"Everyone [in the United States] born after 1945 is a boomer. The only difference is that, over time, precarity increases and technological sophistication also increases."
– Matt Christman, Hell of Presidents Ep. 10
This is it. This is the one good take on yankeedom’s generational politics. The generation we traditionally define as “boomer”, people born within the first twenty years after the end of WWII; that generation has far more in common with subsequent generations than any of us do with any generation before. In the broad view of history, we’re the same.
The early boomers were the first to attend a nationally standardized schooling system – what is, by and large, still the same system we have today. The early boomers were the first generation to grow up with television – with audio/visual mass media dominating not just the public consciousness, but also the early developmental phases of children. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they were probably also the first generation of US citizens where the majority reach adulthood without knowing chronic hunger. Hell, the first generation in which the majority have not seen the unadulterated night sky.
We have all these things in common with them. Getting mad at them for being how they are is an understandable response. But, I also think it’s kind of silly. Those first boomers had to navigate all that without the benefit of older adults who had grown up in similar conditions.
Boomers grew up with a share of national wealth that we will never have. At every point in their lives, they owned more than the generations that came after them. They are still hording this wealth. This is their defining characteristic. This relationship to the economy has constructed their worldview and has made them a distinct demographic of people which they have continually tried (and failed) to reproduce.
No, we are absolutely not the same as boomers on the grounds that we went to school, watched tv, and listened to music.
Its not boomers hoarding wealth its capitalists. Why engage in their generational conflict game?
We don’t need to wage class warfare against boomers or moralize them, which I haven’t suggested.
What I’m saying is that they are a product of a particular time and location (like every generation). However, their time (post world war II) and location (USA), directly connect to a major global event that solidified America as a superpower and hegemon. This extraordinary time and place gave them a particular relationship to the spoils of empire including share of national wealth and power in government. Generations after this have only dealt with decline.
This makes them a distinct demographic of people worthy of discussion on these grounds. How they are discussed and how useful you find it is up to you.
Personally I find the accident of someone’s birth year about as useful as their zodiac but you do you.
“Plenty of poor boomers out there” -Matt Christman.
Cool. Plenty of poor white people, too.
But taken as a group, I think we can identify a pattern.
Should we ignore their share of collective wealth, too?
structure, decay, and transients: we share the same societal structure as boomers basically, although it has decayed/changed to a substantial degree. But it is still the same basic nature as boomers, and will be until the next great transient (perhaps COVID was that transient and we’re already in the aftermath of the great reorganizing)