Anthropologist Helen Fisher inelegantly described the maturing of this huge postwar bulge in the population as “like a pig moving through a python”, changing society as we grew older on a scale never known before. We challenged the Victorian puritanism, censorship, class snobbery and inhibitions of the establishment. Full employment put money in the pockets of managers and factory workers alike. In spanking new houses with inside lavatories and proper bathrooms, hire purchase allowed him (and less so, her) to spend, spend, spend as if, overnight, everyone had become a toff. It could only get better.
Yet today, “baby boomer” is a toxic phrase, shorthand for greed and selfishness, for denying the benefits we took for granted to subsequent generations, notably beleaguered millennials, who reached adulthood in the early years of this century. So, where did it all go so very wrong?
Bill Fulkerson on 03 Aug 18"As readers know, I'm very dubious about assigning agency to generational cohorts like "Millennials," or "Boomers." Where, after all, are their offices on K Street? And if the Powers That Be need to find enough "Millennials" willing to help them continue their project of world domination, that they will do. However, it does seem that the the series of military debacles following the invasion of Iraq has dented our sense of American Exceptionalism, and has begun to shape public opinion - for the better, so far as I am concerned. A cautionary note would be "Millennial" support for globalization (which has, after all, brought us the iPhone, along with the figure of the selfie-taking backpacker). If I were a nimble 1%-er, I'd be perfectly happy to discard American Exceptionalism as an ideology, as long as I could control the global supply chain (and had a high-altitude, remote pied-a-terre from which to manage the free movement of my capital)."
