We have posted many pro-Gen X articles here. In fact, I wrote many of them. You can see some examples here and here. A big part of our perspective, inherent in our argumentation, is that Gen X (and later generations) must fix the crap that the Boomers are leaving to us. So yes, you see lots of hate directed toward the Boomers, as was presented by Kurgan in yesterday’s post. So why do we rip on the Boomers so much? That is pretty easy to explain.
First, recognize that it is not only the Hard Right that has this view of the Baby Boomers. Even younger Leftists hate them. Just see this article from a few years ago, written by a tree-hugging, Obamacare-loving Leftist. Pretty much everyone, except Boomers themselves, has judged that crooked, perverse generation and found it lacking in every arena of life.
So let’s look at some specifics, as perceived by those of us from Gen X that find ourselves as part of the Hard Right. Realize that this is not an exhaustive list. It is only representative. This article could be much, much longer.
- They are narcissists. Of course, every generation has its share of folks with inflated egos. We are not talking about specific individuals here. We are talking about an entire generation. Are there exceptions? Sure, but they are few and far between. As a whole, there has never been a generation (at least in living memory) that’s had such a bloated view of itself. Maybe the Millennials come somewhere close, but they are not nearly as egotistical, and are lacking in some of the other negatives. Regardless, it only takes about 12 seconds for a Boomer to begin Boomering in any conversation, trying to direct the focus directly back to him or herself.
- They suffer from a messianic complex. Not only do they have a high view of themselves, they are sure that they exist to save the world. What are they saving it from? It depends on the Boomer, but you can be assured that they have the answer to whatever problem they are focusing on. Now, solving problems is not a bad thing, but when they try to force everyone to follow their grandiose plan, it becomes an issue. Especially since their plan is almost always totally stupid.
They are greedy and self-serving. It has long been a staple of Western society that parents care for their children, and hope to leave those children in a better situation than the parents experienced. Parents hoped to build something and leave it to their children, so the children would start further up the ladder. That mindset has passed down from generation to generation – until the Boomers. Yes, these morons are the ones you see sporting bumper stickers on expensive RVs that proclaim “We are spending our children’s inheritance.” Everyone else shakes their heads in shame, but Boomers actually view this as a positive thing. It is ridiculous. Not only do they have no concern for those children that follow after them, they actively work to make the world a worse place for the long term.- They are wastrels. Some of these characteristics overlap with others, but as a whole, Boomers offer little of value. They waste resources and leave future generations to solve all the problems they cause.
- They refuse to go away. All generations age. It is a fact of life. Most generations recognize when they are beginning to slow down and lose vitality. They realize that the younger generations have the energy and focus to move into leadership positions, so the elders step aside, hoping to enjoy their golden years by playing with grandchildren and offering advice when needed. Not the Boomers. As they age into decrepitude, their messianic narcissism leads them to distrust younger leaders, so the Boomers refuse to step aside. Therein, they cause businesses to stagnate, jobs to be lost, and quality to suffer. They are like the old athlete who does not realize he no longer has the ability to contribute, but has a contract that does not allow him to be cut from the team. So he drags the whole team down.
- They burned our house down. I do not think I have to explain this one in much detail. Just consider the following images. Image 2 is what Boomers contributed, by destroying what you see in Image 1.
We fully understand that life was not perfect in the 1950s, but there was some semblance of normalcy and decency. By the 1960s, the Boomers had turned it all on its head. What had once been proper was now rejected. Suddenly, evil was embraced by the mainstream, and then projected onto society. What had once been considered abnormal and degenerate was suddenly promoted. It is horrible. And Boomers did not grow up and realize the folly of their misspent youth. No, they doubled down on it, and even in old age continue to push this crap.
So yeah, we hate Boomers. Any good and decent person should. It is time for them to go.
One of the things that really frustrates me about Boomers as well is something I’ve heard described as “not preaching what they practice.”
They absorbed a lot of good habits from their parents, behaviors which lead to success. They were taught these things but probably never thought about them, or doing things another way. They have a tendency to do these things themselves, but not teach them, and not disagree with the opposite being taught. Thus their children end up lacking these good habits, as they were not taught, not clearly demonstrated, and the opposite was often taught instead.
My dad taught me none of the business skills he has, and never encouraged the kind of hard work he uses to succeed in his business. He taught me nothing of the family business, so I ended up doing something completely different because I wouldn’t know how to do it if I wanted to. I didn’t even want to, because he never encouraged me to want to do it, nor spoke of ever passing it on to me.
