How NOT to praise Baby Boomers
Praise them for boosting the prosperity
Obviously, this has been brought up many times before and it only applies to modern countries which economic booms happened almost right after the second world war.
If you want to credit anyone who created the booms, credit the Boomers’ parents and grandparents. They were the ones in charge.
In my home country Indonesia, I would not say they ruined the economy. They did improve it. But, our country has yet to become an economic powerhouse with extremely low poverty rate and high rate of ease of doing business. The improvement is meagre and unimpressive.
If anything, many joined forces with Soeharto in making the country a more sectarian, more anti-intellectual and more brutal place to live. Many were already adults in the early years of his regime; therefore, they had the option to not get brainwashed. I am sure those who participated in the still-glorified anti-Communist purge were also Boomers.
Praise them for having great taste
Well, admittedly, Boomers do have a great taste in music. But, I cannot fully praise them for having so.
Why? Because their taste was mainstream. Therefore, they were not special. That’s like praising someone who was raised among English speakers for being fluent in the language.
I prefer to credit the pre-war generations for influencing the Boomers’ musical taste. I mean, they were the recording studio bosses! They were the ones who decided what kind of music the youngsters at the time should listen to!
Oh, and don’t forget that Boomers are also among the current music producers who churn out craps, sacrificing artistic integrity for profit’s sake.
If I want to go further with American Boomers, not many of them had a good taste in cinema as well.
The Hollywood Renaissance, which was marked by directorial independence and respect of artistry, would not exist without the university-educated young Americans who loved watching the more aesthetic European and Japanese cinemas and formed the majority of moviegoers in the 1960’s America.
That’s a very specific demographic. Unless a boomer was among the moviegoers studio executives tried to pander to, we cannot credit him/her for a having a good taste in films.
Praise them for their great personalities
Some Boomers are known for overplaying their greatness and accusing Millennials and Gen Z for being entitled snowflakes, even though they themselves were raised in a significantly more prosperous era (again, in some countries), demand absolute respect just because they are old and get offended by OK Boomer, one of the mildest memes ever.
When they do admit their roles in wrecking the prosperity (which they enjoyed immensely), they shamelessly and openly wash their hands of their sins and act like old age and near-death are to be regarded as absolution.
To sum things up, they are conceited, delusional, fragile, hypocritical and irresponsible. Only donkeys think any of those traits are wonderful in any ways.
Oh, and even if I am willing to pretend military enlistment makes one an inherently heroic and courageous person (it inherently does not), you cannot use the American war in Vietnam to make the Boomers look heroic and courageous.
Why? Because conscription.
Able-bodied young men were obligated to enlist, whether they wanted to or not. If they were indeed heroic and courageous, they would have enlisted voluntarily without being forced to. They would have to enlist simply because they loved the idea of serving their countries (or, to be more accurate, their countries’ political establishments).
We can also use this argument to debunk the myth of the ‘heroic’ and ‘courageous’ generations of both world wars.
Praise them for their progressiveness
Some Boomers claim they are the bastion of progressiveness, supposedly due to many of them being Hippies in the olden days. So, let’s just pretend the Hippie movement was indeed all about peace and freedom (sceptical about it).
I may acknowledge that Boomers did lead a sexual revolution in the west. But, that’s the extent of their progressiveness.
Even the resulting sexual liberty was still very heteronormative. The west started to become widely pro-LGBT rights just mere two decades ago; even as late as the 90’s, gay Hollywood actors were forced to stay closeted.
If anything, many Boomers in the US and UK ended up voting for conservative governments in the 1980’s. And you cannot convince me there are none of them in the reactionary and war-mongering establishments.
War-mongering…
Never mind the Afghan and Iraq wars. How can one defend a generation for being peace-loving while at the same time lauding them for participating in a war?
“You are a hateful, ageist Millennial!”
No, I am not.
My words are expressions of frustrations against the ageist Boomers who try to convince everyone about their generation’s absolute supremacy. If I am a hateful ageist, wouldn’t I use their old age as an argument of how pieces of shit they are?
Obviously, if you really want to defend the Boomers, you would need facts and refrain from dramatising them. In order to do so, you need to be a reasonable and truth-loving person.
If you are a Boomer who believe in your generation’s divine greatness or a younger person who believes we must always respect ALL older people regardless of their actual respectability, then you are neither reasonable nor truth-loving.
If you belong to either category, then I can easily dismiss your argument. You cannot prove anyone wrong by using falsehoods and overstatements.
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