Another thing about Reagan is that he was losing his mind from early alzheimers (while he was still president).

And yet conservatives hold him up as one of the greatest presidents of all time.

Were I really smart, I would know whether it was a better Idea to agree with you two or say "you must be kidding". I do like the sound of people saying I am smart, but I have solid evidence of me not being very smart when it really mattered.

I think the concept of generations is becoming subject to increasing scrutiny and examination, now that practically everything of interest is becoming documented and broadcast on a medium that itself is self-organizing.

Some people have prophesized that the concept of "generations" will become irrelevant in a post-consumerist future or at least a consumerist society that faces no challenges of self-created negative externalities such as the internet is. The information age will face another rebirth and contraction, that could as well continue indefinitely as long as there are things to talk about.

Anyway, just another opinion that needed expressing.

some of us are saying there was nothing wrong with the boomers. pe — Bitter Crank

I get that. Maybe, I’m confused because the animosity is so very vague and simplistic.

I did read once the idea that the 60s actually began in the 50s. Which is interesting and possibly quite true, and relates back to Joshs post about Dykan, Leary, etc.

Defining a generation is pretty difficult, I think. The 60s more so because it may have been the first generation to have been commodified, and also because it was so diverse. The radical students, for all their ideals, were a very chauvinistic bunch toward women, the Panthers were very gang orientated, the hippies were very apolitical.

but I have solid evidence of me not being very smart when it really mattered. — Bitter Crank

That just means you’re human. You’re smart in some of the key areas that I value. However, I will add the caveat that the kind of smarts I value don’t necessarily translate into economic success. Some smart people are very rich, and some smart people are homeless.

All that and more. "Decades" are significant only when they really do start at the moment of change. Prohibition began in 1920; the effects of prohibition marked the entire decade. The Great Depression started (more or less at the end of 1929, and lasted throughout the decade. WWII, on the other hand, engaged the US from 1942 to 1945--which isn't to say we had not noticed that there was a war in Europe. The Big Event of the 1960s was the introduction of the Birth Control Pill in 1960. BUT, it wasn't till 1965 The Supreme Court (in Griswold v. Connecticut) gave married couples the right to use birth control. So, clearly it took time for the oral contraceptive to become widely available and accepted -- maybe by mid-decade. The summer of love was 1967; Stonewall was 1969. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement was in 1964-65. JFK inaugurated the decade, but then was assassinated early on. Maybe NASA was a leitmotiv throughout the 1960s. Even the War in Vietnam doesn't square very well with the dates of the decade. What happened in 1970-1980? Nothing that I can remember that marked the whole decade.

I'm far closer to being homeless than to being even slightly rich.

Most of us are, and yet most people don’t understand that.

Thanks for proving my point

But also it goes without saying that my original comment was a generalization, like come the fuck on

White, Male) Baby Boomers benefited greatly from the New Deal and post-War economy and then fucked it up for younger generations, so they indeed suck[/quote

This is the only post of yours I could find actually making a point. My last point was about how difficult it is to define a generation. So what point am I proving? — Maw

You go on to list social accomplishments mostly made by Black Americans and women.

(White, Male) Baby Boomers benefited greatly from the New Deal and post-War economy and then fucked it up for younger generations, so they indeed suck — Maw

The first part of this may be true. But not only white baby boomers. A lot of people benefited, most people’s lives improved, maybe by different degrees.

But the second part sounds like someone lashing out at someone to blame. How did they fuck it up for younger generations? And do you mean all generations coming after?

"The greater experimentation and deviation of the 1960s doesn't make the 1950s a period of conformity. Maybe it was just a period of "normality"."

I was born in 1959. I remember the years between 1965 and 1968 as being like the scene in the Wizard of OZ, when everything changed from black and white to vivid technicolor. IT was dramatic, disturbing and incredibly exciting. My brother and I felt like we and our peers were from a different planet from our parents. The older generation that we knew were so profoundly out of the loop in terms of their ability to relate to our language a, music, fashion, that it was like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons, who never really make an appearance. Watch a youtube video of a rock group performing on Ed Sullivan or Dean Martin in the mid 60's and you'll see a bizarre scene of musicians wearing outfits that one could still see today as retro-hip fashion on a teenager. But in the audience you'll see a sea of 50's uniforms, suits and ties on the men and formal outfits on the women that could have come from the 30's or 40's. A complete disconnect, except among the kids in the audience. That kind of abrupt schism in a society is a rarity. Its not that each generation doesnt move away fro the previous. Its the extraordinary rapidity of the change that was so unique in the 1960's.

And at the heart of it wasn't just the desire to party or the effects of television and prosperity. It was something deeper, involving a shift in philosophical worldview. That's what gave the social revolution its power. The twilight zone could frighten people in 1960 because the idea of alternative realities was terrifying to a culture raised on reality as objective truth. By the late 1960's being a freak was a badge of honor and a desirable goal for the counterculture.

A scene in the documentary Berkley in the 60's encapsulated the change in worldview. The campus activism began in Berkley by earnest students who had cut their teeth on the civil rights movement, and represented a kind of continuity with the leftist and communist movements of the 30's. But somewhere around 1966 a much deeper, more visionary shift took place in their thinking, as hippies and political activists began to cross-pollinate. Student began shifting from chanting 'we shall overcome' to 'We all live in a Yellow submarine'. They had become psychedelicized, seeing their opposition to the old ways not just in the traditional political terms of resistance, but as an entirely new worldview with implications for every aspect of life, for the sexual to the spiritual to the social.
Certainly the majority of those who grew their hair long, took drugs or participated in Woodstock didn't buy into the most radically life-altering thinking that the leaders of the cultural movement did, but they were a part of it in some way.

What I miss most about that period between 1962 and 1972 is the incredible momentum of movement of thinking, making movies from 1959 seem like a different century from those of 1969. It spoiled me. I assumed that this rate of social change would persist in to my adulthood. instead what I encountered was a retrenchment, increasing cautiousness and endless regurgitating of themes that emerged in that era. It's been 50 years since that era, and yet
the derivative Zizek , Butler and the anti-hegemomic tropes of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter are all we have to show for it.

The first part of this may be true. But not only white baby boomers. A lot of people benefited, most people’s lives improved, maybe by different degrees. — Brett

I didn't say "only white baby boomers". I said they "greatly benefited".

But the second part sounds like someone lashing out at someone to blame. How did they fuck it up for younger generations? And do you mean all generations coming after? — Brett

I think this interview neatly answers that. Also check out Malcom Harris' book, Kids These Days.