"Good sense, innocence ..."

“Good sense, innocence cripples mankind,” went the lyric from 1967 in a song by the bubble-gum pop band Strawberry Alarm Clock. It is one of the deep tenets of recent generations that knowledge of evil is better for you than ignorance, in the sense of naiveté or lack of sophistication. Those who don’t know, suffer. This is what’s behind our insistence that our children, very early, know everything there is to know about expletives, sex and all kinds of drugs. It’s behind the extraordinarily promiscuous culture we have right now, and our toleration of obscene language and pornographic images to a high degree.

The Boomer generation grew up in relative silence. Their parents, known as the “Silent” generation, were born during a time of crisis which fostered consensus, loyalty to institutions, and an ethic of personal sacrifice. Reacting against this, the Boomer generation expanded into individualistic freedoms, trumpeting its ideas loud, clear and proud, exploring many of the darker corners of the world.

My book club is reading two British Boomer generation writers in a row, and it struck me that the theme is still there. On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan, tells the story of two members of the “Silent” generation on their wedding night. As explicitly as only a Baby Boomer could, the book explains how the two failed each other sexually and drove each other apart in their innocence, despite their great love for each other. In A Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, the narrator reflects back on his frustration with one of his first girlfriends, his love and respect for a school friend who fathered a child and committed suicide, and his own possible implication in these events. Remorse and regret hang over these books, in which early experiences are more meaningful than the rest of life.

My book club had good discussions of these books (yay! for book clubs), and I believe that in On Chesil Beach, McEwan was trying to show that ignorance keeps us from happiness. Knowing, lack of innocence about the worst aspects of humanity, is still valued. One reader says, “I like reading dark and disturbing books, things that force me to feel something.”

But I would like to say that, for the narrators of both books, the early experiences perhaps meant the most because they happened to young, fresh, innocent hearts and minds. Dwelling on the evil that men do can lead to jaded, tired hearts, protected by brittle shells of certainty. Without some innocence and freshness, we become afraid to listen to our deep selves, which, in great humility, try to speak to us. Surely children too need time and space, protected from the unsavory aspects of life, in order to grow into whole selves.

It is freshness and simplicity I look for in books, in music, in art and in people. Culture itself can cripple us, with its stereotypical memes and analyses laid over the burbling life which wells up beneath it. But we will certainly stay young and fresh longer if we nurture the ability to hear this anthem, this music in our hearts and in the heart of the world.