The Spiritual Failure of the Boomers

I was born in the mid 1950s so am a Boomer as these things are defined, but I would like to think I am not typical of my cohort. I certainly absorbed some of the Boomer mentality while growing up in the '60s and '70s but I consciously rejected a lot of the more overt liberal/leftist and anti-traditional stuff though some of it will undoubtedly have rubbed off on me. But I understand why many people in the generations that followed despise the Boomers for trashing Western civilisation, an accusation which I regard as a fair one even if previous generations cannot be exonerated. Nothing comes out of nothing and the Boomer generation was merely the blossoming of a seed that had long been germinating

The Boomers thought they could change the world and they set about it, in their eyes as practical idealists. However, there were generous helpings of selfishness involved and even narcissism. They were the first generation who were spoiled and cosseted in their youth and did they ever take advantage of it. They had the material goods and developed a moral/spiritual superiority complex, but they completely misconceived the idea of love, reducing it to a pleasurable emotion and expunging it of any sense of sacrifice. Sacrifice is the essence of love but the Boomers turned love into indulgence.

Boomer self-centredness is one thing but where this generation really failed is where they thought they were at their best. When I lived in India in the 1980s the caste system was officially disowned but in reality it was still operative. As a Westerner, I was supposed to condemn caste but I understood the reasons for it even if it had been abused in the practice as any hierarchical system will be in a fallen world. Nonetheless, life is hierarchical and if you destroy hierarchy, you simply reduce standards to a lowest common denominator. Tradition which knew this was wise. Modernity which denies it is ignorant.

Ignorant, you might say, but well-meaning to which the obvious answer would be that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But that aside, is it really well-meaning to have this attitude or is it just weak, a symptom of that spiritually corrosive desire, the desire to be liked? I was warned by someone of the higher castes that I should not bring my liberal Western prejudices (and they are prejudices) to any relationships with Indians of the lower castes because if I did they would just take advantage. In words which struck me then and stay with me now he said, "Don't try to be kind. They will take your kindness for weakness". 

Now, this has to be unpacked a little. It doesn't mean, don't be kind. Kindness is good and right - obviously. What it means, and what the Boomers have missed, is that often what you tell yourself is kindness is actually weakness and, in the Boomers' case, it is weakness supplemented by a misplaced sense of guilt to which they have succumbed partly because of indoctrination but also because of their own spiritual failings which include the lack of acknowledgement of the transcendent reality of God or, if God is acknowledged, his demotion from All Father and Creator to impersonal universalised compassion. The self-perceived victim and underdog classes see this weakness and exploit it, and this is leading to the downfall of the West.

Kindness is weakness when it ignores reality for the sake of being, or appearing, to be nice. In line with the general feminisation of the West it is largely a feminine failing (of both sexes). When counterbalanced by masculine authority it can help mitigate any resultant severity, but when that authority has been as undermined as it has been it is purely destructive of any higher order. It opens the door to attack from below and societal dismantling as the structures that have built that society and culture are torn down in the name of equality and fairness. Fairness to what? To those that want what others have or to the truth?

The Boomers are like the decadent progeny of an aristocratic class that consumes what its ancestors have built up with no thought for its descendants. They will have a spiritual bill to pay. But this doesn't let subsequent generations off the hook. They may complain about Boomer selfishness but is that because they want what the Boomers have or are they prepared to suffer and sacrifice to put things right? Not that things can be put right. The momentum of dissolution is too far advanced  for that to happen. This cycle is coming to a close. But the effort to turn the tide and redress past failures will pay spiritual dividends on an individual level and maybe even mitigate what is traditionally known as the wrath of God, an outmoded but evocative term for the consequences of wrong thinking and wrong actions.