Settle Down Now: Is community the new frontier for Generation X?

In 1992, Rage Against the Machine’s Zach De La Rocha offered a dire warning to a restless but aimless Generation X: “If we don’t take action now,” he sang, “we’ll settle for nothing later.” An anthemic rallying cry and yet, just ten years thereafter, Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard was introducing those same listeners to “the sound of settling.”

While the idea of settling carries with it some pretty unsettling connotations, its execution is proving far different. In short, the settling down of Generation X, whose youngest members are now turning 30, may very well prove to be a pivotal baby step towards the construction of a more resilient future.

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From denial and anger to depression and acceptance: Zack De La Rocha and Ben Gibbard.

Those born in the closing years of the Baby Boom — the founding punk rock generation — may have set out to fight the power and dismantle the system but this head-butting sentiment inevitably gave way to what’s proven a far more definitive characteristic of Generation X: The desire to sidestep authority in pursuit of a more appealing alternate system to take its place.

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