The Magazine

On Saudi Arabia, etc.

Jan 29, 2007, Vol. 12, No. 19
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TEENAGE WASTELAND

IN HIS REVIEW of the Nicholas Delbanco novel that treats the lives of boomers with moral seriousness, Barton Swaim doubts that the "greatest generation" was great since they produced the Boomers ("Debunking Delbanco," Dec. 25). Certainly those who fought on two fronts in World War II must be deemed comparatively great. Nevertheless, they went on to produce a generation of youngsters less mature than any before. A word had to be invented for them: It was in the 1950s that the adjective "teen-age" (Webster II) became a noun (Webster III). How men and women who braved war for so long could then quail before their own children, saying "Work it out on your own" as James Dean's dad does in Rebel Without a Cause-thus orphaning their own children-is truly perplexing. When, in the Republic, Socrates suggests kids under 10 should be taken from their parents, he was just kidding. In the 1950s, the parents weren't kidding.

MICHAEL PLATT

Fredericksburg, Tex.

ARABIAN MIGHT


REGARDING Stephen Schwartz's "Big Saudis on Campus" (Jan 1): As Saudi Arabia has been under continuous terrorist attack since 1996, we have been leading a campaign to squash it locally and globally, and our deeds speak for themselves. Our schools have been teaching the Islamic values of peace, compassion, and tolerance for all humanity. The Saudi king has allocated the biggest share of the Saudi national budget for a modern and tolerant education structure, and the king, with his open mind, has launched a mega-project to sponsor Saudi students at schools all around the world.

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