The Generation Report: Boomer History - Meaningful, or Self-Reverential?

In 1993, just after Bill Clinton became president, CNN produced a segment on the Boomers based on Strauss and Howe’s first book, Generations: The History of America’s Future. The segment was called “Passing the Torch,” a clear reference to John F. Kennedy’s line about generational transition from 1961. A sitdown with Strauss and Howe themselves is featured in snippets throughout the program.

This is an excellent representation of the story Boomers (or at least, a certain class of Boomers and people close to them in age) have long told: that their generation as a group has been “agents of change”, whose unflagging commitments to meaning, values, individualism, and truth made America better.

Watching this, does their story (as told over 30 years ago) seem as meaningful as the program wants us to think? Or does that “meaning” come across as an alibi for self-reverence instead?

Fair use acknowledgment: credit to CNN

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