In cervisiam est veritas et spem?

I am fortunate enough to live only blocks from my two favorite watering-holes. The Royal Mile is an English pub so authentic that it brings tears to the eyes of visitors from the British Isles. And Hessen Haus is a German restaurant whose food, though often good, I'm told is sometimes not all that authentic, but whose German beer is the best.

Today, while savoring a liter stein, I got into a conversation with two gentlemen sitting next to me. One was roughly my age, and the other was much younger. The younger fellow made a comment I was first inclined to reject indignantly,  but which upon a moment's reflection I realized was right on target.

He said that Millenials, as a generation, are nothing but a younger version of us Baby Boomers.

And he's right. Both generations were born entitled. Both are immersed in wholly undeserved self-regard. Both have had their paths smoothed slick by their parents' hard work, and both enjoy the luxury of scoffing at the past while screwing up the present and the future,

Both were spoiled. Both were, as someone once said of the younger President Bush, "born on third base and think they hit a triple." Both are generations of whiners. And both have had the advantage of a safety net purchased by the sweat of their parents which has meant that they never had to really mature in their outlook on the world.

The mascot of either might well be Peter Pan, who refused to grow up.

I'm excited by this realization because it fills me with hope. Will the Millenials- "Generation Y," the "Echo Boom-" bring forth in what is already being described in homage to the second half of the Greatest Generation "the New Silent Generation?" Will greatness follow shallow self-indulgence? Will the offspring of the Millenials be the ones  to rebuild what first the Boomers and later the Millenials despised and ruined?

As someone disposed to be pessimistic about America's future, I pray that it be so. Maybe our civilization is not done for quite yet. 

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