The Fallacy of Blame the Boomers
Avoid the Public Policy Lemmings
Last week I published an essay titled The Feminization Fallacy. The idea behind it is the innate behavioral characteristics of women are undermining workplace cultures and productivity. That is because the number of women earning salaries in private sector and non-profit organizations has grown significantly or is dominating some professions.
In the case of the feminine mystique, it centers on left vs. right political agendas, but the habit of blaming social problems on demographics while ignoring context is also popular for other group dynamics. And the reason is simple - the desire for unearned wealth and recognition requires some bureaucrat’s public policy solution. It’s easier than independence and integrity.
Another hot topic these days is “affordability” and the debate centers on the Gen Z and Boomer generations. For context, there were two generations before Boomers (Greatest and Silent) going back to 1901 and two before Gen Z (Gen X and Millennial). Already, this is too confusing because it is mostly arbitrary and no one controls their birth date or their parents. But that is the nature of a culture that lacks heroic ideals.
To be clear, I was born into the Baby Boomer generation (near the end of it actually), but I didn’t realize I was a member of this esteemed and denigrated club until after I became a parent of Millennials. My vague understanding was that Baby Boomers were born after World War II and before Elvis became a thing. My father was only 9 years old when the war ended, so I didn’t think much of it.
But I was wrong. I accept that. And my guilt over that ignorance will buy someone a $3 gift certificate toward the purchase of a shiny new Pontiac Grand Prix. However, I have considerable empathy for innocent people who experience economic hardships that are caused by “good deed doers” with diplomas from government funded institutions. At the same time, I have no empathy for Boomers (or anyone else) that endorse or appease the “good deed doers” and their public policy pranks.
Boomerang #1 – Gray Nomading
I don’t own an RV or do a lot of traveling, but regarding those who do – why the resentment? If that’s your mindset, that is your problem. They owe you nothing because no one is born into this world owing to anyone anything.
Boomerang #2 – Woodstock Hedonism
The Woodstock music festival was a monument to the satisfaction of emotional whims and primitive culture. Yes, it was hedonistic. I was 13 years old at the time and poorly informed on most things, but by 12 years old I understood something important. These older kids were rebelling against the relative luxuries that had been earned by their grandparents. And were doing it with no awareness of how difficult life had been for the Greatest Generation, not to mention their grandparents. Shallow ingrates all.
However, the older Boomers had become indoctrinated with the anti-reason ideals of university professors and the anti-achievement ideals of mainstream media. For a description of the cause of sociological trends of the day, philosopher Ayn Rand said it best about the era:
One of the paradoxes of our age is the fact that the intellectuals, politicians, and all the sundry voices that choke, like asthma, the throat of our communication media have never gasped or stuttered so loudly about their devotion to the public good and about the people’s will as the supreme criterion of value - and never have they been so grossly indifferent to the people.
When public schools and universities are clipping the cognitive wings of their young before shoving them from the nest, some of these rebels without a cause will come home to roost. But at the nearly the same time, a crowd three times larger than Woodstock convened to witness an incredible achievement – the launch of Apollo 11.
There were Boomers in attendance with their parents, or their young children and their grandparents. And no one was groveling in the mud scrounging for acid.
Boomerang #3 – Withholding the Inheritance
As the father of independent, happy and successful children of the Millennial persuasion, it is with confidence that I say they are prideful. They have earned satisfaction and confidence for being independent, happy and successful. There is no better inheritance. Don’t get trapped in the desire for the unearned.
Pride is a virtue. It is the natural and positive feedback loop of all virtues, not the least of which is independence. However, I am sensitive to how difficult and frightening independence can be when educational and political institutions are paralyzing the self-esteem of young people with ideals of “the public good” and “the people’s will.” Beware, humility is the vice that serves the pundits of public policy prescriptions.
Boomerang #4 – Thought Kids Would Learn Without Teaching Them
The domination of government mandated schools and their “reprogressive” curriculum has had multi-generational effects that are not good. Not only do nearly all Boomers believe that education is a right, I suspect nearly every generation since the Greatest believe the same thing. To repeat, no one is born into this world owing to anyone anything.
