Did Baby Boomers Actually Facilitate the "Cultural Revolution"? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14925780
A lot of baby boomers like to claim that they facilitated the counter culture, sexual revolution and all the other remarkable aspects that came out of the 60s changing times. Yet was it not particularly the youth and middle aged people of the 50s-60s that drove the cultural and social revolution against what they saw as conformity and old order.

If baby boomers were only being born at that time would that not make their parents' generation, especially if they had children young as many did, the actual people who are responsible for the social changes of that era?
#14925858
@Albert: first thing is, the "Cultural Revolution" was a Chinese event. It has nothing to do with the "Counter Culture or the "youth quake" that caused it.

The counter culture was strictly an "Under 30" phenomenon with participants born in the 6 or 7 years after the end of WWII, in 1967 they were mostly 15 - 20 years old. The previous generation was the "Beat" generation. The Beats contributed a lot to the Hippie Counter Culture, a few of them carried over, others supported it financially.

Social changes were introduced as experiments ... Some of them caught on.

Zam 8)
#14927457
Albert wrote:If baby boomers were only being born at that time would that not make their parents' generation, especially if they had children young as many did, the actual people who are responsible for the social changes of that era?


Many factors, Albert. Western countries were undergoing a lot of changes throughout the first half of the 20th century. The process was starting well before the baby boomers.

The groundwork for the cultural shifts that happened in the 1950s and 1960s was already there long before the baby boomers.

The boomers were just the generation who accelerated it and adopted what was already waiting to be adopted.
#14927465
Political Interest wrote:The groundwork for the cultural shifts that happened in the 1950s and 1960s was already there long before the baby boomers. The boomers were just the generation who accelerated it and adopted what was already waiting to be adopted.

I agree with this line of thought. Most of the counter culture ideology began in the pre-WWI era. The innovations in technology & science that accompanied the social progress had their roots in Post WWI development. The post WWII period of economic boom and Eisenhower's cold war peace was fertile ground that fed a creative cultural environment and artistic ambiance as the boomers grew up in America and Europe.

- I'm not sure Albert is active at the moment, I think they dropped a yellow card on him again.

Zam 8)
#14929501
@Albert,

The Greatest Generation is probably 1900-1920.

The Silent Generation is 1920-1940.

a good round time-frame for the birth of the boomers would be 1940-1960, so your starting premise is fundamentally flawed.

1960-1980 is Generation X

1980-2000 are the Millennials.

2000-2020 is Generation Z.
#14929632
Issues such as women's rights and women in the work place had a leg up during the two great wars. Thsee were about the only times when women could earn a university degree and or work, eg, Rosie the Rivetter. Premarital sex was common, too.

The late 40s and 50s, I think was about family reunification, following the the closing of WWII and Korea. A white pocketed world of young couples and their babies. Baby boomers.

I think the great change attributed to boomers was the hippie movement of the 60's and 70's, when kids questioned the validity of being forced into war, and owing to the pill, greater sexual f reedom, eg "make love not war", and smoking drugs, another anti establishment activity

Edit

The Greatest Generation was a reference to the WWII soldiers

Boomer were born 1946 to 1964
#14929639
Victoribus Spolia wrote:@Albert,

The Greatest Generation is probably 1900-1920.

The Silent Generation is 1920-1940.

a good round time-frame for the birth of the boomers would be 1940-1960, so your starting premise is fundamentally flawed.

1960-1980 is Generation X

1980-2000 are the Millennials.

2000-2020 is Generation Z.

By definition, the boomers (the first example of a 'generation' picked out in American sociology, with others named later, even if they are applied to people born earlier) are those in the baby boom, which happened after WW2 - the point was a lot of potential fathers were away from home during it, and so the birth rate was low in the war - you can add in economic uncertainty before and at the start, which also depressed birth rates). So the baby boomer generation is from 1946 onwards. When you end it is more disputed; the figures here show the sudden increase in 1946, and suggest 1964 as the end - 1965 was the first notable drop.

What works quite well is taking 18 years as "a generation" in this case; that gives 1928 as the dividing line between 'greatest' and 'silent' (also, roughly, when the youngest to serve in WW2 were born, and the Great Depression started); and 1982 for Generation X/Millennials (Millennial being "someone who was a child when the millennium happened"). That would also mean we need a new term for those born from 2018 onwards (you can also argue about whether you divide inside the year, at the start, or the end).
#14929656
Albert wrote:A lot of baby boomers like to claim that they facilitated the counter culture, sexual revolution and all the other remarkable aspects that came out of the 60s changing times. Yet was it not particularly the youth and middle aged people of the 50s-60s that drove the cultural and social revolution against what they saw as conformity and old order.

If baby boomers were only being born at that time would that not make their parents' generation, especially if they had children young as many did, the actual people who are responsible for the social changes of that era?

Baby boomers were concieved during WW2. There was a spike in conceptions at that time due to young people hastily marrying and knocking up their sweethearts before going off to war for reason of not knowing if they will come back to do it later. The sheer numbers of boomers resulting from this is how they got their name (boom as in population boom) and also resulted in their concentrated political and economic influence when they reached relative maturity in the 60s and really every decade since. They are particularly notorious for running up national debts giving themselves fat privileges and leaving the debts for their children to pay and generally being selfish narcisstic arseholes.
#14929749
SolarCross wrote:Baby boomers were concieved during WW2. There was a spike in conceptions at that time

A pregnancy only lasts 9 months. The spike in births started in 1946, and really got going in 1947. I've given a link for this already, but for those who find reading figures a chore:

Image

So, no, the baby boom was after the war. When the men returned from the war, and set up homes.
#14929761
It is kind of neat to be old enough to see first hand how history is distorted by cherry picking. Baby boomers were the same as every other generation. The radical views of the young made the news. Most of us were confused, some were indifferent, some were pseudo intellectuals who thought they had all the answers, etc.
There was a lot of mindlessly following the latest fad both politically and socially.
There was division that was escalated into violence by the politically minded for selfish reasons or through ignorance. Pretty much what you are seeing today.
#14929766
SolarCross wrote:generally being selfish narcisstic arseholes.


Each generation is selfish. How could it be otherwise?
How they express it may differ. The babyboomers just dressed it up with some lofty ideals.
Now we have alt-right youth who claim to fight for western civilization, in a very narrow defined way.
Rebellious youth, what has changed? :roll:
#15059172
The teenagers of the 1950s were rebels without a cause. Before the Beatles there were the Beetles, the motorcycle gang led by Lee Marvin in the 1954 movie The Wild One. A woman asks Marlon Brando, his rival, “What’s Johnny rebelling against?” He answers, “What have you got?”

The social revolution of the mid to late 1960s would give youth at least at least three causes: sexual liberation, opposition to the War in Vietnam and civil rights.

The transition from beatnik to 60’s era hippie was foreseen in the CBS sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which aired from 1959 to 1963. Maynard G. Krebs, portrayed by Bob Denver, began the series as a stereotypical beatnik, with a goatee, “hip” language and a generally unkempt, bohemian appearance. However, by the third season of the show, Maynard becomes more of a free spirit who “does his own thing,” a protégé of the late 1960s hippie.

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