I asked him once what I should do with everything when he was gone, and he had clearly never thought of that, and had no real wishes. I suppose he doesn’t care what happens if he’s not there.
Anyway, thanks for articulating. You can tell not too many Boomers read here or you’d already be getting the kinds of reflexive defenses that Vox’s posts always get.
We actually have a few Boomers in our group, but they are the exceptions to the rule.
To hate makes you a man of what God?
The world in which those skills “worked” was destroyed by Boomers anyway. They would never be able to compete with Juan and Abdul for jobs either.
Yes, boomers really are that bad. My parents are prototypical boomers. A few years ago my dad left my mother because he thought he deserved a hot young piece of ass. He made such a fool of himself at work over some young tart that played him like a fool that he lost his very good job and was essentially blackballed from the medical industry in our state. Not one for self-reflection, he ‘met’ a Filipino girl 30 years younger than him on Facebook, imported her and her daughter to the states, and married her. They’re ‘in love’. Both him and my mother are literally incapable of admitting to any fault or blame for anything at all ever. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a fact. Both my mother and father are now in the process of squandering any economic gains they made throughout there lives and passing on the wreckage of their lives to their children. One thing I will say about boomers over millennials; at least they had children. I have been reading these Gen-X articles with astonishment. I can’t believe how accurately they describe me. I’m on the younger end (40), and since I’ve been redpilled I walk around society now like a wrecking ball. Everyone is terrified of me. People fear me both physically and psychologically. I haven’t lost an argument in years. And I’m really not bragging. It’s a fact that my wife has come to acknowledge. I actually want men to stand up to me. I go around constantly challenging the masculinity of millennials in an effort to force them to rise to the occasion. I’m having some limited success. I think my younger brother is finally coming around…
Hey, glad you are finding the GenX articles helpful. I did go through a period where I had LOTS of those going up. I have been focused on some other things lately, but am sure I will return to that topic in the future.
while it’s an excellent idea to identify the ills in society which have to be addressed, I’m not sure how profitable it is to create a circus of “whose fault is it”?
This discussion has “been around a while”. Socrates refers to the wild youth of his day (and I’m sure the youth had some good comebacks)
The Israelites dealt with it – Ezekiel 18:2 What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?
If all we did was point out who did what, I would agree. At the same time, to fix a problem, it helps to know what caused the problem. WE aren’t just sitting around whining about Boomers. We are actively working to fix the mess they created.
> This discussion has “been around a while”. Socrates refers to the wild youth of his day …
There’s a popular quote that claims to be from Socrates along those lines, but there’s no evidence that Socrates actually said it. The nearest thing is a line in Aristophanes’ play Clouds, which is actually put into the mouths of Socrates’ opponents, accusing him of being the person corrupting the youth.
It should also be noted that the Clouds was first performed 19 years before the “Athenian Golden Age” transitioned into what, for lack of a better term, we’ll call the “Athenian not-so-Golden Age”, so perhaps his opponents where correct. Or perhaps his attackers where their societies equivalent of the Baby Boomers, and it was just the children’s’ bad luck that the bill came due during their lives rather than the lives of the people who actually caused the mess.
There has probably always been a little bit of conflict between generations, but current levels seem to be unusually high, and the very small number verifiable historic quotes that approach it seem to come from societies that where just at the cusp (within a few decades) of a major social transition for the worse.
5
Read “The Fourth Turning”. They were in their position in the “saeculum”
In one sense it is deserved, in another, not so much.
They were the first ones subjected to a pulled punches war in Vietnam. Those that weren’t rich enough to go to college and get deferrals. You had the governnment and Dr. Spock (no, not Mr. Spock) telling their parents how to raise them. JFK, RFK, and MLK were assassinated while they watched. The Birth Conntrol Pill was invented, and the space race to the moon.
If you say they should have been able to rise above it, then I would ask why not demand the same of Gen X, and the Millenials?
It should have been an “Awakening” – that is what the 4th Turning indicated where they become “prophets”. Instead it was an anti-awakening and they became false-prophets.
These generational cycles also approximate the Kondratieff cycles of boom and bust, debt and default. We’ve been postponing the bust since before 2000, especially 2008 where it took negative interest rates, but we still have people getting sudent loans.
So this entire cycle, and I will begin with “the greatest generation” because they didn’t do the right thing, ended up selling their souls, abandoning God, and their senses.
The question is not whom to blame in the past – it is what should we do now.
You might want to read through the other articles on this topic of generations. The book “The Fourth Turning” was covered in detail, and most of your concerns have been discussed in those.
