Baby Boomers and the 9/11 Generation
In the Weekly Standard William Kristol describes the Baby Boomers (generally accepted in the U.S. as those born between 1946 and 1964) as the Not-So-Great Generation.
Towards the end he compares the Boomers with the 9/11 Generation (excerpted below).
Read the following and then vote on whether you agree with his description or not.
Quote:
America's hopes for the future rest mostly with the 9/11 generation. Despite their unfortunate propensity so far to vote Democratic, these young men and women will, I believe, turn out to be far more impressive than we boomers who begat them. It would of course be a fitting fate, after all the soaring rhetoric about the boomers, if they turned out to be basically a parenthesis. They may go down in history as occupying space between the generation that won World War II and presided over a relatively successful second-half of the twentieth century, and the 9/11 generation that will deal with the threats the boomers neglected during that quintessential boomer decade, the '90s. It is the 9/11 generation that will have to construct and maintain a new American century. The best we boomers can do now is help them get started on the job. Meanwhile, the experience of the boomers should hearten us: America is such a great country that it will end up surviving even a not-so-great generation.
I ticked uncertain, because
I am not at all sure that this is a 'useful' exercise. It smacks a bit of popular culture rather than serious social analysis. I have some sympathy for some of the views in the piece, but then consider that the boomers were the folks who fought the Vietnam War, brought us the internet, globalisation, equality of the sexes, saw off the end of the Cold War (which, arguably the same folks who saw off Hitler brought us), finished off segregation and the eradication of several quite bad diseases.
I have to conclude that it is not their 'fault' that they were never given quite the same opportunity to 'shine' as their parents because the tyrants (Hitler et al) had already departed.
Ultimately, I think that it is my view that every generation has its faults, it appears callow to pick at those before us, and we should not be surprised if those who follow us do the same thing.
Regards,
Mark
I Have One Word Which Proves Kristol's Assessment of Boomers
Disco
Seriously, though, seriously, I know Bill, like him, and often agree with him. But as I finish the third scrub on my book chapter dealing with the decision to intervene in Iraq in which he plays a significant role, I am forced to ask: How does he have ANY credibility left after being so patently wrong so many times on THAT issue?