What is the one thing our environmentalism, romance with urban rap music, and emphasis on study abroad hold in common? I think it is a disdain for suburban life. I can count on one hand the students I've met here favorably inclined towards these post-war dwelling spaces, yet more than half the students at Bowdoin call one of them "home." What gives?
The repudiation of suburban ideals is understandable. From my experience, those who describe Homo Suburbus as a bland vulgarian withdrawn from the community, a family-oriented consumer dedicated to the cult of affluence, and a middle-class white man without a strong need for diversity have not totally missed the mark. Yet, if you'll join me for a moment, I want to look at the origins of this repudiation of suburban life, sympathize with the criticism, but ultimately argue that we'd be better off trying to kindle the sparks of brilliance within suburban culture rather than vilifying this entire societal development.
Revolutionary cultural movements tend to see themselves as artistic heroes overcoming the philistinism of an uncultured villain. The Greeks under Pericles wished to see their nobility triumph over the belligerence of the Spartans. The French Jacobins wanted to impose their "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" on the artificiality of the corrupt aristocracy-cum-bourgeoisie. German romanticism trumpeted the dethroning of industrial barbarism. Recently, the baby boomers' student renaissance in 1960s America initiated a revolt against a greedy WASP establishment. In our time, with the baby boomers comprising the establishment, they lead a new struggle—a quest to commit students to more worldly, ecologically sound, and socially just goals that inherently repudiate bland suburban ideals. Without a doubt, this movement has been highly successful—students feel the need to leave the suburbs in order to respond to the call of the teachers they respect.
The consequence of this anti-suburban bend is that when students return home to their suburbs, they greet them with disgust, cynicism, and even repudiation. Indeed, the critics of the suburbs were and are largely right about the cultural deficiencies of the suburbs. But their repudiation has left a hidden consequence—educated and cultivated people leave the suburbs, at least during their creative prime from, say, 19 to 35. How can we create more cultural opportunities in the suburbs if the baby boomers continue to encourage this "reverse sprawl," denying these spaces of the critical mass of culture necessary to attract creativity. Obviously there are more vicious cycles in our world, but this one still merits further reflection.
Everyone knows that a great virtue of many suburbs in America is the education they provide. We should be grateful that the leaders and teachers of these communities plant seeds destined to bloom into the most respectable flowers. But we should remain astonished that these communities offer so little space for the seeds they plant to blossom within the confines of the suburb itself. What remains are talented dancers without a well-attended stage, drummers and violinists without a popular concert hall, thinkers without lively coffee houses, editors without a vibrant filmmaking scene, and journalists without a thoughtful magazine.
The suburbs have made great strides since their days as reactionary white-flight havens, especially in the realm of education and youth culture. Yet, the glaring hole is that there are so few spaces within the actual suburbs where cultural and intellectual toils can bear fruition. So the most creative minds and best community organizers immigrate to the city and perpetuate a caustic cycle of suburban philistinism.
Many people complain about a lack of vigor and intellectual engagement in our nation's top colleges. The twin cults of careerism and postmodernism that universities encourage do contribute to this decline, but the real problem lies outside the university. Suburbs are not adequately responding to their students' need to see that learning will open up the gates to participation in a cultural community. The lack of a tenable cultural infrastructure outside the universities, especially in suburbs, where over half of Americans dwell, should be added, alongside political correctness and Palinism, to a shortlist of possible culprits for our current intellectual decline. Because they see no magazine cultures they wish to join or literary associations they work to be part of, suburbanites getting a liberal education divert energy towards what is valued in the suburbs: a trophy wife or husband, a lucrative career, and a car. There exists little incentive to keep working.
Rebuilding the entire infrastructure of suburban life is a difficult task—that's why this is the task of old people. Yes, rather than sit back and vote against educational referenda, the baby boomers should build our suburban culture.
When we get back home this summer, we should tell these baby boomers flat out: if you do not fill the void of suburban culture and continue to act as if these suburbs should be evacuated then no social security for you. While we work during our 20s, the same people who repudiated the suburban ideals and cultural institutions have the difficult task of creating these suburban cultural outposts. Without codifying or federalizing it, let this be the social contract for the 21st century: we will provide you with social security if you build us cultural outposts.
The boomers can be credited with great achievements—promoting civil rights, challenging racism, and liberating us from the tyranny of sexual Puritanism. By far, their greatest achievement was shifting the locus of global intellectual life to American universities after Europe and Russia descended into barbarism. Yet, their criticism of the suburbs was incredibly destructive and still disseminates a spirit of reactionary cynicism that aims to intensify our repudiation of the suburbs instead of ennobling these postwar growths.
Their original sin was annihilating suburban ideals and vilifying suburban cultural institutions without begetting a compelling alternative to fill the void. We are awakening to the enormous communal toll of this irresponsibility. It is time for them to redeem themselves. Perhaps the energy of these boomers can be channeled towards a creative project aimed at creating spaces where our cultural, civic, and intellectual toils can bear fruition in what are now socially vacuous residential areas. If they succeed and add the badge of a second revolution, the Suburban Invigoration Movement, to their uniform, maybe, just maybe, they can wrest from their courageous and legendary parents the mantle of "The Greatest Generation."