The baby boomers and the price of personal freedom

The Guardian ^ | 22 August 2010 | Will Hutton

[Publius804]

The baby boomers. Born between 1945 and 1955, they are busy ignoring the biblical calculus that a man's span is three score years and 10. Having enjoyed a life of free love, free school meals, free universities, defined benefit pensions, mainly full employment and a 40-year-long housing boom, they are bequeathing their children sky-high house prices, debts and shrivelled pensions. A 60-year-old in 2010 is a very privileged and lucky human being – an object of resentment as much as admiration.

I'm at the heart of all of it – guilty as charged. Born 21 May 1950, I'm the quintessential baby boomer. And for the last three months, while most of the rest of the world has been getting on with their lives, I've been wrestling with the implications of my new seniority. Sixty may or may not be the new 50, but it is a significant milestone; I've been on the planet for an awfully long time. What sense can I make of the decades I have lived through? To what extent am I and my generation unfairly lucky? What is the best way to live my life from now on?

To a degree I have some sympathy with the resentment, marshalled in a cluster of recent anti-boomer books. Individually, we may not have been the authors of today's flux, uncertainty and lack of social and cultural anchors, but we were at the scene of the crime. The cultural, economic and institutional cornerstones of British life have been shattered – and the way our love of fun was channelled is undoubtedly part of the story. The upside is that some of the old stifling prohibitions and prejudices have gone, hopefully for ever.

[ansel12]

A whole generation of radicals who started out by protesting and ending the Vietnam war.

Look at the chart in post 68, and then remember that a few months after that Gallup polling at the bottom, with the war going on and the draft going as well and everyone sick of the war that the "greatest generation" seemed incapable of running, the boomers voted for Richard M. Nixon, not the democrat.

The boomers defeated the enemy in combat, but the adults were so incredibly screwed up in those days that they were just incompetent at running the war, the nation, or anything else much in the government and quasi government institutions and the already left wing, mass media.

The boomers produced almost 9.5 million veterans, and they are still fighting today as they help fill the ranks, including all leadership 46 years or older. Vietnam was mostly a volunteer war, unlike WWII which was overwhelmingly draftees, the Marines, Navy and Coast Guard total was approaching two million draftees just for them.

[ansel12]

Yes some grew conserative sine 1965,

How left could they have been in 1965, the oldest boomer on the planet was only 19, the youngest was 1 year old.

Something that you guys do, is skip a generation, in 1960, there was a generation that ranged in age of 15 to 35 and they weren't the boomers, welcome to the Beatles, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and almost everyone else from the 1960s that you think is a boomer, they weren't.

[Luke21]

It is 46 to 64, but lately all kinds of people are trying to redefine it, and to make Obama a member of another generation.

[Vanders9]

I believe that there is some dispute amongst authorities as to what years constitute the “baby boomers” group. I was born in 1961 - the majority would say that was the back end of the baby boom, but there are some who say it was not and that I am...whatever the next generation was called - Gen X?? I don’t know.

[Vanders9]

Oh that’s easy. It’s traditional for every generation to blame all of its problems on the preceding one. Our generation did it too :)

[qam1]

A day late

Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.

[Polybius]

Breaking up any generation into marketing niches and such does not change the category, it is a little late for the pop culture and marketing people to change the definition of a generation that ended 46 years ago.... Your point is valid for many things, sales and marketing like that kind of niche work, but it does not change the official generational definition which the “baby boomers” that was the period from 1946 to 1964.... The first and last of no generation, has the exact same cultural experiences or memories, no two people of the same exact age have the same experiences, if you want separation then look at a variety of people of the same age, but in totally different lives.... You cannot start a discussion about the boomer generation and then after a while change the definition. The formal definition is still 1946-1964. What do we call the “silent generation” now, the ones born 1925-1945, after discussing and measuring them for many decades, do we suddenly decide that we meant a 8 year piece of them? The boomer generation has always been defined by dates, not who the current pop stars were, or what movies were showing. .... ansel12

You seem to be fixated in the concept of “official” and “formal”. Who, exactly, determined that the phrase "Baby Boomer Generation" was “official” and is “formal”? A government bureaucrat? A pop culture author? The genealogist? The biologist? The census statistician analyzing the duration of a period of increased reproduction affecting a population density spike on a graph? The sociologist analyzing a cultural cohort?