4.5
I turned 18 in 1971 so I am an evil boomers.the problem is that I had no political power in the 50s and 60s but that is okay. My shoulders are broad enough to take the blame for the generations both before and after so that neither will ever have to take responsibility for their own actions.
Of course. It is all about you.
your condescending comments make me think you are young.but either way i think youre a little prick.
And why do you think I give a tinker’s damn what you think? pissant
Your Boomer parents should be proud. You are no Christian
My parents were not boomers. Nice try.
I am sorry that you are so tightly wound that an article from years ago has your depends all wadded up.
Maybe you can get your nurse to come change it for you, boomer.
Your generation is so noxious that even Millennials and Generation Z would -love- to get the votes in congress to nuke your medicare and social security so we can Logan’s Run you sooner rather than later. Think of it as reparations for the world you narcissists stuck us with.
You had the power to turn it around in the 70s and 80s, 90s, and even 00s. because your generation was so large and wouldn’t shut up and go away, but you didn’t do shit with it except run up the country’s credit card and now we’re stuck with the bill.
lie in it ,you gen xers are a bunch of race traitor losers willing to give your country away because generations before you ,were mean to the indians and blacks.you deserve everything you get.unfortunately a race war is all thats left america blew it with the equal rights act of 1965.when the colored hordes started showing up.and are still showing up.i suggest investing in a good automatic weapon or you will be caught with your balls in the wind.
You addressed that comment to gen-x. Are you so ridiculously stupid to not understand that skinheads and neo-Nazis were mainly gen-x? The boomers love the coloreds and the younger generations married them having colored babies with pink hair.
“My shoulders are broad enough to take the blame for…”
What a clueless, navel-gazing Boomer reaction.
“…the generations both before and after so that neither will ever have to take responsibility for their own actions.”
Aww. Isn’t this precisely what your generation used to call “laying a guilt trip”?
3.5
Identifying generational culpability is crass and frankly low IQ. Each generation is subject to the conditions they are born into and granting them agency, in respect to having sufficient power to combat the machinations of the Cathedral is either naive, disingenuous or dumb. What is it, the Jews or the boomers, make up your minds.
I can’t speak for American boomers, but my experience of English boomers is that by and large you can divide them into 2 groups: middle-class and working-class, the later outnumbering the former. Working-class boomers were by today’s standards woke. They rejected immigration, were patriotic, had traditional values and, as today, were routinely vilified by the sections of the middle-class. Hippies were held in contempt by the working-class for being effette and degenerate. And it took many years of state and educational intervention before liberal degeneracy and inflected them too. Deracination was routinely pushed back on until the weight of it overwhelmed them.
What all boomers and indeed the ‘greatest generation’, did eventually succumb to was the progress meme–that progress was inevitable and somehow things will all work out for the good. This if course was in an age when red-pills were not freely available. There was no internet back then to cross reference mainstream media propaganda.
What divided the classes were the same as what divides them today, the condescending arrogance of the enlightened middle-class cosmopolitans towards their lessers. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. False dichotomies are no less so just because you consider yourselves based.
“Working-class boomers were by today’s standards woke. They rejected immigration, were patriotic, had traditional values”
Please sit down before you hurt yourself.
well think about it ,todays woke =not racist,not homophobic,not xenophobic,hate trump….so back then the norm was patriotic ,traditional familys,didnt want non whites screwing up america………so his analogy makes perfect sense but your dried up feeble little liberal mind couldnt understand what he meant so you resort to ridiculing him.its a great analogy…..i myself wont say “woke” because its a not a word other than meaning past tense of waking up….its more liberal fabricated words like “racism”look how much trouble that word caused.
Gen X here, and formerly a Reagan era student conservative activist. Over the years my closest friends have been conservative, working class Boomers, and I’ve been acquainted with many more. Even the most right-wing of these only rejected illegal immigration, not immigration per se. The latter position would have been shockingly radical and “racist” in their eyes. Patriotic meant cheerleading neocon foreign wars (the other half of invade the world/invite the world). As for traditional values, they tended to be rather soft on feminism – smart enough to eschew screaming, lesbian NOW types, but not smart enough to resist putting women in leadership (particularly in churches).
