Yes, the lyrics have a good list of famous people from the greatest and silent generations. That reminds me that a lot of the 70s stars were early boomers born in the 1946-50 period (Joel, Springsteen, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, etc.)
You're welcome, Scott. It's one of those things that, once you said it, was obvious. It reminds of the line from Boss Kettering, of GM fame: "Every problem is simple--once it's solved."
As an actual rebuttal to most boomer-haters, I think this makes much too generous assumptions about where they're coming from though. From what I can tell, most boomer-hate comes from a much dumber zero-sum place of like "boomers have stuff and it'd be nice if we had that stuff instead". There's no thought given to the history of how they came to have what they have, or the tendency for roughly every generation to accumulate more stuff and more influence as they age, including millennials (I think we indulge in the most boomer-hate).
Don't color me with that ineffective brush! I'm pretty sure that I'm responsible for most of what's wrong with the world. As soon as I stopped demonstrating the world got way worse.
I was born in the spring of 1942. I am part of the War Baby generation (1941-45). We are definitely NOT part of the Silent Generation, but we’re also not part of the Baby Boom. Generation. We were the generation that spearheaded the 60s musically (Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Dylan, the Dead), the anti-war movement, and the sexual revolution. For better or worse, we made the Sixties an exciting time to be alive
Happy birthday to your mother. One hundred years is worth stopping for.
Your generational attribution argument is correct and underappreciated. But there is a layer underneath the blame question worth considering.
Even if you assign responsibility to exactly the right generation, the more uncomfortable possibility is that no generation deserves the blame. If the instruments used to make economic policy decisions have been systematically miscalibrated for decades, then the outcomes we see today were not the result of bad decisions made by the wrong people. They were the near-inevitable result of good-faith decisions made with a broken ruler.
The young professor earning $19,700 in 1982 was not wrong to feel that life was harder than it looked. The younger generation today is not wrong to feel the same thing. The data supporting that wages are down 30 to 50% from historic trend lines suggests both generations were experiencing something real that the official numbers were quietly absorbing.
There is no boogeyman here. There is just a measurement problem that has been compounding long enough to reshape what we think we know about who had it harder and why.
Great post. It happens to dovetail perfectly with a short piece in The Economist about the phenomenon of the Indian "Uncle"---basically their equivalent of the American Boomer.
I'm glad you pointed out the harm done by Boomer Nimbyism. What's frustrating is that it aligns with so much of Left-Wing anti-growth policies. Granted, some members of the younger generations are recognizing the damage done by Zoning and other land use regulations, but we're not yet a dominant voting bloc (except in Texas perhaps).
Clearly what you said is accurate re Boomers not creating many problems as many might believe but worsening or perpetuating a problem is not praiseworthy. And i am a boomer.
Go ahead, blame the Silent Generation—just don’t blame *me* (though I am a member of the Silent Generation). From an individual’s point of view, one welcome feature of blaming generations and other such collective entities is that it is not blaming *anyone*—any individual person. There is a vague hint that all members of the collection *share* the imputed blame, but this impression cannot survive a moment’s examination: blaming a collection is *not at all* blaming any particular member of that collection. The Silent Generation may have done it, but *I* am not thereby on the hook!
Hmm: I think sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll are what BOOMERS attribute the downfall of society to, pinning it on earlier generations. Young people today rightly point at Reaganomics and militarism (i.e., Boomers), as well as NIMBYism, which perhaps Boomers didn't start, but they sure didn't do anything about, either.
Agreed that we're all in a time continuum, and talk of generations as unified factions is lame. By typical conventions, I don't belong to the same generation as my two-years-younger brother.
Your mom's a beautiful lady; happy belated birthday to her.
Great way of reframing some really tiresome cliches.
On a totally different note. Your mom was born when my grandmother was kindergarten age. And yet you're not that much older than me (a dozen years perhaps). Easy to wrap your head around (young motherhood vs average age motherhood) but still... Took me aback at first.
My grandmother (on my father's side) was born in 1890, in rural Wisconsin. No cars, electricity, indoor plumbing. etc. She died the week of the moon landing, age 79.
Fascinating - this too tracks. My great-grandmother was born 1899, rural Austria, before any electrification or cars existed, and died in 1983, Space shuttle and Michael Jackson being around.
Another thought: Someone who kind of did point this out was Billy Joel in "We Didn't Start the Fire."
Yes, the lyrics have a good list of famous people from the greatest and silent generations. That reminds me that a lot of the 70s stars were early boomers born in the 1946-50 period (Joel, Springsteen, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, etc.)
Also My Generation from the Who came to mind.
Outstanding post!
You're right. I haven't seen this written anywhere.
Thanks David, glad to hear it wasn't completely obvious.
You're welcome, Scott. It's one of those things that, once you said it, was obvious. It reminds of the line from Boss Kettering, of GM fame: "Every problem is simple--once it's solved."
Scott has his own spin on things of course, but I've heard people talk about some of the general themes here before.
