Man, I never knew there was this much data in the world. Or that it could be organized into that many graphs, or that there were that many different kinds of graphs.
As to the story Bump tells–it turns out that I am part of a gigantic pig that has been swallowed whole by a python. (ICYMI, the pig is the Baby Boomers and the python is the US.) By way of data, statistics, innumerable studies, a comparatively (and mercifully) small amount of polling, and a lot of conversations with many, many experts, Bump spends the first 146 pages on “The Boom” and it’s effect on American culture, industry, and politics. It has and continues to be considerable, and I was disheartened to see that Bump has proved with numbers that it will continue to be at least until 2060. I won’t live that long and I find cause in his book to be grateful for that because a generational war is coming that is going to make the “Generation Gap” of the 60s look like a food fight in a grade school cafeteria.
Because now of course those pesky kids, the Millenials and the GenZers are coming up from behind, and they’re just a tad peeved at the generation that has engineered the nation to suit themselves, with no thought or much care for who comes after them so long as we get our Social Security checks every month. (See Chart 113.) OK, Boomer. (Yes, he writes about that song, too.)
There is much of interest in this book, beginning with an introduction to the first Boomer, one Kathleen Casey Kirschling, born just after midnight on January 1, 1946.
From 1941 to 1945, the country averaged 2.9 million births a year, up from 2.4 million over the prior decade. From 1946 to 1964–the baby boom–the annual average was just shy of 4 million. The number of kids born during the baby boom was equal to more than half of the entire population of the United States in 1945.
Kirschling now lives in The Villages in Florida, of which Bump’s description reads like a Jordan Peele script, but Kirschling seems to like it. From cradles to schools to culture and now to retirement communities, the Baby Boomer tail is what wags the American dog.
Television has a lot to answer for, too, as Boomers became the single most important target for ads specifically geared for products marketed first to their teenage selves and now to their elder selves. There’s a good chapter on music and why it was so important to us, although Bump never quite answers that satisfactorily and it may be that no one can. Instead he quotes journalist Jeff Greenfield:
“Nothing we see in the Counterculture, not the clothes, the hair, the ssexuality, the drugs, the rejection of reason, the resort to symbols and magic…none of it is separable from the coming to power in the 1950s of rock and roll music.”
[Also, our music is better. On that I agree with Kirschling. Go ahead, M’s and Z’s, let me have it, and then go listen to “For What It’s Worth.”]
The second half of the book, the eponymous “Aftermath,” is given over to scrying the future with the divining rod of data, or trying to. Race, immigration, and politics come front and center. Most of his conclusions are speculation–well-informed speculation to be sure–and he’s very careful to stay away from predictive absolutes. One thing is certain and one thing only: the tension between the generations is bad and getting worse. (See “OK Boomer” above. Old ladies suck, evidently. You heard it there first.)
Younger Americans consistently and accurately see how America’s political structure is weighted to a group, still heavily composed of baby boomers, that doesn’t look like them or reflect their concerns. It’s a system that gives primacy to homeowners and disproportionate weight to residents of rural areas.
The majority of M’s and Z’s live in urban areas. They’re also the lockdown generation, the generation that grew up during the Great Recession, who believe that the climate is indeed changing, and (Bump’s book must have been written before Dobbs because he makes no mention of it) who grew up in a world where they had bodily autonomy. No wonder they’re pissed.
And Kirschling? Bump gives her the last word,
She understood clearly that she and many in her generation had lived lives that were not only blessed, in her description, but perhaps irreplicable…”Never have I felt so upset about the future,” she said…Kirschling would later slot the riot at the Capitol just behind the Kennedy assassination as the darkest day in the country’s history.
Word, definitely.
I read this book because I subscribe to Bump’s weekly newsletter, “How to Read This Chart.” You should, too. The book isn’t as easy or brief a read as a column but it is worth the effort if you like assessments of the future that are informed by actual facts. I do.
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Whoa!! I clicked your link and read Bump’s newsletter. It is the first thing that has changed my mind about not subscribing to the Washington Post (liberal in politics usually but conservative in money spending with my pension and ss). I was sorely tempted with wanting to have better access to Philip Galanes Social Q’s column in the Sunday edition – I follow his fb group – but didn’t fall. Now I think I am going to cave.
I don’t take my reactions to more recent history too seriously, because I remember very well the old folks complaining about how the world was going to hell, and the good old days were better.
I don’t actually believe the good old days (i.e. my youth) were better. They were different than the now. Some things were better. Some were worse.
Personally, I am really into technology. Yes I understand it is not all great, but I love a lot of it. And it is very easy to see that the constant changes are hard on older people. I guess I’m not quite old enough that it is hard. But then again, I was probably the only 60 something that could call her 80 something dad for help with the computer. If I had needed to.
When I was 17 and reading science fiction, I would have been beyond thrilled if I had known that one day I would own a phone that did not have to be connected to the wall by a cord, that included a camera nearly as good as my dad’s old Leica, that there would be texting, and emailing and internet, all of which could be done on my phone. A little bitty computer in my HAND for crissake! I get to LIVE science fiction!
I am still so thrilled I can hardly stand it. And every year there is more fun stuff.
I retired earlier this year. In the last year that I worked, I had the absolute pleasure of being an IT Liaison for my employer, with the not so great side effect that I still ALSO had to do my usual job. In my line of work, most of us are over 50, and we have reverse age discrimination. The older and more experienced you are, the more sought after you are, and the more you get paid. Not bad!
BUT. Yes, there is a big “BUT”. People over 60 and often even those over 50 are more likely to resist the constant IT changes in business, and more likely not to be tech savvy than those in their 40s and younger. I was apparently not most people. Thus, I was voluntold to be the IT Liaison. Couldn’t even argue with them. There literally was no one else who could do it. It had to be someone doing what I did but who was reasonably tech savvy. And it was a BLAST. I told my boss that I wanted to give up my regular job and just do IT liaison and train people on using the new systems. She said no, LOL!
I have a “pesky kid” who is 29 and is an SEO Unit Supervisor. I have the joy of talking with her about what she does, her worldview, and what we boomers have done wrong. I am lucky she is not too critical, but I see a long history of issues that people have created, and one day these “kids” will be the oldsters being dissed by the youngsters. And so the world turns.
Thanks very much for this article. The newsletter interests me and I did sign up. Now to decide if I want to read the entire book.
I came here for commentary on Josephine Tey and have enjoyed a ramble down the rabbit hole of your blog. Thank you for some very happy reading and a couple of additions to my TBR list.
This particular post hits home for me and helps broaden my perspective, though it doesn’t lift my spirits any. One branch of our family, whose company I enjoyed very much until the beginning of the pandemic, seems to have flipped the OK, Boomer switch. I’ve been hurt and bewildered by the undertone of scorn that permeates their responses to friendly overtures from my husband and me, to the point where I’ve considered breaking off communications entirely. Whatever the cause of the dire generational disconnect that’s in process, it’s terrifying to anticipate extreme old age in such a hostile environment.
Not fun at all.