You are treating the pop culture use of the term “Generation” as if the term had a monolithic meaning across scientific disciplines and government usage. It does not. You are treating the term “Baby Boom Generation” as if it had an “official” origin with a specific meaning. Historically, it did not.

The term “Baby Boom Generation” that you are so staunchly defending in the name of “formal and “official” was a had its origin in a pop culture book published in 1980, “Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation” written by the author Landon Jones who had no “formal” nor “official” standing. He was merely a journalist.

In the scientific community, the term “generation” is used to mean either a “familial generation” or a “cultural generation”.

The term “familial generation” is defined as “the average time between a mother's first offspring and her daughter's first offspring”. In the Western societies, that number is now in the upper 20’s but each country has its own number and that number changes from year to year. When comparing, say, Sweden and Angola, the difference in the definition of “familial generation” is huge.

The term “cultural generation” is defined by sociologists as “cohorts of people who were born in the same date range and share similar cultural experience”. To avoid the mess caused by the indiscriminate use of the lay term “generation” as in "Generation (Fill in the Blank)", sociologists prefer to use the scientific term “cultural cohort”.

Census Bureau statisticians do not care about either biology nor the behavioral sciences. They only care about spikes, dips and plateaus on their graphs. They do not refer to “generations”.

The dates that Landon Jones arbitrarily chose, in his pop culture book "Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation”, to coin the term “The Baby Boom Generation” were not based on sociological study of cultural cohorts. He merely chose to pick the low hanging fruit of the well know population density spike documented by the U.S. Census Bureau or, as it was frequently called, “the pig moving through the python” in the U.S. population density.

The Census Bureau is not involved in defining cultural generations. Landon Jones chose the arbitrary dates for his book. Landon Jones chose 1946 as the start of his so-called “generation although the “Birth Boom” clearly started earlier. Although births dropped sharply prior to 1950 and again dropped sharply the late 1950’s with invention of The Pill, Landon arbitrarily chose to use 1964 as his endpoint for his so-called “generation” because, at that point, the rate of births per 1000 population had crossed below Landon’s original arbitrary starting point.

After Landon Jones' book was published, the term “Baby Boom Generation” entered the pop culture language.

There is absolutely nothing “official” or “formal” or scientific or even logical about the term.

Yet, you insist on treating the pop culture term “The Baby Boom Generation” as having “official” government meaning (it does not) and treating it as if had a “formal’ scientific meaning (it does not).

This British author writing for a British newspaper is using an accepted British meaning for a specific British cultural cohort, as defined in Britain, and you are calling him “an idiot” because the term he uses does not match your pop culture understanding of the “official” meaning of “Baby Boomer”.

The term “Baby Boom Generation”, as coined by Landon Jones, and the date range arbitrarily chosen by Landon Jones has absolutely “official” or “formal” recognition in either Government or scientific circles.

The most definitive formal research study of U.S. cultural cohorts was conducted in 1985 by Schuman and Scott. Using the formal definition of a cultural cohort “people who were born in the same date range and share similar cultural experience”, Schuman and Scott set out to document which birth cohorts actually constituted distinct cultural cohorts. The names are not “formal” nor “official”. They are simply used descriptively:

1912 -1921: Struggled through the Depression Cohort – Shaped by the Great Depression, poverty and unemployment. Characteristics: Strive for security and comfort. Risk averse.

1922 – 1927: Old Enough to Fight World War II Cohort – Went to war. Won. Returned. Characteristics: Patriotism. Sacrifice. Team players.

1928 – 1945: Too Young to Fight World War II Cohort – Too young to fight in World War II. Influenced by post-war prosperity and the Cold War. Characteristics: “Leave It to Beaver” values. Conformity.

