I think the idea that there was ever a hippie generation is and has always been a bit of a myth. Certainly there were flower children and what have you roaming around in the 60's and 70's, and if you asked them they were probably on the left of the political aisle, but they weren't necessarily the same people as those in the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, or the labor movement. It was a lot of hedonism and teenage rebellion perpetuated by goofballs whose actions didn't always live up to their values, which is why there's often the pithy observation made about the hippies growing up to become Reaganites. I don't mean to malign every hippie here or say none of them were really part of anything good, mind you, but it's not exactly a 1:1 correlation is all.
Ironically, I think Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were probably the worst things to happen to the American left. They both have that super-charisma that helped them make Reagan's neoliberalization of the economy and GW Bush's War on Terror palatable to liberals, which I think accounts for what you're talking about here. I'm certainly not letting conservatives off the hook here, mind you, as they were full-throatedly in favor of all that until it started coming from Democrats. I think it's true those things are no longer their major priorities, having shifted mostly toward culture war bugaboos and an increasingly Wahhabist level of social control over states where they have supermajorities, but I don't think they'd end the War on Terror in any meaningful way and they would certainly not reduce the influence corporations have on government (unless they perceive them as "woke").
Boomers have, collectively mind you, been slow to grasp the vast changes that have occurred in the last twenty years or so, as many of them have been inured from those changes by already owning homes and having secure jobs for long periods. Even those who have suffered as a result have often seen those failings as personal rather than societal. As such, new political realities, which are Byzantine in the best of cases, are often lost on them.
It's been six months, and I have thoughts on this!
I started thinking today about the question of how much culpability Boomers have for the sorry state of the country. It is easy to say that they basically took the greatest prosperity the world had ever seen and squandered it all, kicking the ladder they climbed to success out from under their children. But is that true? Are they really responsible? Well, it's complicated.
I think to some degree Boomers were sold a false bill of goods. They inherited that prosperity and the society built by the post-war world and ceded to them by their parents' generation, and given the continuous rise for so long, it was probably easy to believe it would last forever. When the cracks began to show in the 70's, it was probably easy for them to believe it was the fault of the mean old tax man stealing from the poor old entrepreneurs and Joe Public to boot, so the problem must be funding public services. Sure, they collectively fell for that, despite its logical flaws, but it wasn't their plan. It was supervillains like George Bush and his ilk who orchestrated that. And hey, it's also true that there was initially a boost of money, even if, looking closely, it was built on con artistry and fraud. If you believe the lead poisoning theory, Boomers were also at a disadvantage in figuring this out because their collective IQs were lowered, and their impulsiveness and selfishness were increased.
So am I letting Boomers off the hook here? Well, not entirely. Up to a point, I concede they were victims of an empire-building strategy unlike anything the world had ever seen and nearly anyone not actively trying to put it all together would have been fooled. I give great credit to the Boomers who weren't conned and pointedly respect them. However, where I do point the finger squarely at the Boomer generation is here and now, where the power is very much all theirs, and their children and grandchildren have been screaming to them for decades now that things are very wrong, and you can't just become an executive vice president by starting as the janitor and having a firm handshake. They have heard this and for the most part laughed, considering these generations weak and coddled and decadent, all the while ignoring the fact that homes cost many times more than they used to, and education not only costs much more, but also guarantees far less. Perhaps they couldn't have prevented the neoliberalizing of the economy and the expansion of the national security state, but they could join us in fighting it now, and they choose not to. That is pretty damning.
Great minds think alike! Maybe I was just naïve, but this Obsequious Hippie phenomenon has really put a drubbing on my already low opinion of people haha
This is interesting! New to me as well, though it does remind me of Strauss-Howe theory, even the Hindu Yugas a bit. Looking forward to reading more; thanks for the link!
WTF the HINDU YUGAS!!! Bro... - thats a big jump... but sure ... the underling truths of the universe are that energy flows back and forward. What you resist you will eventually become.
The only way out is the way of no way. That way you wont get sucked into the trap.
