Baby boomers: The Least Generation
Some day I'd like to write a book about my generation. Generation of Vipers is one possible title; a book by that name came out in the early 'Sixties, but I think enough time has passed for another to use that title. Another possible title- and maybe a better one- is The Least Generation: How the Baby Boomers Ruined America.
In case you haven't guessed, I'm not a big fan of us Boomers. We are, in essence, a generation of spoiled brats, handed a level of prosperity and opportunity no generation before us in any country had ever had. We quickly decided that we were born entitled, and demanded that the world conform to our whims. When it failed, we had a decade-long temper tantrum called the 'Sixties.
We like to kid ourselves that we are uniquely compassionate. In fact, we're the generation that has embraced the casual murder of the unborn as yet another one of our rights. We rejected, by and large, the notion that we have any obligation to anybody but ourselves. It's not so much that we're compassionate toward gays; its' more that the notion of license is so close to our hearts and the idea that whatever feels good must necessarily be good has left us with no option but to be tolerant sexually.
But in no other way. Our generation scorns anybody who holds any set of values and beliefs that does not accord with the nihilism of our own. We are the generation that accepted the mentally infantile philosophy of post-modernism, and the silly idea that truth can either be relative or an illusion. Morally irresponsible to the core, we have begotten a generation which has grown up not only without God, but without a coherent concept of right and wrong- or even the possibility of such a distinction being anything but a personal preference.
But it's not their fault. It's ours. We denied them their heritage- the heritage of the accumulated wisdom and moral sense of Western civilization. And we have combined our manifold failings with an exaggerated and inappropriate sense of self-regard that most more deserving generations would have been embarrassed by.
It will, if it is written, be an angry book. But it will also be motivated by a sense of responsibility to what went before me- and what I hope, somehow and to some degree, to pass on to future generations in the hope that they will awaken from the nightmare of moral and intellectual nihilsm that has pretty much defined Western culture since my willful, spoiled generation chose to spit on all it had been gifted with, and to claim to know better than the ages.
Anyway, after all that... here is an article on how the legacy of The Least Generation has contributed to the current political climate as we approach the 2008 presidential campaign.
In case you haven't guessed, I'm not a big fan of us Boomers. We are, in essence, a generation of spoiled brats, handed a level of prosperity and opportunity no generation before us in any country had ever had. We quickly decided that we were born entitled, and demanded that the world conform to our whims. When it failed, we had a decade-long temper tantrum called the 'Sixties.
We like to kid ourselves that we are uniquely compassionate. In fact, we're the generation that has embraced the casual murder of the unborn as yet another one of our rights. We rejected, by and large, the notion that we have any obligation to anybody but ourselves. It's not so much that we're compassionate toward gays; its' more that the notion of license is so close to our hearts and the idea that whatever feels good must necessarily be good has left us with no option but to be tolerant sexually.
But in no other way. Our generation scorns anybody who holds any set of values and beliefs that does not accord with the nihilism of our own. We are the generation that accepted the mentally infantile philosophy of post-modernism, and the silly idea that truth can either be relative or an illusion. Morally irresponsible to the core, we have begotten a generation which has grown up not only without God, but without a coherent concept of right and wrong- or even the possibility of such a distinction being anything but a personal preference.
But it's not their fault. It's ours. We denied them their heritage- the heritage of the accumulated wisdom and moral sense of Western civilization. And we have combined our manifold failings with an exaggerated and inappropriate sense of self-regard that most more deserving generations would have been embarrassed by.
It will, if it is written, be an angry book. But it will also be motivated by a sense of responsibility to what went before me- and what I hope, somehow and to some degree, to pass on to future generations in the hope that they will awaken from the nightmare of moral and intellectual nihilsm that has pretty much defined Western culture since my willful, spoiled generation chose to spit on all it had been gifted with, and to claim to know better than the ages.
Anyway, after all that... here is an article on how the legacy of The Least Generation has contributed to the current political climate as we approach the 2008 presidential campaign.
Comments
The 50s seemed like a drowsy trance -- a trance that ignored the egregious crimes of civil rights that were prevalent. We owe a heck of a lot to boomers. There's a great post today about it: http://www.Vabomer.com
Your link doesn't work. A shame. While a great deal of self-congratulatory pap has been written by by fellow boomers about our generation, I would have liked to have seen what it had to say.
And I do agree with you on the "blurring" or moral lines somewhat. Like "free love" - what nonsense. I have learned that sex is really NEVER "casual". It's like saying birth is casual - it is not.
Nancy Mehegan