When I was attending a private Christian school in Virginia, I was for a while a star student. Then I started going around telling people that they didn’t exist. I was acting like a 1960s teenager, and that was disturbing to some in the administration. They thought that the baby boomers were a bad crop and that only they behaved in that way. They found out to the contrary.
These people wanted to recreate 1950s. When you recreate the conditions preceding a phenomenon, you are recreating conditions that lead to the phenomenon. This, then, leads to the re-emergence of the phenomenon. The people who want to recreate the conditions preceding the union movement and socialism are recreating conditions that lead to the beginning of the union movement and socialism. Which means that they are going to get slammed with something like the union movement and socialism – yet again.
Now there are many people who see baby boomers as a bad crop; but I don’t see them that way. They did a lot that was right. That was both the case in them fighting for women’s rights and civil rights in 1960s as in them creating the computer industry and the Wall Street boom in 1980s and 1990s. There are many gen-X women who despise their mothers, but without them they would not be able to have their careers or their right to be anything except a stay-at-home wives. They weren’t a bad crop; they were people who had different ideas from ones of their parents. And many of these ideas were good ones.
So here am I, looking up to the baby boomers. Does that make me a spoiled child or a narcissist? I care about all sorts of people besides myself, and I also care about nature. The women in my life all experienced me as affectionate, loving and warm, and my daughter told me that I’m the best dad ever. I fought the truly obnoxious beliefs that some among baby boomers have, such as that everything that happens to people is a reflection of what’s in their consciousness or that fear is at the root of everything wrong with the world or that positive thinking, high self-esteem and believing in oneself is the solution to everything. I have no respect for obviously wrong beliefs. I do however have respect for any number of baby boomers.
When my former boss was telling me that he was getting long in the tooth, I told him that everyone gets old except the people who die young. Many of these people bloomed in their youth, and as they lost their youth they lost their identity. They have nostalgia for the great times they had when they were young. My response to that is that the human process is never finished. There are many things that they can do as older people to have meaningful life and achieve a legacy in the world.
Now to be fair any number of Gen-Xers come from the right place as well. There are many baby boomers who accuse them of being negative. That is because the problems of the world aren’t being addressed, and there is nothing to justify a positive outlook. As the problems of the world do get address, I can guarantee that these people will become more positive. The behaviour toward them is bullying and unethical, and that gives credit to those who want to see baby boomers as narcissists. The concerns of gen-Xers are legitimate. They deserve to be addressed.
The people who see 1960s as an anomaly have not studied history. Similar themes took place in the Romantic period that followed Enlightenment and in the early 20th century period that followed Victorianism. Some among conservatives have made a whole ideology about how baby boomers were evil. They are wrong. They are not evil; they had another idea as to how they can live. Their behaviour was not a function of their character. It was a function of their beliefs.
Beliefs change all the time; and pursuing them people’s behaviour. The people who started out as compassionate and idealistic pursuant 1960s Romanticism became bullying, careless and short-sighted as they embraced the dogmas of positive thinking, winners-and-losers and self-esteem. The same people were responsible for both phenomena. Their character did not change. Their beliefs did, and pursuant that their conduct.
As for myself, I look up less to 1960s than to 1920s. There was a strong anti-business sentiment in 1960s, and I think that that is wrong. A lot is owed to business, and business should be treated with respect. At the same time respect also should be afforded to culture, which many in business world do not do. Both business and culture constitute accomplishment. Both are valid forms of human endeavour. And in 1920s the two co-existed to create the period in which America became the unquestioned leader of the world.
So it important that things be put into perspective. 1960s was not the only time in history in which these themes were tried, nor will they be the last. The people who fail to learn from history repeat it. If you recreate 1950s, it is only a matter of time before you get something like 1960s. And if you recreate the conditions preceding union movement and socialism, it is only a matter of time before you get slammed with something like union movement and socialism yet again.