Against Generational Warfare
I'm Tired of Zoomer Blaming Boomers and Vice Versa
There’s been growing chatter online about a divide between Zoomers and Boomers, or between Millennials and Gen Z on one side and the Baby Boom generation on the other (with Gen X, as usual, caught in the middle). I don’t know how much of this is real and how much is social media silliness, or traditional media needing a controversy to write about.
To the extent that it is real, you also have to consider where people are coming from. Often, people’s emotions reflect their experiences in their personal lives (although certainly not always). So some young folks may turn their irritation at their parents into a broader commentary on society, and vice versa.
But whether or not it’s real, I think it’s worth commenting on, because I think there are some interesting themes which have bearing on real political issues.
The first theme is this: the whole impulse to cordon individuals off into generations and set them against one another is the same tribal impulse which has proven so ruinous everywhere else it’s been tried. What makes America great is that we treat people as individuals, not as members of some monolithic group based on immutable identity characteristics. Nobody chooses when they’re born (many would choose differently if they could).
While there are some cultural traits which are more common in different age categories and which reflect the times in which different cohorts grew up as well as relative age, there’s also some arbitrariness to lumping people into different generations. My sister and I are less than two years apart, and technically we are in two different generations. Two of my cousins, brother and sister, were born in 1978 and 1980, which makes him Gen X and her a Millennial. Are there really vast differences between my sister and I, or between my cousins?
Generations aren’t monoliths. It isn’t fair to define all people of one age category by the actions of famous people who happen to share a birth year. Not all Zoomers are entitled slackers who think they need to make $600k a year to afford $23 burritos from DoorDash.
So, I think the anger that younger people are expressing online towards Boomers—that the Baby Boom generation ruined this country and gave their children and grandchildren a tough row to hoe—is unfair. But I do think it’s worth pointing out that it was the Baby Boom generation which started this sort of generational warfare. The flower children of the 1960s were up in arms against their parents (who had suffered the Great Depression and World War II and given their children dramatically better options than they ever had). In hindsight, the Baby Boom generation comes off as awfully entitled in the 1960s, and they were very unfair on their parents.
But not all Boomers were ungrateful and not all Boomers protested in crude and rude ways and many respected their parents, etc.
My point is that it isn’t fair for any group of young people to argue that their parents and grandparents made the world a worse place. I do think some of the issues which have been compounding (student debt, healthcare, etc.) have been made worse over the decades by the choices made by older generations, and that now younger generations are suffering the consequences. I do think it’s fair to fault the living for borrowing money against their great-grandchildren’s futures by racking up debt.
And I think it’s fair to complain about a gerontocracy in politics, in which older politicians are refusing to leave office and turn things over to the next generation. But this is only a small number of people.
More importantly, I do think we need to ask hard questions about old-age entitlements. It isn’t the Baby Boom generation’s fault that they are the ones receiving benefits when this conversation is turning darker, but there’s never a good time. These programs weren’t set up properly from the beginning. We cannot fix the debt without addressing Medicare and Social Security. It sounds nice in theory that the able-bodied should work to support those who no longer can, but in practice the less-well-off young and middle-aged are subsidizing the retirements of millionaires (in some cases). Means-testing shouldn’t be off the table.
Similarly, housing. This isn’t entirely the fault of older generations, but it isn’t fair for homeowners to continue to push NIMBY policies and then wonder why young people can’t buy houses. There’s a high demand for housing. We need to allow the free market to work. It will if we remove artificial restrictions. This should be a primary policy goal even if it will diminish the home values of people who already have them.
Those of us who are young and working ought to remember that our parents and grandparents made sacrifices that allowed us to live the lives we have. I think it’s important for us to begin to have these conversations about housing and entitlements without generational warfare. Each birth cohort has its advantages and disadvantages. Baby Boomers may have been lucky to have bought homes when they did or invested when they did or gone to college when it was inexpensive, etc. But those of us born later had the advantage of dramatically better medical technology, better access to a greater variety of tastier and higher-quality food, and more entertainment options. Our cars are safer and more reliable. Etc.
To the extent that it’s happening at all, the online debate about Zoomers and Boomers is highlighting real issues. But to the extent that it is nothing more than stereotypes and ad hominems, it won’t do much to address those issues.