Victor Davis Hanson has given us an interesting article for sure: A Generational Bust. I am not always into the whole “let’s blame the generation that became before us” thing, but I think it is true that the baby-boom generation shook things up a lot more than generations before it, and started trends that have hurt society. In many ways, the baby-boomers have been a spoiled brat generation, creating offspring (including many in my generation) that are even more spoiled and entitled than your average boomer. Have a look at Hanson’s article and see for yourself, but I think many of his observations are right-on: we want something for nothing (big government funded retirements without any thought to who is going to pay for it), and benefits without sacrifice (cheap energy, a clean environment, and the biggest SUVs possible). Some excerpts from his article:
Sociologists have correctly diagnosed the perfect storm that created the “me” generation — sudden postwar affluence, sacrificing parents who did not wish us to suffer as they had in the Great Depression and World War II, and the rise of therapeutic education that encouraged self-indulgence.
Perhaps the greatest trademark of the 1960s cohort was self-congratulation. Baby boomers alone claimed to have brought about changes in civil rights, women’s liberation, and environmental awareness — as if these were not prior concerns of earlier generations.
We apparently created all of our wealth rather than having inherited our roads, schools, and bountiful infrastructure from someone else. And in our self-absorption, no one accepted that our notorious appetites created more problems than our supposed “caring” solved.
Our present problems were not really caused by an unpopular president, a spendthrift Congress, the neocon bogeymen, the greedy Saudis, shifty bankers, or corporate oilmen in black hats and handlebar moustaches — much less the anonymous “they.”
The fault of this age, dear baby boomers, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
I don’t think it is any coincidence that the same generation that has given us all this also spearheaded the trendiness in Christian churches in the 1970s (I tend to think the liberalism of the mainlines and the “we don’t need tradition” evangelical movements of the 1970s are two sides of the same coin, both owing a lot to the secular movements of the 60s). The Church is working overtime to undo the changes of the 1970s…I suspect society has its hands full if it is going to scale back some of the bad trends that came out of the same period.
Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14423675@N08/1657783919/
Posted by David Bennett 
David Bennett
Jennifer
asimplesinner
Fr. J.
Chad T.
Jorge Flores
Jonathan B
carmelbennett
nicenehobbit
Jason S
jaybird68
papaz
Dave Hartline
faceman