Amerika

Baby Boomers (the “Me Generation”) have baffled people for years with their behavior. A combination of obedience, rebellion, narcissism, self-destruction, perversity, and obsessive normalcy makes the difficult to read.

At its core, human behavior divides into two general directions. Individualists focus on themselves and their own wants, and enforce this through socialization; to them, the world exists for them and meaning is found in the self alone.

On the other hand, those who are oriented toward the transcendental focus on what is bigger than themselves and how to make an eternal and infinite positive goal out of improving their relationship with it. To them, they are a small part of a wide and wondrous world.

Libertarians — nice guys but oblivious to reality — try to make these terms into an “individualist”/”collectivist” binary. Their argument is that the world can be explained solely in economic terms, sort of like the socialists attempt.

But collectivism is individualism, too, since it is a group of people demanding to be subsidized so that they can further do individualistic things. “Individualism” in the libertarian context is self-interest to the exclusion of everything else, which is a pathology.

Similarly, Leftists — who should know better, but never do — set up a binary of “empathy”/”selfishness.” In their view, you either give away whatever you have or you are, well, not an egotist or narcisstic, but certainly a meanie bad person who should be killed.

Funny how once you get one religion preaching a binary of “good”/”evil,” which are moral judgments about reality in lieu of assessing consequences of our actions in the context of a wider world, suddenly all of your symbolism is talismans and scapegoats.

For the liberal, the talisman is equality and the scapegoat is meanie selfish people. For the paste-eating libertarian, the talisman is individualism and the scapegoat is collectivism. Just go back to calling it all Moloch or Behrit and we can accept the superstition as a lifestyle choice.

Realists have a slightly more complex path. We see a universe where hard-and-fast general rules are usually inexact, and a case-by-case basis is often required, with a mindset of looking toward a goal and then figuring out what is needed to get there, and the notion that we need a transcendental (infinite, eternal, forward, qualitative, ideal) goal in order to avoid drowning in the neurosis of ourselves.

To us, the struggle to stay focused on what is important dominates normal life much as the survival of a galaxy depends on staying an appropriate distance from the black hole at its fringes. The self is a tyrant if we allow it to be.

Boomers, on the other hand, embraced the self, but also embraced its support structure, namely the Crowd and its need for retributive justice against victimizers in order to hold the group together. The Crowd is a gang, clique, and mafia type loyalty club.

This explains why Boomers are both narcissistic and empathic. They will do anything for the Crowd, and they expect the Crowd to back them up in a struggle, which is why they are entitled like sicarios in a brothel.

When they do not get their way, they become self-destructive and self-pitying, since that always manipulated Mom and Dad (or Teacher and Priest) into giving to the Heckler’s Veto and saying “yes” to whatever makes the wailing stop.

To them, since there is nothing larger than the self, mortality is a tragedy with no solution. Therefore they see no point in caring about anything outside of their own lifespan. They also worship safety and health, hoping to live forever because there is nothing else.

Even if they are religious, Boomers behave this way, mostly because immortality is cool and all, but do you think you get to take your BMW SUV to Heaven? Unlikely, and that is unacceptable, they remind us.

In the name of freedom, they are the generation least likely to allow freedom of thought. In the name of individuality, they are the most conformist (albeit rebelliously) generation ever created. And in the name of progress they want to keep us in the early 1960s forever.

On Planet Earth, you choose either individualism or transcendence. The first measures the world entirely through your own self, and the latter opens your mind to infinity and the eternal, but also the simple beauty of life on a planet blessed with an abundance of life.

Tags: collectivism, crowdism, individualism, me generation, transcendence