“Americans were once modest and self-sacrificing, but then the 1960s came and the nation turned into a bunch of entitled narcissists. That’s the “conventional story, beloved especially on the Right”, says David Brooks, a commentator with the New York Times and a talking head on public television. Yet the facts don’t match the narrative, he says. Although a cultural shift of this sort did take place, it “didn’t happen around the time of Woodstock and the Age of Aquarius. It happened in the late 1940s and it was the members of the Greatest Generation that led the shift.” The pivot point was the end of the War, when Americans, after years of austerity, embraced consumerism. This led to a “softening of the moral sphere”. In 1946, Rabbi Joshua Liebman published a book called Peace of Mind that contained a new set of commandments, including “thou shalt not be afraid of thy hidden impulses”, and “thou shalt love thyself”. Over the next few years, several other bestsellers urged readers to embrace self-affirmation. This cultural shift was welcome in many ways: until then, too many people had been taught to think badly of themselves. But those who believe we’ve “overshot the mark” and become too self-obsessed should remember: it wasn’t under the baby boomers that the rot set in, it was under the baby boomers’ parents.” (David Brooks, The New York Times)
This large group of people, born after the Second World War, are now retiring. A proportion of them having coincidentally, while in power, presided over a catastrophe for the economy, growth in the cult of endless war, the export of democracy to unready cultures, globalisation, the hollowing out of the middle classes, unlimited money in politics and a yawning gap between Right and Left. It is of course unfair to blame a whole generation rather than just an entitled, self-congratulatory clique. By the same token they are collectively guilty of failing to take responsibility for the actions of the people they put into power. There are many who are weary of the boomers, and it may be for the best that they are retiring. Collectively they may think the current state of the nation is a coincidence. Others don’t.
I feel lucky to have experienced the generation that survived the Depression and World War – they understood humility, and had a lot of grit and common sense.
“Blame the 1960’s!” To those I know on the political right who are fond of blaming Baby Boomers for our travails, I’ve always posed one question: “Who raised the Baby Boomers?” It was, of course, “the Greatest Generation.” The discussions also show, it seems to me, the very limited usefulness of “generations” as a framework for understanding society. A more helpful question might be: “What were the Greatest Generation’s approaches to child-raising?”
Humans–Plato, St. Augustine, and Hobbes to the contrary notwithstanding–are not born modest, sinful, self-sacrificing, narcissistic, violent, selfish. . . they’re largely socially crafted and usually by their parents.