Blame the Boomers?

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In a review of Helen Andrews’ Boomers, Barton Swaim writes,

“The theme that connects all these seeming digressions,” Ms. Andrews writes, “is . . . the essence of boomerness, which sometimes manifests itself as hypocrisy and other times just as irony: they tried to liberate us, and instead of freedom they left behind chaos.” I’m not convinced that this theme, if that’s what it is, sufficiently connects all the discursive wanderings in these essays; you sometimes get the sense that Ms. Andrews wants to bring up a few points of irritation before she takes leave of the subject. But I don’t complain—she’s worth following.

Each essay in the book has a central Boomer character, such as Steve Jobs or Camille Paglia or Aaron Sorkin. My thoughts:

1. The only character I ever knew personally was Jeff Sachs. When we were in our twenties, he seemed like a great guy. Since then, we have not interacted, and I have not followed him closely. I respect him for not kowtowing to the “in crowd” of Fischer/Blanchard/Bernanke/Yellin and company, but I disagree with a number of his positions on issues. I get the sense that he has not handled fame well, and Andrews dwells on anecdotes that reinforce that impression. But in this Tyler Cowen conversation, I see mostly the Jeff Sachs I knew and little or nothing of the jerk.

2. I think that Andrews is more on target than Swaim gives her credit for. The common element in the Boomers she portrays, and in our generation as a whole, is self-aggrandizement.

The pre-Boomers might be symbolized by Dwight Eisenhower. He was self-effacing. When he was given a major challenge, he succeeded at it. And as President, he undertook the Interstate Highway System, which achieved its goals, rather than the War on Poverty or the invasion of Iraq, or Obamacare, which did not.

The Boomers portrayed by Andrews are gifted at self-promotion. They make grandiose promises to make the world better, and they undertake projects that have results that are mixed, at best. Andrews assiduously reminds us of the adverse consequences of some of Sachs’ economic advice, of Paglia’s celebration of pornography, of Aaron Sorkin’s glamorization of White House aides, etc.

Swaim notes that Jobs accomplished a lot. But Jobs and the other pioneers and the computer and the Internet set goals that were more grandiose than coming up with products. They wanted to achieve a social revolution that gave more power to ordinary individuals. The failure of that project is evident in the popularity of the phrase “tech oligarchs.”

Martin Gurri writes,

We need elites who can stand straight in the digital storm and exploit the institutional stage to build and grow rather than strut and self-promote.

He is hopeful that the younger generation will be better at this than the Boomers. Andrews is pessimistic about that. So am I.

17 thoughts on “Blame the Boomers?”

  1. Arnold, you are expanding the ambiguity of classes and elites to include generations. I don’t think anyone can say anything coherent about the few people of his/her generation he/she has met. Your reference to Jeff Sachs is a good reminder of how different we may appreciate a person.

  2. Fun fact: The Australian men’s national basketball team is known as the Boomers after the slang for a male kangaroo.

    A cause for optimism: professional team handball apparently is coming to the USA in 2023. Verizon is a sponsor. Imagine the sport gaining popularity among the young in the USA and tens of thousands of average youth finding a fast paced team sport at which any body type can excel. What a transformative cultural change.

    Watched netball for the first time yesterday. Great, fast-moving sport with minimal officiating interruptions. Kind of like ultimate. Will watch more. Passing skills at a premium. Has been played for decades in the USA but needs a breakthrough. An opportunity that the boomers missed. Worldwide popularity is sufficient to ensure it eventually gets adopted as an Olympic sport. Great opportunity for the new generation to make its mark.

    • Did you manage to cancel your ESPN subscription? Pretty sure you indicated that you are a volleyball fan?

      We cancelled ESPN and no regrets so far. And, we plan to minimize our engagement as much as possible from pro-woke/anti free speech companies.

      • Yes, we canceled ESPN last year too for the same reasons. The only subscriptions we have now are Globo and Canal Volei Brasil. We watch all the women’s superliga and Brazil Cup volleyball games. We will likely have to find another package to supplement Olympics coverage and to get more soccer but it won’t be from the USA because the constant racebaiting is so tiresome. If I had more time and felt like spending the money I would probably get an Australian or New Zealand sports package for the cricket, rugby, and netball.

        • Thanks! Netball looks interesting.

          I’m not Catholic, but gonna be following Lent this year and hopefully indefinitely thereafter.

          Kicking things off by exiting from Amazon (and Whole Foods) and moving forward from there. Once Parler (or something similar) is back up, gonna delete Twitter from my life too.

          Exit > voice.

