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As we've been pooling our despairs, the better to get all our arms around them, I'll have to pitch in a black cloud that has nothing to do with foreign affairs and little to do with beltway politics: the unfashionableness of adulthood, and the loss of faith or interest among what seem like so many in contributing to the permanence of a culture. Nietzsche wrote a while ago that everyone will become an "actor" and cease to be a "stone" -- and without "stones," we can no longer build a lasting society, a true civilization. Bemoaning a whole culture's early retirement into easygoing entitlement isn't quite politics, but will it shape our politics? Yes. And has it already, led by our hippest of hip vanguards? You bet. New York magazine happily calls them "Grups," but I think "the New Leisure Class" is a lot less ironic and stupid of a name. -- Too charitable? Further reflections on the rise of our Eloi here.