t really have an interest in proving the legends right or wrong. We rather continue to retain their credibility and ‘truth’ – for our own sake. Take the Bible. Take the Holy Grail and the Da Vinci Code.

And even as our recent history moves on to the realms of a more distant past, we can already feel the process of history molding it to fit the needs of future generations for clear and convincing history. History itself is almost by definition a process in which both fact and legend find their proper place.

So let’s have a look at the great legends, the great stories of fiction of our own age.



There was Superman. He was a bird, no - he was a Boeing 747. At any rate he could fly. Clark Kent nearly replaced the Messiah Jesus, that is until Mel Gibson set it all right with the Passion of the Christ, just before St. John Paul II died. Most likely people will find a reddish star somewhere on the fringes of the Milky Way with remnants of an ancient planet resembling Krypton long before they will find the first planet with Earthlike life.

There wasn’t a Third World War. After Hitler came Darth Vader in five successive stages of a Galactic War. Luke Skywalker was the Winston Churchill of our age.



And what about little bits of twisted ancient history: wasn’t it Russell Crowe who killed the Roman Emperor Commodus?

Those who have seen the Libertine with the Earl of Rochester playing Johnny Depp, will remember that in 1675, golly, the promiscuous King Charles II said “what the fuck!”

Most clearly the celebrities of our time replaced the ancient knights and nobility. Marilyn Monroe, Brad Pitt as Joe Black, Scarlett Johansson who in real life was painted by Vermeer. Or..how was it exactly?

We cannot let history pass just as we let it pass. It may perhaps be wise to include clear records of fact and fiction in our legacy for posterity. But will even we agree on the right label? What do we consider legend or truth ourselves?

I for my part have never believed that mankind really reached the moon. Why, it was Tom Hanks! And wasn’t he just an actor?