It manifested differently in Great Britain, especially within the English working-class, as I outlined. That’s the problem with the Alt-Right or WN, it doesn’t take into account the differences between various nations involved in it very well. In the UK, as I stated, boomers were the most vocal of ALL generations, past or present, in opposing immigration (we didn’t have much of a problem with illegal immigration back then). In the 50s and 60s, when boomers were coming of age, middle-class communists were at the very beginning of their long march through the institutions, whereas the working-class were very vocal and actively engaged in opposing mass immigration. There is plenty of documentation on this. Any study of Enoch Powell and the overwhelming support for his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech during the late 60s will pretty much put paid to the lie that the working-class, and good deal of the middle-class, boomers were anything other than traditionalist and nationalist.
I only posted because I first noticed the trend to boomer bash some years ago on a BBC Newsnight panel and have seen it increase alarmingly. It very much fits in with the trend for the establishment to balkanize and control by D&C methods, but they’ve taken it to another level in the past 10 years. Why stop at religion, gender or race when you can do generational and any other number of oppressed and oppressor divisions. What irks me is the so called Right adopting this meme. Though it doesn’t surprise me at all, the Right seems riven with bad actors.
I didn’t know gas lighting came in economy-sized packages.
First, an aside: we do not identify as Alt-Right nor WN here. We call ourselves the Hard Right.
To address your comments, to be honest, how Boomers in Britain did things is not something we have considered much, but a quick look online shows the following:
Britain “gears up” for Boomers, wherein they spend all their money on themselves, ignoring any need their children might have.
Or this gem, which mirrors the USA Boomers perfectly.
I am not seeing how they are much different than the Boomers on our shores.
Alt-Right, Hard-Right, you can still read and grasp meaning, but you, like others here choose not to. As I wrote previously, you filter information according to your own prejudices, without curiosity or willingness to test your conclusions.
I wrote a comment in support of English working-class boomers and all you could offer to refute me was a link behind a Financial Times paywall. Is that some sort of condescending pat on the cloth cap or are you so ignorant as to not understand that the FT is a middle-class broadsheet? And your next link to a BBC article was even more absurd. Do you not grasp the irony in calling yourselves Hard-Right yet referencing a BBC article, which is progressive liberal and essentially THE British state propaganda mouthpiece? It’s tantamount to referencing a Guardian article.
If you had wrote no further than that you don’t know anything about Britain, which is apparently so, I would be less scathing, but you guys all double down like typical NPCs. I guess it’s easier to completely dismiss native white plebs and larp as patricians than to actually address the arguments. Yep, carry on blaming the boomers for your problems. Weak.
Pray for me.
Shut the hell up. You are obviously just another Boomer shill. Deal with facts. Your generation sucks. Deal with it.
Instead of this smart arse, NPC tier, remark, why don’t you offer some sort of refutation? I posted in good faith and expect the same in return.
“Identifying generational culpability is crass and frankly low IQ”
Leads with an attack. Is confused when volley is returned. You’re too short for this ride.
OK, granted, but it was a response to the rhetoric of the essay. What about the rest of the content of my comment? Expand on this:
“Working-class boomers were by today’s standards woke. They rejected immigration, were patriotic, had traditional values”
Please sit down before you hurt yourself.
“What about the rest of the content of my comment?”
When the argument starts out as an invalid syllogism, do you bother with the rest of it?
When the first bite is bitter and spoiled, do you keep eating?
First it’s a meh, then it’s an attack and now it’s an invalid syllogism, next it’ll be xyz. You managed to get past that in your first reply and actually quote something you disagreed with, but no follow up suggests no actual argument. Is this just a feelz echo chamber for you?
“but no follow up suggests no actual argument.”
Let me type this slower and in caps.
WOULD YOU KEEP EATING SOMETHING SPOILED?
I’m seeing a consistent theme in Boomer responses to generational criticism from younger people, both here and in other forums. They act as if we don’t know them. They try to convince us that we’re callow and unobservant. But many of us have gone gray observing the Boomers. We’ve known them all our days, close to a half century now for the oldest Xers. Depending on individual circumstances, we were raised by them, had them as older siblings, neighbors, coworkers, supervisors, etc. We watched how they lived their lives. We listened, willingly or not, as they talked endlessly about themselves and their generation. So when they try to gaslight us, to self-exculpatingly correct us on “how it was really was,” we don’t believe them. The genuinely “based” Boomer is one who realizes how utterly most of his cohort has forfeited the role of wise eldership, and therefore resists the impulse to get on his high horse.
Yes, I sometimes have to remind myself that the old people I see today are not the same old people I knew as a youngster. The old folks ain’t like my grandparents.
I remind my Boomer peers that Woodstock was NOT a cultural high point. Damned near ALL of the ills we have with culture and government today are the result of what Boomers wanted, championed, voted for and embraced.
