THE BOOMER QUESTION

—The Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists Newsletter:

—GADFLY INTERROGATION SERIES—

—A CONVERSATION WITH JUSTIN ALDMANN, ALLEGED ARCHITECT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION’S DECLINE

Interviewer: Miss Noor Singha Grudj, Council Gadfly

Respondent: Justin Aldmann, Council Correspondent on Retirement and Senescence

Noor Singha Grudj:

Mr. Aldmann, thank you for agreeing to this interview. As you know, many observers believe the decline of Western civilization can be traced directly to your generation.

Justin Aldmann:

Yes, I’ve been hearing that.

Noor:

And you are, in fact, a Boomer.

Justin:

That appears to be the consensus.

Noor:

Then let us begin plainly. When did your destructive activities start?

Justin:

Probably sometime in the early seventies.

Noor:

The decade when society began unraveling.

Justin:

Yes. Around the same time I started working.

Noor:

Working.

Justin:

Every day, except vacations. They were generally spent working on the house.

Noor:

And you continued this behavior?

Justin:

For about fifty years.

Noor:

Extraordinary. What sort of work was this?

Justin:

The kind where you try to do the job correctly so you can keep the job.

Noor:

So you participated directly in the productivity system.

Justin:

I suppose you could say that.

Noor:

Did you also engage in household labor?

Justin:

Quite a bit.

Noor:

Explain.

Justin:

I fixed appliances. Washing machines, dryers, the furnace once or twice. Snow removal. The yard.

Noor:

Instead of hiring certified specialists?

Justin:

At the time it seemed economical.

Noor:

Mr. Aldmann, do you realize how many professional repair ecosystems you may have destabilized?

Justin:

I hadn’t considered that.

Noor:

What about plumbing?

Justin:

Occasionally.

Noor:

Electrical work?

Justin:

Yes.

Noor:

So you were essentially operating an unsupervised infrastructure inside your own home.

Justin:

When you put it that way, yes.

Noor:

Let’s move on. At some point you started your own business.

Justin:

Yes.

Noor:

Why?

Justin:

It seemed like a good way to support my family.

Noor:

And during this time you paid taxes.

Justin:

A great many.

Noor:

You financed institutions that were simultaneously collapsing.

Justin:

That was my understanding.

Noor:

Did you ever think to stop?

Justin:

Not really.

Noor:

Fascinating.

(consults notes)

Now we must address the family dimension of the crisis.

Justin:

OK.

Noor:

You married.

Justin:

I did.

Noor:

To someone of your own cultural and religious background.

Justin:

That’s correct.

Noor:

Mr. Aldmann, do you realize how exclusionary that sounds?

Justin:

It wasn’t meant that way.

Noor:

Nevertheless.

(pause)

Children?

Justin:

Yes.

Noor:

You had them deliberately.

Justin:

When we could.

Noor:

And you raised them yourself.

Justin:

Mostly.

Noor:

Without an interdisciplinary oversight committee.

Justin:

No committee.

Noor:

What became of these children?

Justin:

My sons took responsible jobs. Things could fall from the sky. Proper allies could be wrongly targeted. Crooks could roam free—All if they didn’t show up every day and do their job well.

One also did creative stuff. You know, he made an honest, self-supporting living at it.

Noor:

Responsible jobs.

Justin:

The kind where people depend on you to show up.

Noor:

That sort of reliability can create troubling expectations in society.

Justin:

I can see that now.

Noor:

And your daughter?

Justin:

She married.

Noor:

One husband?

Justin:

Yes.

Noor:

For how long?

Justin:

So far, the entire time.

Noor:

And she had children.

Justin:

Many.

Noor:

How were they educated?

Justin:

She homeschooled them.

(long silence)

Noor:

Mr. Aldmann… do you realize the implications of that statement?

Justin:

I’m beginning to.

Noor:

The modern educational system is a delicate administrative ecosystem. If families begin educating their own children successfully, the entire structure experiences destabilizing pressure.

Justin:

At the time we thought reading books at the kitchen table was harmless.

Noor:

History suggests otherwise.

(another pause)

Let me summarize your testimony.

You married.

You worked fifty to sixty hours a week.

You repaired your own appliances.

You started a small business.

You paid taxes for decades—a quarter to a fifth of your income every year.

You raised children who became responsible adults.

And your daughter educated her own children.

Is that correct?

Justin:

Yes.

Noor:

And you did all this while Western civilization was declining.

Justin:

That appears to be the timeline.

Noor:

Mr. Aldmann, do you have anything to say in your defense?

Justin:

Only that at the time we assumed if you worked hard, paid your bills, and raised your children properly. . . civilization would continue operating.

Noor:

A common Boomer assumption.

Justin:

Yes.

Noor:

And yet here we are.

(she closes her notebook)

Mr. Aldmann, thank you for your candor.

Justin:

I’m sorry about the civilization.

Noor:

That is very Boomer of you.

***

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