1946 to 1954: Old Enough to Fight in Vietnam Cohort -- Old enough to actively participate in the Vietnam War and its political unrest and the drugs and sexual revolution of the 1960’s. Characteristics: Individualistic, rebellious. (The so-called "Baby Boomer" individuals that Landon Jones actually culturally described in his book. Culturally, they are quite different from the next cultutal cohort.)

1955 – 1965: Too Young to Fight in Vietnam Cohort – “Generation Jones”. Came of age with Watergate, the later Cold War, the Oil Embargo, the raging inflation of Jimmy Cater and the Ronald Reagan recovery of America. Characteristics: Far more conservative, pragmatic and cynical than the previous cohort. (Markedly different from the previous cohort, Lando Jones pop culture book non withstanding.)

1965 – 1980: Generation X Cohort -- End of Cold War and Fall of Berlin Wall. Many with single and divorced parents. Gulf War. Characteristics: Seek emotional security. Informal. Entrepreneurial

1981 – 2001: Generation Y “Millennial Generation Cohort” – Tech savvy, heightened fears, used to constant change

[Polybius]

I fall into that age range, and never felt like a Boomer or a Gen Xer. This is the first I’ve seen of Gen Jones, I’ll be reading those links shortly. Thanks.

That is because some people insist on using the extremely arbitrary chronological criteria set forth in a particular pop culture book published in 1980 to define our common cultural cohort.

See my Post 127 that describes the scientific study of U.S. cultural cohorts by Schuman and Scott.

The work of Schuman and Scott studied which birth years shared common cultural characteristics in order to establish cultural cohorts with scientific validity.

Landon Jones' pop culture book described the cultural characteristics of an obvious cultural cohort already in existance and then, without any scientific rhyme or reason whatsoever, arbitrarilly chose dates from Government statistics meant to track number of births per 1,000 population to define who belonged to that cultural cohort.

[ansel12]

Then there is no such thing as a generation and no one knows what anyone is talking about.

So far you have got what used to be known as boomers down to a 5 year period, that is meaningless to anyone, so let’s just erase the entire concept. Announce to the world that there is no post war baby boom generation that was measured as those born from 1946 to 1964.

[ansel12]

By the way don’t confuse someone creating his own name for the category (boomer), as having created the definition of the measurement, the category of that post war generation existed before 1980.

[Polybius]

Then there is no such thing as a generation and no one knows what anyone is talking about.

Must you always be so concrete in your thinking?

The English language must be used in proper context.

A biologist knows exactly what the subject is when the term "familial generation" is used.

The behavioral scientist knows perfectly well what the subject is when the terms "cultural generation" or "cultural cohort" is used.

An aeronautical engineer knows perfectly well what the subject is when the terms "First Generation jet fighters" and "Fourth Generation jet fighters" are used.

You insist on treating Landon Jones' pop culture book that described a certain cultural cohort and then slapped it with the dates of a sustained birth rate spike as if that book were a scientific or "formal" study. It was not. Landon Jones' choice of dates had no scientific rhyme or reason whatsoever and are totally invalid as a criteria for defining a cultural cohort.

So far you have got what used to be known as boomers down to a 5 year period, that is meaningless to anyone, so let’s just erase the entire concept. Announce to the world that there is no post war baby boom generation that was measured as those born from 1946 to 1964.

Are you finished comparing your apples and oranges yet?

What does the number of births per 1,000 population above a certain level over a certain length of time have to do with any of the multiple valid scientific definitions of the term "generation"?

Absolutely nothing.

If it were not for the fact that The Pill became widely availble in the early Sixties and abortion became widely available after that, the "Post World War II birth rate boom as compared to pre-World Wa II levels, AKA, The Baby Boom" would still be going on as a result of increased properity in relation to Depression Era America. Then you could claim that every American born in the past 64 year belonged to the same so-called "generation".

What part of "The dates arbitrarily chose by Landon Jones when he wrote the pop culture book had no scientific criteria or rigor or validity whatsoever" are you having a problem understanding?