          Wake up time for freedom!

          https://youtu.be/3CtWy-9iIk8

  4. Blaming the boomer elites should be the focus, not “the boomers” overall.
    WWI & WW II, in “Christian Europe”, made it easy for the atheists to attack Christianity, denigrate it and mock it.
    “Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God
    If God is not in the God-shaped part of your heart, something else will be there – it will not be a vacuum. (CS Lewis paraphrase)
    Good and Evil are in every person’s heart (Solzhenitsyn paraphrase*)
    who also said:
    “It’s an universal law– intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”
    These quotes support the pessimism against the new generation of elite leaders, those
    gifted at self-promotion. They make grandiose promises to make the world better …

    It’s important to recall Boomer success – far less total poverty in the world, better health & healthcare for rich AND for poor, more freedom, more democracy, far more emphasis on human rights even in China where they’re lying about their actions. Much less pollution in the OECD countries. The world isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot better in most ways.

    Social media has, so far, been a slight detriment. But self-promoting Trump, who did build a lot, shows a possible better future. The optimistic view replaces “rather” with “and also to”:
    “We need elites who can stand straight in the digital storm and exploit the institutional stage to build and grow rather than AND also to strut and self-promote.”

    The elites leaders WILL self-promote – which ones are also able to build good stuff? and grow?

    Education credentialism is not good growth, having “more states deciding that firemen and state troopers must learn how to put their footnotes in MLA format before we give them permission to save our lives.” (Andrews)

    In Slovakia, a law about 15 years ago made advancement for policemen dependent on getting a degree. Many private colleges sprang up to service the increased demand (now much lower), including my wife’s (St. Elizabeth), which used profits to support health clinics throughout the world, including Haiti & Cambodia & many African countries. I was involved in Nairobi & Eldoret (Kenya), and in Rwanda health clinics. Many foreign funded clinics built later have trouble finding doctors to give the health care – many Slovak and Czech doctors are willing to spend a year or two in missions.

    Idealism is very much alive. Even the misguided idealism that has become the all-too easy Trump-hate has, in it’s heart, the idea of doing good. (ie Greg G)

    However, if Gurri is correct in what needs to be done, pessimism is indeed warranted.
    We’ll never get an elite class driven to service and achievement from a self-indulgent public. It’s easy to criticize and join the endless rant.

    Trump’s actions as President were driven by his desire to have The Greatest Service and to have The Greatest Achievements. The successful creation of a Christian-capitalist self-indulgent public, of Boomers plus Gen-X, plus Millennials … means the self-indulgence ain’t goin’ away. Unless there’s a new Great Depression, or WW III, or far worse pandemic.

    Can elites share the wealth and power and status with the non-elites? In enough ratio for less social hatred? I think so, but it’s not been shown so far. The lack of status-sharing IS the fault of elites, especially el-Boomers, and el-Dems, and el-Reps.

    • “We need elites who can stand straight in the digital storm and exploit the institutional stage to build and grow AND also to strut and self-promote.”

      Somehow strike failed as “s”, looks like I should use “strike”
      rather than
      just “s”.

  5. “They wanted to achieve a social revolution that gave more power to ordinary individuals. The failure of that project…”

    I’d suggest that Jobs et al. succeeded all too well. Their problem was that their notion of ordinary individuals was based on the people with whom they regularly interacted, almost all of whom were undoubtedly well into the right half of the bell curve. They weren’t considering that half of the population has an I.Q. below 100, hates math or anything that suggests math, regarded school as a place to play sports or get stoned with their friends, and gets their medical, legal, and political advice from jocks and actresses.

  6. But….self aggrandizement is what Adam Smith said makes free markets work.

    What is really appalling is how self-aggrandizing multinationals pervert US foreign, trade and military policies.

    It is not a generational thing, or even a personal thing . It is an institutionalthing, and involves government collusion.

  7. Apple and the other big tech companies have done some genuinely wonderful things and done some evil things, most notably they are leading Orwellian speech control campaigns in concert with the most powerful figures of world governments.

    It’s hard to know who really deserves the blame and the credit: I suspect Jack Dorsey and Zuckerberg and Steve Job’s widow Laurene Powell Jobs, deserve more blame for the Orwellian politics than Steve Jobs.

    I admire a certain genuine humility in Kling’s assessment of his own generation. Also, I wouldn’t be so pessimistic.

    • Actually, I think Zuckerberg has made a lonely effort to keep cancel culture out of Facebook. He had resisted Facebook employees’ efforts to censor conservative political speech for the last few years, but even the CEO faces a limit on how out of sync he can be with his employees.

  8. I guess the question is why did the 1950s select for people like Eisenhower, and why does the 21st Century select for strutters and self-promoters? (By the way, both the Left and Right select for self-promoters. The Left has twitter. The Right has Fox News and talk radio. Trump, of course, is the reality-TV president. So, the explanation has nothing to do with liberal elites.)

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