Way to bury the lede! 100th birthday, wow!
Fun post :)
As an actual rebuttal to most boomer-haters, I think this makes much too generous assumptions about where they're coming from though. From what I can tell, most boomer-hate comes from a much dumber zero-sum place of like "boomers have stuff and it'd be nice if we had that stuff instead". There's no thought given to the history of how they came to have what they have, or the tendency for roughly every generation to accumulate more stuff and more influence as they age, including millennials (I think we indulge in the most boomer-hate).
Don't color me with that ineffective brush! I'm pretty sure that I'm responsible for most of what's wrong with the world. As soon as I stopped demonstrating the world got way worse.
Well, without you we wouldn't have one of Jeff Bridges's best films.
Very sweet. Thank you. And thank you for your posts.
Thank you for following this blog. It makes me a bit self-conscious to be read by a distinguished novelist, as grammar has always been my weakness.
I was born in the spring of 1942. I am part of the War Baby generation (1941-45). We are definitely NOT part of the Silent Generation, but we’re also not part of the Baby Boom. Generation. We were the generation that spearheaded the 60s musically (Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Dylan, the Dead), the anti-war movement, and the sexual revolution. For better or worse, we made the Sixties an exciting time to be alive
The number of great songwriters born during the first few years of the 1940s is mind-boggling--I did a post on the subject.
W
Happy birthday to your mother. One hundred years is worth stopping for.
Your generational attribution argument is correct and underappreciated. But there is a layer underneath the blame question worth considering.
Even if you assign responsibility to exactly the right generation, the more uncomfortable possibility is that no generation deserves the blame. If the instruments used to make economic policy decisions have been systematically miscalibrated for decades, then the outcomes we see today were not the result of bad decisions made by the wrong people. They were the near-inevitable result of good-faith decisions made with a broken ruler.
The young professor earning $19,700 in 1982 was not wrong to feel that life was harder than it looked. The younger generation today is not wrong to feel the same thing. The data supporting that wages are down 30 to 50% from historic trend lines suggests both generations were experiencing something real that the official numbers were quietly absorbing.
There is no boogeyman here. There is just a measurement problem that has been compounding long enough to reshape what we think we know about who had it harder and why.
For us Brits 1926 was also a great year because the late queen, Elizabeth II was born on April 21.
Yeah, I occasionally mentioned to my mom that she was born one month after the queen and also married one month after the queen married.
Unfortunately my mom didn't get a throne one month after QE II.
Sounds like they both lived their lives well given the opportunities they were given
Yes, a very good life. Like many sons, I view my mom as a sort of saint. Totally unselfish.
It's also a big date in Japan, where the Showa era is 1926-89.
Great post. It happens to dovetail perfectly with a short piece in The Economist about the phenomenon of the Indian "Uncle"---basically their equivalent of the American Boomer.
I'm glad you pointed out the harm done by Boomer Nimbyism. What's frustrating is that it aligns with so much of Left-Wing anti-growth policies. Granted, some members of the younger generations are recognizing the damage done by Zoning and other land use regulations, but we're not yet a dominant voting bloc (except in Texas perhaps).
Sweet ending.
Clearly what you said is accurate re Boomers not creating many problems as many might believe but worsening or perpetuating a problem is not praiseworthy. And i am a boomer.
Go ahead, blame the Silent Generation—just don’t blame *me* (though I am a member of the Silent Generation). From an individual’s point of view, one welcome feature of blaming generations and other such collective entities is that it is not blaming *anyone*—any individual person. There is a vague hint that all members of the collection *share* the imputed blame, but this impression cannot survive a moment’s examination: blaming a collection is *not at all* blaming any particular member of that collection. The Silent Generation may have done it, but *I* am not thereby on the hook!
Hmm: I think sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll are what BOOMERS attribute the downfall of society to, pinning it on earlier generations. Young people today rightly point at Reaganomics and militarism (i.e., Boomers), as well as NIMBYism, which perhaps Boomers didn't start, but they sure didn't do anything about, either.
Agreed that we're all in a time continuum, and talk of generations as unified factions is lame. By typical conventions, I don't belong to the same generation as my two-years-younger brother.
Your mom's a beautiful lady; happy belated birthday to her.
Should we blame the generation that brought the pionners or the generation that followed them blindly?
Why not blame all the generations?
Great way of reframing some really tiresome cliches.
On a totally different note. Your mom was born when my grandmother was kindergarten age. And yet you're not that much older than me (a dozen years perhaps). Easy to wrap your head around (young motherhood vs average age motherhood) but still... Took me aback at first.
My grandmother (on my father's side) was born in 1890, in rural Wisconsin. No cars, electricity, indoor plumbing. etc. She died the week of the moon landing, age 79.
Fascinating - this too tracks. My great-grandmother was born 1899, rural Austria, before any electrification or cars existed, and died in 1983, Space shuttle and Michael Jackson being around.