Take a look at the last election cycle with the Democrats; Boomer Hillary was a piss poor candidate, but next up was Boomer Bernie Sanders, however, the Boomer leadership in the democrat party still WON’T STEP ASIDE. Hillary and her Boomer Buddies won’t let go. They still think they are the solution to the world’s ills, but they only make the situation worse both here and abroad. The end result will be an overthrow of boomer democrats to be replaced by extremest candidates THAT HATE THEIR GUTS. Republicans don’t have any reasonable candidates as well, so the next election will be a delight to behold. Once the boomers are thrown out the door, the asylum they built will be a delightful chaotic mess.
Good example with Hillary and Bernie. Now they are floating Biden for 2020.
My parents are boomers. Me and my two brothers were left to our own devices from the start. They pursued careers, and later house on a lake and boats while giving no guidance or help with school or careers of our own. Our happiest memories are times spent with grandparents. We accepted it, joking about how we would be the kids left waiting on the steps of school after some type of event. The thing that shocked us and turned us off the most was how little interest they had in their own grandchildren, and now great grand children. Cats in the cradle was prophetic.
Sadly, your experience is not unique, but common. Glad you have succeeded in spite of them.
Welcome, Jim. Gen-X has excelled in building families out of twisted materials discarded by Boomers.
Hope you stick around.
That is our task. We do not get to choose what is given to us, but we do get to decide what to do with it. We can give up, or we can make things better. We choose to work for good.
Boomers love to talk about themselves and boomers love to be talked about, but we aren’t supposed to say anything bad about them.
I think that is their mantra, right after never trust anyone over 80.
“They are narcissists. / They suffer from a messianic complex.”
These traits, in combination, made for a uniquely ugly kind of corporate management and a toxic, demoralizing office environment. The 1999 movie “Office Space,” a cult classic among Gen Xers, captures this almost perfectly with the smarmy, passive-aggressive Bill Lumbergh lording it over employee Peter Gibbons. Boomers didn’t invent arrogant micromanaging, but they did invest it with a despicably fake chumminess. They also delighted in insulting the intelligence of their subordinates with weird, time-wasting meetings and training sessions where jackass behavior was modeled and expected. Employees refusing to play along and make fools of themselves were viewed as insubordinate. You could lose your job over it.
Although I agree that boomers fucked things up, it helps to understand the culture they were raised in (and consequently, how the “greatest generation” ha-ha are at least partially responsible for how they ended up).
The average person growing up in the 1930s didn’t have time to reflect on the values he was being raised with. He had to basically, work his ass off to survive. Then he had to fight his ass off in WW2. Consequently, when he had kids, his method of raising them was to tell them what to do by giving them a bunch of rules. When questioned about why there were these rules, he would give lame-ass reasons such as “Because I said so.” or “That’s just the way things are done.”
On top of this, the “normal” life seemed boring (i.e. having a wife and kids, working a regular, stable job with your only interest outside of those things being sports). This is because, to be frank, the boomers had nothing to compare it to. The alternatives of “free love”, “drugs” and so forth, didn’t seem to have all of the drawbacks to them that we see today. The only result they saw of banging Susie on the weekend was they got to have fun. The problems of single mothers, STDs, kids without families, and so forth, weren’t obvious back in the 1960s or even 1970s.
To add to this mix, most families in the 1950s weren’t what you see on Leave it to Beaver (I saw the actor that played Eddie Haskell say that there was no Cleaver family in the 50s). The husband could be highly abusive, or totally absent (from working a lot). Most families were dysfunctional to one degree or other. This may or may not be better than the alternative you see today, (it would be difficult to do an actual unbiased comparison), but the boomers do have a point when they bring up that husbands could be very abusive. This in fact, happened to my grandmother whose husband skipped town when things got intolerable for him.
If you want to get a good sense of what growing up in the 1950s and 60s was like, I recommend the YouTube channel by David Hoffman that you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/allinaday/videos
The idea that boomers grew up in an any way unique situation from what countless generations experienced re: family dynamics and work hours is ridiculous.
That boomers persist in attempting to perpetuate this fantasy is evidence of their perpetual fog self delusion.
Boomers naively mistook their forebear’s lack of perfection in adhering to their own morals as bankruptcy of their ethos while boomers had no understanding of the ethos.
Boomers: it’s just dumb and pampered all the way down.
JACIII is correct and the boomer apologist can stop. if ya wanna get Sci-Fi and weird about it, the Boomer Gesserit witch must leave.