I FEEL STUPID . . . AND CONTAGIOUS

So David Cameron, the front-runner in the Tory leadership race,
finally answered the drugs question: He definitely, most certainly,
without a doubt has not used cocaine during his four years as a Member
of Parliament. And everybody went, like, OK. Whatever.

Thus does Generation X -- my generation -- enter the realm of
high-level politics. The hopelessly square Tories are so thrilled at
the prospect of an edgy 39-year-old leader who may or may not have
used drugs in college -- that part Mr. Cameron still hides behind a
wink -- one almost expects them to throw their collective bra at the
stage whenever he appears. It's as if he didn't graduate from stuffy
Eton and Oxford. The faint scent of a little reefer only heightens
their sense of naughty excitement.

The word you hear most Tories use to describe Mr. Cameron is
"electable," but what they're really saying is "cool." And we Gen-Xers
are nothing if not cool. We've spent most of our lives trying to get
that way. If Miles Davis birthed the cool in the 1950s, my generation
has turned it into an art: the art of indifference. Asking us to give
that up now is, like, totally bogus.

Or is it? Our parents might have wanted to be too cool for school but
there were wars to fight (and fight against), a space race to win,
slain leaders to mourn, civil rights to obtain, social mores to rebel
against. Us? We can remember when the Challenger exploded and the
Berlin Wall fell, but we didn't have anything to do with either one.
By the time we were old enough to be concerned about nuclear
annihilation, the Cold War was over. We grew up with more free time,
more disposable income and less to worry about than any of our
predecessors.

In fact, our indifference was a direct reaction to our parents'
idealism -- which was in turn a reaction to their parents' stoic
practicality. Yeats neatly summed up our attitude: "The best lack all
conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." Go
with the flow. Be cool.

Our indifference earned us a label: the "slackers." We couldn't be
bothered to put on a tie or wake up for class. We still produce our
fair share of standouts, but are haunted by the specter of grade
inflation and lowered standards in general.

* * * This is no way for a society to produce leaders. Perhaps for
this reason, the teaching of "leadership" flourished during our
teenage and college years. Experience alone wasn't going to cut it,
because our experience was going to be limited. One does not build a
knowledge of history and political philosophy by playing video games,
nor engage in many debates while listening to a Walkman.

Not every Gen-Xer slouched toward maturity. By all accounts youth
volunteerism, at least in the U.S., is at an all-time high. Political
activism can still be found on university campuses. But just a few
years ago, before 9/11 and the Iraq war, it was a noticeably different
story -- if not in sheer numbers, at least in focus. Gen-Xers cared
about niche issues but were largely turned off by the national or
international "big picture." Our parents tried to save the world; we
just wanted to save the whales.

Back to David Cameron, since he's all we've got so far. I was in the
crowd at the Conservative Party conference when he was first asked
(and first dodged) the drugs question. But far more interesting to me
- -- the drugs question, for better or worse, was rendered moot when
another famous Oxfordian said "I didn't inhale" and then became
president -- was Mr. Cameron's nonchalant explanation that he wasn't
politically active at Oxford because there were other, more fun
occupations for his time. Yeats had been updated. No one even noticed.