I've written before about the idiocy of generational theorizing and the bankruptcy of generational politics as a diagnostic tool. I’m vaguely dreading Matt Bai’s forthcoming book, The Great Distraction, talking ‘bout “the failed era of boomer politics,” given the poor odds of rising above the built-in sententiousness of such a shopworn enterprise.
Meanwhile, a salute to Andrew Sprung at the Xpostfactoid blog, my comrade in the cause of heaping ridicule on generational finger-wagging. His post today, "Thomas Friedman at his Thomas Friedmanest,” tears into the Flat-Earther’s latest Sunday column, which anticipates Bai’s lament while recycling one of Maureen Dowd’s signature tropes from her days of dissing Bill Clinton:
Leave it to Friedman to decide, as the U.S. struggles out of the steepest recession in 70 years, that our troubles are due to the moral failings of baby boomers, set off by a cartoonish Goofus/Gallant contrast with the Greatest Generation. His column putting this moralizing mush across is so jaw-droppingly sloppy that it seems self indulgent to try to debunk it...
Generational contrasts are the refuge for those who prefer moralizing to analysis. You cannot generalize about the moral composition of hundreds of millions of people born between arbitrarily selected dates. When I read boomer-bashings, I always mentally reply: if those of the WWII generation were such paragons, why did they raise a generation of feckless self-indulgent screwups? Is prosperity itself inherently corrupting? If so, we'd better stop trying to grow our economy. Further, one instance of the get-rich-quick mania that Friedman excoriates—the dotcom boom—was the flip side of an aspect of our economy he suggests we're losing—rapid technological development. The tension between productive economic development and unchecked greed is hardly a recent phenomenon in American history. Another alleged moral failing of U.S. leadership—taxcut goodies leading to budget problems—was promulgated in the first instance by WWII-gen President Ronald Reagan—while quintessential boomer Bill Clinton paid in political blood for rebalancing our tax and budget priorities.
I’m not in accord with every particular of Sprung’s Friedman-foiling ripostes, but it’s a pleasure to see bunkum debunked.
[Update I: Andrew Sprung added an exceptionally gracious and thoughtful addendum to his post in acknowledgment of my comments above.]
[Update II: Now Michael Kinsley has entered the fray with an Atlantic cover story on the "self-absorbed, self-indulged, and self-loathing" baby boomers and the debt they owe society for their crimes. In the end, it's a pretty silly, bad-faith affair, despite the gravitas of the forum; Kinsley is too whip-smart and cynical to play it straight with what is, after all, a hoary old chestnut. Meanwhile, James Bennet, the magazine's editor, tries to insist this all really matters, and Gary Trudeau, following up on his ignominious 1984 Newsweek cover illustration trumpeting "The Year of the Yuppie," offers a recruiting poster for a cause that's dead on arrival.]
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