In an epigraph to his 1926 novel, “The Sun Also Rises,” Ernest Hemingway quotes Gertrude Stein: “You are all a lost generation.”
Stein was referring to those born between the 1880s and 1900, particularly the men who had served in World War I and the men and women of the “Roaring Twenties.”
In some ways, no matter whether we are boomers, Gen X, millennials, or Gen Z, we too are all lost generations. The roots of place, family, faith, and history that once shaped personalities largely disappeared in the West over the course of the 20th century, falling victim to war, political upheavals, and sweeping cultural transformations. In fact, this concept of roots seems almost antiquated, replaced by the atomization of the individual and, in many cases, by obsessive self-interest….