The Last Roman asks a pertinent question:
So what made the Boomers different? I mean, why did they fail in such a spectacular manner?
I’m a firm believer in the concept of the formative years. Who hasn’t observed how the confidence in her youthful beauty sustains the fat, middle-aged housewife who still sees herself as “the pretty one”, or how the certainty of his social superiority shines undiminished in the university Alpha at the gym even when he’s little more than a middle manager going nowhere at the office? Conversely, who has failed to notice the seeming anomaly of the occasional lack of self-confidence in even the most successful late-bloomer?
So, if we consider the historical situation in which the Boomers found themselves in childhood, the heirs to the literal conquerors of the world, who stood astride a planet in ruins while in possession of the only fully-functioning industrial base, living in the most technologically-advanced society in known human history, it should be no surprise that they behaved with all the circumspection and self-control of a highly indulged princeling who knows he will never have to wear a crown.
It is common for the successful – particularly those to whom success has come with little in the way of cost or effort – to believe they are beyond good and evil. The Boomers didn’t feel they needed the traditions of their forebears that gave them their status, and they rejected those traditions in favor of pursuing short-term pleasures. They became lotus-eaters, soft, fat, and totally unfit for competition and conflict with the rest of a battle-hardened world that was rebuilding from the ashes.
And now, it’s our turn to become hard men capable of embracing and winning the inevitable conflicts to come. This is why it behooves the younger generations in the West to not only reject, but to despise the Baby Boomers, and to refuse to listen to anything they have to say on any subject. They are complete failures, disastrous failures on a scale never before seen in history, and they have absolutely nothing to teach us, except to assiduously avoid following their example.
One Boomer, caught up in emotional projection of his own philosophy, shrieked that the younger generations anticipate the Day of the Pillow in order to acquire their material possessions. This is not only wrong, it completely misses the point. The reason we anticipate the Day of the Pillow is because on that day, the sweet silence of the Boomers will finally arrive.
On a not-unrelated note, an observation from SocialGalactic:
If Boomers were farmers, they would eat all of your seed corn and break every appliance in the kitchen doing so, then lecture with terrible advice on how to avoid the imminent starvation you will soon be facing.
Which, of course, is totally wrong and unfair. I think we all know that if Boomers were farmers, they’d immediately sell the farm, then buy a boat and a condo in Florida.