Precisely haha! One big jump for me, one small step for the universe. As above, so below; as within, so without... fractal holographic universe, and all that ;)
I think the idea that there was ever a hippie generation is and has always been a bit of a myth. Certainly there were flower children and what have you roaming around in the 60's and 70's, and if you asked them they were probably on the left of the political aisle, but they weren't necessarily the same people as those in the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, or the labor movement. It was a lot of hedonism and teenage rebellion perpetuated by goofballs whose actions didn't always live up to their values, which is why there's often the pithy observation made about the hippies growing up to become Reaganites. I don't mean to malign every hippie here or say none of them were really part of anything good, mind you, but it's not exactly a 1:1 correlation is all.
Ironically, I think Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were probably the worst things to happen to the American left. They both have that super-charisma that helped them make Reagan's neoliberalization of the economy and GW Bush's War on Terror palatable to liberals, which I think accounts for what you're talking about here. I'm certainly not letting conservatives off the hook here, mind you, as they were full-throatedly in favor of all that until it started coming from Democrats. I think it's true those things are no longer their major priorities, having shifted mostly toward culture war bugaboos and an increasingly Wahhabist level of social control over states where they have supermajorities, but I don't think they'd end the War on Terror in any meaningful way and they would certainly not reduce the influence corporations have on government (unless they perceive them as "woke").
Boomers have, collectively mind you, been slow to grasp the vast changes that have occurred in the last twenty years or so, as many of them have been inured from those changes by already owning homes and having secure jobs for long periods. Even those who have suffered as a result have often seen those failings as personal rather than societal. As such, new political realities, which are Byzantine in the best of cases, are often lost on them.
Oh, there was a Hippie Generation alright. I know people who experienced it... and lived to tell the tale!
It's been six months, and I have thoughts on this!
I started thinking today about the question of how much culpability Boomers have for the sorry state of the country. It is easy to say that they basically took the greatest prosperity the world had ever seen and squandered it all, kicking the ladder they climbed to success out from under their children. But is that true? Are they really responsible? Well, it's complicated.
I think to some degree Boomers were sold a false bill of goods. They inherited that prosperity and the society built by the post-war world and ceded to them by their parents' generation, and given the continuous rise for so long, it was probably easy to believe it would last forever. When the cracks began to show in the 70's, it was probably easy for them to believe it was the fault of the mean old tax man stealing from the poor old entrepreneurs and Joe Public to boot, so the problem must be funding public services. Sure, they collectively fell for that, despite its logical flaws, but it wasn't their plan. It was supervillains like George Bush and his ilk who orchestrated that. And hey, it's also true that there was initially a boost of money, even if, looking closely, it was built on con artistry and fraud. If you believe the lead poisoning theory, Boomers were also at a disadvantage in figuring this out because their collective IQs were lowered, and their impulsiveness and selfishness were increased.
So am I letting Boomers off the hook here? Well, not entirely. Up to a point, I concede they were victims of an empire-building strategy unlike anything the world had ever seen and nearly anyone not actively trying to put it all together would have been fooled. I give great credit to the Boomers who weren't conned and pointedly respect them. However, where I do point the finger squarely at the Boomer generation is here and now, where the power is very much all theirs, and their children and grandchildren have been screaming to them for decades now that things are very wrong, and you can't just become an executive vice president by starting as the janitor and having a firm handshake. They have heard this and for the most part laughed, considering these generations weak and coddled and decadent, all the while ignoring the fact that homes cost many times more than they used to, and education not only costs much more, but also guarantees far less. Perhaps they couldn't have prevented the neoliberalizing of the economy and the expansion of the national security state, but they could join us in fighting it now, and they choose not to. That is pretty damning.
Yep, too right! I made a similar observation some time ago...
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnbotica/p/human-rights-activists-and-anti-war?utm_source=direct&r=tz7cx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Great minds think alike! Maybe I was just naïve, but this Obsequious Hippie phenomenon has really put a drubbing on my already low opinion of people haha
I just learned about this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclical_theory_(United_States_history)
This is interesting! New to me as well, though it does remind me of Strauss-Howe theory, even the Hindu Yugas a bit. Looking forward to reading more; thanks for the link!
WTF the HINDU YUGAS!!! Bro... - thats a big jump... but sure ... the underling truths of the universe are that energy flows back and forward. What you resist you will eventually become.
The only way out is the way of no way. That way you wont get sucked into the trap.
But then the trap is a fun game.
The way of no way is boring.
Precisely haha! One big jump for me, one small step for the universe. As above, so below; as within, so without... fractal holographic universe, and all that ;)
King participated in satanic ritual abuse. Pizzagate. Stay tuned...