But when Nixon was under fire, neither Woodward nor Bernstein had the gall to trash Nixon's entire generation. Paranoia and lies were not taken to be infirmities of age. No, the intensity and sweep of today's outrage suggest a kind of generational fear and self-loathing. One's middle years can be distasteful. Finitude is a drag.
Institutions lumber on, in all their corruption and inertia.
The fear, afflicting all us moderns shuffling through this mortal coil, leads to the search for culprits. The self-loathing is more specific, more surprising and interesting. Meanwhile, many of them thought it was their mission to save the world, for which extravagant hope some elders mocked them unmercifully while others waved encouragement. But they don't know how to usher their children through a sexed, drugged, grunged world. They believed in rebellion, but not the nihilistic sort of rebellion their kids seem to fancy.