Let’s do the demographic boogie. Vanity Fair called Generation X “Our Last, Best Hope.” They got it right. Gen X is the nexus between Boomers and Millennials. Xers don’t live on the Boomers revisionist history of the Vietnam War, nor do they drink from the Millennial memes of “toxic” everything via Tsunami Wave Feminism or bearded hipsters barba non facit philosophum .
GenXers were the last generation to pretty much actually touch mechanical and spiritual buttons. They were the last ones to get a funded education (thanks Uncle Sam) and build a retirement born out of sensible collective investment (defined benefits). Of course, you can find pop Gen Xers on the medias where you’ll find the likes of George Clooney, Sean Hannity, Jennifer Aniston. The knock against Xers was that they were slackers. The grown-up GenXers are anything but. I give you the Intellectual Podcasters who were formally dubbed Intellectual Dark Webbers.
These Podcasters are intellectual activists; some uncanny populist, Joe Rogan; some traveling evangelist, Jordon Peterson; some make you say, “Hmmm!” Bret Weinstein. But it is Sam Harris who brings clarity to life in America as it is, how it got that way, and how to make it better. To wit, Sam Harris’ intellectual gospel is to promote loving kindness. Sam’s debates, blogs, interviews, and his guided meditation course, Waking Up, are centered in loving kindness.
Sam Harris comes to the table with a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, is a loving husband and father, and has a grounded point of view. He cares about the world and he cares about you. Reading and listening to the likes of Sam Harris’ Making Sense podcast, is a path to sanity in a post-modern mess that has too long infected our Greatest Generation and their allegiance to media conservatism and our Millennials’ allegiance to Foucault. Lord help us. Bring it on Sam!
And he mediates the (perceived) gap between secular humanism and cogent moral discourse. Quite an achievement!