Helen Andrews’s *Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster. The decline of Western Society but is it the boomers’ fault? Helen Andrews’ research is deep and varied but fails to come together as a coherent argument.
Helen Andrews’s examines six notable American boomers: Steve Jobs, Aaron Sorkin, Jeffrey Sachs, Camille Paglia, Al Sharpton, and Sonia Sotomayor, each representing a particular field. This is supposed to be a critique of the boomer generation; Helen Andrews argues they let down the millennials but it actually reads more about the emergence of neo-liberalism.
Helen Andrew’s starts with defining how boomers, born between 1945 and 1964, ruined the Post World War 2000 era of prosperity and self confidence. She argues that Boomers were self-centred, plundered this wealth and failed on their promises. This included the the rise and impact of television and advertising. She uses a poll of millennials in which the majority believe boomers made things worse. She argues millennials’ lack attention and knowledge and its their fault. She argues they caused an increase in women working and in anti-depressants. So boomers with their ignorance and selfishness led to a rise of divorce and debt apparently.
Steve Jobs’ credentials are pure boomer: the Indian pilgrimage, the vegan diet, and the John Lennon glasses. But it is hard to extrapolate that to the problems of boomerism.
Aaron Sorkin is famous for The West Wing. If you have not watched all his other dramas then this chapter is a little dull. After the failure of Studio 60 he then tried The Newsroom which didn’t work either. She argues The West Wing proved the influence of TV but he then failed to influence TV himself. He was too high brow to continue influence TV in a way that ruined attention of intelligence so not a good example of a bad boomer.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs called ‘empire’ a slur. Helen Andrews calls his work imperialism. She goes on to argue his global work in under-developed countries was counter productive. He is accused of meddling in their economies for his own financial gain. He got caught up in the anger against shock therapy with economies. The advisory work can and did go badly wrong. In this sense he is an example of misplaced idealism and arrogance but not uniquely a boomer issue.
Al Sharpton worked under Barak Obama, which in the context of this book is probably part of the problem. Helen Andrews argues that racial discourse has become detached from reality using examples of micro aggressions and acceptable boundaries of opinion changing at the whim of activists. There is much in this chapter about how corrupt USA is in relation to misuse of the law to benefit different minorities and the role of the Democratic coalition in feeding off this. This feels more of well argued position against the effects of social justice warriors than boomerism. Her example of Al Sharpton is relevant in relation to the argument that Boomers in USA took over the democratic party and collaborated with the elite. But that does not explain the collapse of the traditional right wing in USA and UK.
Whilst Helen Andrews has good reason to admire Camille Paglia, her reasons for categorising her as a bad boomer are petty: her defence of “low entertainment” like television and rock music and for supporting .unlimited. sexual freedom.
Finally, Sonia Sotomayor is accused by her of being a judge that bullied, and made a career or of it; a boomer thing because of their preoccupation with oppression and identity. In this case an example of how politics infiltrated judicial process – a valid boomerism.
Overall, the case studies didn’t add up, in relation to the apparent damage done to millennials. Where are the arguments around housing, employment and the economy, climate change, mental health crisis? This is a far from convincing argument: blame the boomers. It’s narrow but plausible approach of focusing on a few key influential individuals certainly raises a some important points but is not a wholly wide ranging argument in itself.
Helen Andrews’ research is deep and at times interesting but falls down on a couple of points. Firstly, it is inwardly American. Does this mean that Boomers is inherently an American talking point? As an English person I am inclined to agree. Secondly, her level of detail meant it was hard for her come to come up for air and actually make sense of it all.
There is no clear conclusion to this book. Just a sense that the boomers moved into elite careers and whether this book is really about social justice. Helen Andrews tracks the decline of Western Society but is it the boomers’ fault?
