Posted on 07/26/2006 8:48:06 AM PDT by NYer
My cohort of early baby boomers has been called a lot of names in its nearly six decades of existence—we were the insolent teenagers of the 1950s; the self-centered Yuppies of the 1980s; now we are the aging spendthrifts who will bust the federal budget and bankrupt our children with unreasonable demands for creature comfort in old age.
But maybe it would be more appropriate to think of us as the Faustian generation. We didn't exactly sell our souls to the devil—not collectively, anyway—but as we jog toward senior status, it's hard to escape the sense that we were complicit in our own unique kind of unholy bargain.
Most of us born in the early years after World War II grew up in a world of stability and order: lasting marriages, moms at home, fathers with permanent employment, local merchants who knew us and watched us, neighborhoods where the people next door were ever-present and predictable. The three television networks ran essentially the same programs; the bread and soup and cereal all tasted alike. It was snug; it was also, as we all know, widely perceived as monotonous and a little claustrophobic, as well as unfair to many members of society
"The dull ache will not depart," Faust says in the first part of Goethe's epic, as he laments the cozy tedium of his cloistered life. "I crave excitement, agonizing bliss." That does pretty well as a mantra for the best and brightest of the early baby boomers as they reached mid-adolescence in the early 1960s
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Needless to say, this doesn't depict the life course of all the boomers who came to maturity in the 1960s. Beneath the hype and the rhetoric, millions of them managed to do things the old-fashioned way right up to the end of the 20th century: one spouse, one house, one neighborhood, one career.
There is a "silent majority" of baby boomers who didn't become hippies and spend all their time getting stoned and driving from protest to protest in a grimy psychedelic spray-painted VW minibus listening over and over again to an eight-track cassette of Buffalo Springfield. This silent majority is always given short shrift in the media and mocked by Hollyweird.
For example, according to B.G. Burkett, 3.3 million men served in the Vietnam theater of operations, and a scientific survey conducted in 1985 by the Washington Post/ABC found that 91% of those who served in Vietnam were "glad they served their country." There were a lot more people in the baby boomer generation who served their country than rolled around in the mud at Woodstock, and I'm sick and tired of hearing the endless navel-gazing by this latter group. "Me Me Me!" Will no one rid us of these troublesome aging lefty baby boomers?
Bingo, you have hit on the correct answer.
Previous generations lived constrained by an economy of scarcity. If you did not live right and work hard, you would come to a bad end relatively quickly.
Once technology and capitalism combine to create an unlimited supply of goods and services, these constraints collapse. There is no longer any external reason to live rationally and justly. A few religious or philosophical characters may continue on, but everyone else will be saying 'Let the good times roll!'
The real question is this: once the constraints of scarcity are removed, what is now safe to do, and what is still dangerous? The baby boomers are an experiment to find out. Some ideas - excessive sexual freedom and drug usage - have already been rejected as still not a good idea.
shhhhhhh! no truth allowed...the myth makes 'em feel better.
Too many of my generation are simply selfish bums. That's all the analysis needed.
Do you think it is really better that kids now come home to an empty house and instead of Leave it to Beaver to watch, they have complete filth to watch? The media reinforced family values in the 30-50's, but that all changed in the 60's and it has been downhill since then.
Yeah. Life in America DOES suck, doesn't it?
Everybody else on the globe wants to come here, we feed the world, we are one of the most church-going people in history, and yet the whiners who grew up resenting their parents are now blaming a prior generation for not knowing how to construct a proper sentence in English or carry on a conversation without fifteen "likes" and "you knows" sprinkled in with a bunch of jive.
But they can surely tell you the names of every rapper on MTV. That is, if you can get their attention long enough to get the I-Pod earbud out of their left ear and the Bluetooth headset out of their right ear.
No wonder none of this bunch is getting married. They're pathological narcissists.
I know America is still the best thing going but really, that is not saying much when you look and have actually visited other parts of the world.
And you say none of them are getting married, well, why should they, they have never seen a happily married couple.
If you were fortunate enough to grow up during the time when family values were reinforced everywhere, thank your lucky stars!
Speak for yourself. I have a beautiful 24 year old daughter who was raised by two people who worked hard to provide a life that was better than what we knew as children.
She never had to come home and watch 'filth' on television or live in fear and want. She was raised right and is now a giver to society and not a self indulgent 'child of boomers'.
This world of ours will never be a utopia. If you want serenity, go to heaven. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'll still be shovelin' the shit.
"shhhhhhh! no truth allowed...the myth makes 'em feel better."
This is 2006, by their mythology, the people born from 1986 to 2004 are running the country and it's institutions.
I'm 62 -- I have paid into this system every year since I was 16 years old, forced to do so by law. And now the government dictates when and under what circumstances my OWN MONEY can be returned to me. And if I die before I enroll for social security, I can't even leave that money to my daughter.
The "greedy senior citizens" to whom you refer have been forced to become activists to get any of their own money back. Thought you might be interested in hearing the other side.
Carolyn
There is plenty of blame to go around, but no one can blame me, I was not even born yet.
America was never perfect, but it used to be a hell of alot better place!
The Boomers have brought us all kinds of wonderful things.....the homosexual revolution, feminism, rampant leftism. Pretty funny when I'm the child of a boomer and have reverted back to family values and conservatism. I suppose it's all cyclical.
I could care less what label is used, it started in the 60's, and the media drove the bus. I know people who were around during that time and are proud that they fought against the tide, even though they were called prudes, etc....but in the end, they were right.
Speak fer yerself. I have disagreed with the liberal agenda my entire life (which started in 1947).
You are more likely GENERATION JONES than boomer.
I'm a boomer, and all I see around me are boomers that have jobs and marriages and mortgages. Just like the generation before us. You must live in a wilder neighborhood than I do.
It somewhat saddens me that there is little discussion as to how one would live if society becomes even more affluent (eg free energy).
Unfortunately, the rest of us are stuck lying in it with you. But then, that seems appropriate for the generation of "sexual liberation"!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.