Generation Abandoned

A Generation Abandoned: Why 'Whatever' Is Not Enough by Peter D Beaulieu, 261 pages

In the opinion of Peter Beaulieu, the contemporary world faces a crisis of acedia - of restless boredom, of dissatisfied complacency.  He sees this as the natural consequence of widespread moral indifference, incarnated in a shrug of the shoulders and the word, "whatever".  This, in turn, is a result of what he calls the "Big Lie" of "mandatory amnesia", the total rejection of the past and, with it, any kind of standards beyond the political fashions of the moment, leading inexorably to the conclusion that nothing really matters.  The alternative he presents is that of the Catholic Church, which asserts that everything matters.

Beaulieu's thoughts pour out onto the page in a rhetorical flood, and, like a literal flood, the result is a muddied mess.  Counter-intuitively but convincingly, given our mass media obsession with vacuous fantasy, Beaulieu indicts our contemporary anti-culture of a lack of imagination, and it is clear that imagination is something he possesses in abundance, but organization does not seem to be among his gifts.  There are some startlingly brilliant diamonds in this rough - who else would directly contrast the lives of CS Lewis and Michael Edwards (Priscilla Presley's second husband)? - but the rough is deep and extensive.  Beaulieu amuses himself (and occasionally his readers) with frequent digressions, but oftentimes the digressions overpower his point.  Anecdotes are repeated without acknowledgement of the repetition.  Unfortunately for a book condemning indifference, the author is somewhat sloppy when it comes to facts (the Marquis de Sade was not in the Bastille when it was stormed in 1789, Descartes was not a priest).  Sad as it is to say, however, the book's greatest shortcoming is its author's laudable defense of the lives of the unborn - Beaulieu writes so passionately on the subject of abortion and returns to it so frequently that it is difficult to believe that anyone who disagrees with him at all on this key issue will find his book palatable.  In the end, its incoherence makes A Generation Abandoned ineffective as either a summons for the unchurched or a sermon for the faithful.