{"id":58075,"date":"2020-09-23T01:00:46","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T05:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=58075"},"modified":"2022-09-05T18:02:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T22:02:53","slug":"qotd-dont-blame-the-boomers-for-the-summer-of-love-most-of-em-were-too-young-to-participate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2020\/09\/23\/qotd-dont-blame-the-boomers-for-the-summer-of-love-most-of-em-were-too-young-to-participate\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Don’t blame the Boomers for the “Summer of Love” … most of ’em were too young to participate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’ve written a lot here about how the most dangerous types in peacetime are the ones who juuuuust missed participating in some vast social upheaval. The Nazis are an obvious example. The Nazi-est Nazis of them all \u2014 Himmler, Heydrich, Eichmann, etc. \u2014 were old enough to have seen and understood the great national cataclysm that was World War I, but weren’t quite old enough to participate in it directly. Thus, when their turn came, they had to go double-or-nothing to prove to their older kin and classmates that they had what it takes. In America, guys like Teddy Roosevelt don’t make much sense until you realize that they grew up hearing their fathers and older brothers reminisce about the Civil War. And so on.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m all for bashing the goddamn Boomers, but let’s be fair (since it matters for historical analysis). There’s a common misconception about the Baby Boom. Here, see if you can spot it:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Did you see it? Look closer, and you’ll see that while 1947(-ish) appears to be the peak year in terms of total births, the vast majority of what we call “Boomers” were born after 1950. Let’s do some simple math. The very oldest Boomers were born in 1946. The Summer of Love<\/a> was 1967. Even if we assume the Summer of Love came out of nowhere \u2014 which is impossible, of course, any movement that large had antecedents going back years, probably decades, but let’s assume \u2014 that means that any “Boomers” participating were, at most, barely 22 years old. They were just barely 24 when Woodstock came around. Granted that the youngest are the dumbest, and thus can have outsize influence, they still can’t have been largely, let alone solely, responsible for the idiocy of the hippies.<\/p>\n

That’s all on the older crowd, the so-called “Silent Generation” \u2014 the ones who were old enough to be aware of World War II, but unable to participate directly.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to verify. The Port Huron Statement<\/a>, the founding document of the New Left, was penned by coddled college kids<\/a> in 1962 \u2014 meaning, by kids born, at latest, in about 1942 (its principal author, Tom Hayden<\/a>, was born in 1939). Here are the Chicago Seven<\/a> and their dates of birth: Abbie Hoffman (1936), Jerry Rubin (1938), David Dellinger (1915!), Hayden, Rennie Davis (1941),John Froines (1939), and Lee Weiner (1939).<\/p>\n

Hoffman, especially, bears scrutiny. Though he’s best remembered as a Yippie<\/a> \u2014 that is, the founder of an ostentatiously youth-oriented movement \u2014 he was 31 at its founding. Don’t trust anyone over thirty, right?<\/p>\n

1936 to 1946 is only a decade, but it’s crucial. A kid born in 1936 would have vivid memories of World War II and its immediate aftermath \u2014 fathers, uncles, and older brothers (and, in more than a few cases, aunts and older sisters) coming home from the service. A kid born in 1946 would have a completely different experience \u2014 ask any combat veteran about the first year or two back in the world, versus being home for a decade. Those guys \u2014 the kids who saw firsthand the angry young strangers they were supposed to call “Dad” \u2014 were the ones who did the real damage in The Sixties(TM), just as it was the almost-but-not-quite frontsoldaten<\/em> who did the real damage in the Third Reich.<\/p>\n

With me? Now hang on to your hats, because here’s where it gets pretty meta: It was the “Silent Generation,” not the Boomers, who did the real damage in The Sixties(TM). That is, the guys who juuuust missed the giant social upheaval that was World War II. The Boomers have done all the damage since The Sixties(TM).<\/p>\n

That \u2014 The Sixties(TM), which is why I’m using that obnoxious (TM) \u2014 is the great social upheaval they juuuust missed. [These people] aren’t old fossils from the flower power years, though many of those fossils are still alive and kicking (including four of the Chicago Seven: Hayden, Davis, Froines, and Weiner). Has anyone heard from Billy Ayers lately? How about Noam Chomsky (born 1928)? I’m sure they have plenty to say … but nobody cares.<\/p>\n

It’s not retreads from The Sixties(TM) out there doing this stuff. It’s the people who wish<\/em> they’d been around for the Summer of Love that are doing it. It’s the people who just know<\/em> they would’ve ended the Vietnam War, if only they hadn\u2019t been in junior high at the time. This is their Woodstock, not least because they only heard about the original when they arrived for freshman orientation in 1976.<\/p>\n

Severian, “Talkin’ ’bout My Generation!”, Rotten Chestnuts<\/em><\/a>, 2020-06-11.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written a lot here about how the most dangerous types in peacetime are the ones who juuuuust missed participating in some vast social upheaval. The Nazis are an obvious example. The Nazi-est Nazis of them all \u2014 Himmler, Heydrich, Eichmann, etc. \u2014 were old enough to have seen and understood the great national cataclysm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,53,41,13],"tags":[311,407,262,319,1020,139,1462,232],"class_list":["post-58075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-politics","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-1960s","tag-babyboomers","tag-culture","tag-demographics","tag-progressives","tag-psychology","tag-severian","tag-woodstock"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-f6H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58075"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60440,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58075\/revisions\/60440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}