Speaking only for myself, I taught my children how to play chess when they were 5 years old because of the problem solving, long-term thinking, cause and effect, and sportsmanship benefits. That has served all of us well, and many other great parents did the same or similar things. Certainly, many do not. Regardless, independent children with integrity are the measures of really good parents.
To be fair, Boomers are only partially responsible for America’s unhealthy dependence on public schools. The real problem is teachers’ unions and teacher’s colleges that exist to wrest responsibility from parents - and with the parents who willingly comply. No one is born into this world owing to anyone, but parents have a nearly two-decade duty to the education and welfare of children that deserves skill and commitment.
Boomerang #6 – No Help with Grandchildren
A weak or distant extended family structure may be the common circumstance for many Gen Z or Millennial parents, but it has been the exception in my Boomer experience. In fact, I am exceptional. I’ve learned to communicate at the cognitive level of young children for shared fun and benefits. I do this better than with adults who stopped learning years ago and I am engaged on a daily or weekly basis.
Boomerang #7 – Took for Granted Their Prosperous Era
This is true, but it is nothing new. In the throes of what should have been a brief recession, the generation that elected FDR took prosperity for granted and voted it away with public policy pranks that created the Great Depression. And the generation that elected Eisenhower voted it away with environmental priorities. And the Boomers that elected Nixon voted it away with public policy pranks that wrecked all prices with the elimination of the gold standard.
To compound the problem, the generation that elected Clinton wrecked residential pricing with the expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act that created the Great Recession. And the generation that elected Obama wrecked medical services pricing with the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the government leviathan has been expanding since the destructive forces of progressivism were unleashed in 1913 by President Wilson.
For perspective, thanks to the power of capitalism when it is left alone, we live in an incredibly prosperous era. But today, Gen Z is saddled with an “affordability crisis” that was triggered by the economic lockdowns of 2020 - on top of the ACA, the CRA, fiat currency, and FDRs second bill of rights nonsense. However, if you also hold the statist ideals of “the public good” and “the people’s will,” then that is your problem.
Boomerang #8 – Pioneered Corrosion that Shifted from Christianity
Yes, the corrosive forces pioneered by the New Left of the 1960s and 70s are leading today’s economic deconstruction. And I agree that the university students who marinated themselves in social justice and the immediate gratification culture of that era are practicing their nihilism at leading educational and political institutions.
For evidence, we have “research universities” with gargantuan administrative budgets, corporate media outlets that appease anarchist violence, public employee labor unions that strangle their victims whenever possible, and a revolving door for corporate lobbyists and regulatory agency department heads. As a consolation, the rest of us get to drink at the other fountain.
However, the solution to the secular religion of government as God is not the supernatural religion of divinity as God. In fact, the secular types get their moral authority from the supernatural types: render unto Caesar, go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, blessed are the meek, love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, self-sacrifice for the common good.
For a summary of the New Left phenomenon of the 1960s, look no further than John Belushi in the 1973 National Lampoon production of Lemmings. Playing the role of emcee at the Woodchuck Music Festival of Peace, Love and Death, he declared, “If you’re not a black, homosexual, working class woman, you’re a oppressor, pig! And you deserve to die! Good people are still trying to unwind that legacy, but Belushi understood the contradictions in the moment. And he was a Boomer.
Eight is Enough
To offer valid solutions to problems, we must first understand their causes and learn to know and respect the goal we’d like to achieve. And for that, we must also understand its nature and the nature of the enemy. The enemy is force. The “public good” and the “people’s will” is force. Democratic socialism is force. Islamo green communism is force.
And “affordability” is a vague and relative term. But if we work toward the most efficient means of production and distribution, prices will take care of themselves and represent the best within us. What is that? Money without guns. Prices as information. The elegance of markets. The justice of earned profit. The Moneyball Method for becoming your own radical for capitalism.
Reason applied to reality. That is the supreme criterion of value in a civilized social setting. The solution is great idea: the ethics of independence and the socioeconomics of capitalism. In other words, Americanism.