Landon Jones arbitrarily paired up the birth rate boom between 1946 and 1964 and a recognizable cultural cohort and decided, without any scientific validity, to claim that they are the one and the same.

They are not.

A "population boom" has a specific scientific meaning and such boom, depending on the biological community you are discussing, may last for dozens of "biological generations".

I do not need to announce to the scientific world that:

A. Population booms secondary to extended birth rate spikes

are different from

B. Cultural cohorts

and that both are different from

C. The biological generation time interval in a certain population.

The scientific world already knows that.

You, on the other hand, are still having an awfully hard time understanding the concepts.

[ansel12]

Why did you post a thread about the boomer generation if there is no such thing? With all your cutting and pasting of wide ranging gibberish from the internet , I don’t even know what this thread is about anymore, I’m still marveling though, at you isolating out a five year post war baby boom “generation”.

I don’t think that 5 year group of people will have any effect on social security, real estate, health care or anything else, so we need to just drop that entire category, do we still have a “silent generation” those born from 1925 to 1945?

[Polybius]

By the way don’t confuse someone creating his own name for the category (boomer), as having created the definition of the measurement, the category of that post war generation existed before 1980.

What was defined before 1980 was the "Increased Rate Above Pre-World II Levels over the Length of Time that it Took the Pill to Knock Down the Birth Rate to pre-World War II, Depression Era Levels". AKA: The Baby Boom

Not "The Baby Boom GENERATION".

Simply "The Baby Boom".

It was Landon Jones that decided to pair up an identifiable cultural cohort (a cultural phenomenon) with a sustained birth rate spike (a biological phenomenon).

Show me any reference prior to 1980 that speaks of "The Baby Boom GENERATION".

There are none.

When The Who sang, "Talkin' 'bout my generation" in the 1960's, they were talkin' about their cultural cohort.

To us, the next cultural cohort, The Who were not "our generation" .... They were "grown ups".

It tool Landon Jones' pop culture book to falsely classify The Who's cultural cohort as anybody born during a time of birth rates above that of Depression Era America.

[ansel12]

You post a thread about boomers, and after awhile you want to announce that there is no such thing as a boomer, that generation does not exist.

What was this thread supposed to be about? and what do you call the generation born 1925 to 1945?

[FreedomPoster]

127 is just an excellent post, an example of why I hang out at Free Republic.

And the comeback posts from your debating adversary are just incredibly weak.

[FreedomPoster]

>>and what do you call the generation born 1925 to 1945?

If you would read his #127, that would mostly be the Too Young to Fight World War II Cohort (28-45 in his schema).

[FreedomPoster]

Oh, and further, Polybius didn’t post the thread, so you’ve got that part wrong.

[ansel12]

I admit that I have kind of lost track of this thread as it got so scattered and cut and pasted and pop culturalish, and forgot who posted it, sorry Publius804, the names looked a little similar.

So the silent generation of 1925-1945 still exists, thats nice.

[the OlLine Rebel]

You are so hell-bent on defending the so-called Boomers. You are like a 1-man Civil War thread on this forum, wherein usually there are a few zealots on both sides talking endlessly about the same things.

I have to ask your age again. 1 time you told us you were born in 1970, then you write posts implying you are considerably older than that.

Anyway, why the umbrage over the definition of “Baby Boomer”?

1st, this is an English writer.

2nd, I agree with the people who demonstrate it makes no sense to couple a person with someone 20 years older or younger. They have little in common.

3rd, when was a “generation” ever named before? Seriously. It seems none of this defined generation stuff turned up until people noticed how many babies came around RIGHT AFTER (not 20 years) WWII.

4th, I suspect you’re afraid if we split the “generation” into real Boomers (post-’46) and Disco kids, perhaps it won’t look as “conservative” as you insist for the dregs at Woodstock? Not saying it would be so, but it’s a possibility.

[ansel12]

I have to ask your age again. 1 time you told us you were born in 1970

No, I never said that, and what a bizarre thing for you to make up.