Ruminations of an Old Goat

I was reading Vox Day's page last week and ran across a diatribe about the Beatles that, in the comments, devolved into a diatribe against the Baby Boomers. This is my response, for which I will readily admit I have done absolutely no research. This is an opinion, nothing more.

Along with 4.3 million others, I was born in 1957. It was the crest of the baby boom. No year, before or after has seen as many births. I mention this to set my credentials as a Baby Boomer; a member most reviled generation the nation has ever seen, the generation that Gen Xers and Gen Yers -- particularly conservatives from those generations -- blame for all they see wrong with the world.

The rap on the Boomers is that we never grew up, never learned that the world didn't revolve around us. I'll go ahead and admit that there is some truth to that. I know members of my generation who haven't ever learned what it means to be a grown up. But I'm also believe no previous generation was quite like the Boomers.

I could go on about all the things in this world that are not the fault of the Boomers, but that is mostly beside the point. The thing that was truly unique about the Boomer generation is that they were far more likely than previous generations to survive into adulthood. There was no major war being fought as they grew up nor the worst depression ever seen by the industrial world. Through out the Boomer's lives, the country's wealth was increasing at such a pace that people we now consider poor are living a lifestyle that would have been considered middle class in the 1970s.

Put bluntly, more irresponsible and idiotic Boomers survived to adulthood that any generation before it.

Prior to the 20th century, life was difficult enough that only the irresponsible and idiotic off-spring of the very rich were likely to die of old age. From 1914 through 1945, the only period that was mostly free of strife was the 1920s. It's worth noting that the Roaring '20s was a period known for its excesses, the same rap the Boomers get. Wars and depressions have a tendency to reduce the surplus population by winnowing out the irresponsible and the truly stupid members of society. But the rich country that emerged from World War II could protect the irresponsible and the idiots. When LBJ's Great Society came along in the 1960s -- something the Boomers had nothing to do with, I might add -- the government took it upon themselves to further buffer those same people from the consequences of their actions.

For those of you in Gen X and Gen Y, you're going to eventually discover that the irresponsible and idiotic members of your generation will survive to adulthood, too. Your time is coming and, after the reports that Gen X and Y voters dominated the 2008 election, perhaps already here.

I also hear complaints about how Boomer's hold onto their cherished pop culture well beyond what is considered reasonable. I'd suggest a definition of "reasonable" is needed here, but once again I believe the Boomers were unique from previous generations when it came to pop culture.

The Boomers were the first generation to grow up with television. We were the first generation to own portable radios and inexpensive record players. It was the discovery by advertisers that we controlled a lot more money than previous generations (there's that "wealth" thing again) that led to more and more youth oriented marketing. In other words, the Boomers were the first generation whose pop culture was spread by mass communications and who had the means to preserve that pop culture.

Of course, this is no longer unique to the Boomers. I'm sure it won't be too much longer before we hear the Millennials (I think that's what they're calling the new generation) complaining about how Gen X and Gen Y hang on to their outdated pop culture. In other words, I believe the same things that make the Boomers irritating to Gen X and Gen Y will also cause the newer generations to view Gen X and Gen Y with the same irritation.

It's part of a latest generation's "job" to be irritated at their elders, to believe their culture is superior to all that came before it, to think that their elders cannot possibly understand their troubles and to believe that they invented sex. Eventually, each generation gets older and realizes it's not as different from the one before it as it thought.

As I'm getting tired of reading rants against my generation, I hope Gens X and Y figures this out soon.