The “changing mentality” of the baby boomers
A trend of sorts that Bill Bonner wrote about in Monday's DR was prophesied in a book written ten years ago: the baby boom generation, forced by economic circumstances to give up its getting-and-spending ways of the 80s, returning to its peace-love-and-poverty ways of the 60s.
Let's revisit what Bill wrote:
"My guess is that this real estate problem is going to change the whole mentality of the baby-boomers," said a friend yesterday. "We're going to go back to our roots in the 1960s and focus on happiness, rather than money. What I mean is that we're going to give up on money as a source of happiness…either because we finally got money and then discovered that it didn't make us happy…or, probably for most people, the wealth we thought we had - in our houses - is going to disappear.
"We're too old to build wealth by saving it…or by earning it. So, we're going to focus on being happy the way we did in the '60s, when we didn't have any money. We're going to remember how happy we were back then, with nothing. There's going to be a huge new interest in the spiritual side of things…in music…in living inexpensively…and maybe even in drugs."
For the last 30 years, the baby boomers have been up-scaling their lives. If our friend is right, the next years will be spent down-scaling…getting rid of things…simplifying…and focusing on things not directly related to money.
Now let's open the pages of The Fourth Turning, by William Strauss and Neil Howe, and a passage that speaks of a Great Devaluation coming in the early 21st Century:
In the Fourth Turning, Boomers are likely to occupy the vortex of a downward economic spiral… Sooner or later, the truth will dawn on old Boomers that the money simply won't be there to support their accustomed consumption habits in old age. Neither they nor their nation will have saved eonough… Many will have no choice but to live communally or with their adult children, while groping for ways to preserve a meaningful life on very little money…
Old Boomers will construct a new social ethic of decline and death, much like they did in youth with sex and procreation. Where their youthful ethos hinged on self-indulgence, their elder ethos will hinge on self-denial.
And earlier in the book:
Downwardly mobile Boomers will "face the truth about the way they live now with some dignity and grace," writes Katy Butler. "If it's by choice and it's not overwhelming, having no money can be a way of entering more deeply into your life."
Again, this from a book written ten years ago. Spooky, huh?
You find all sorts of things like that in The Fourth Turning. Its premise is a little hard to condense into a single paragraph, but I'll try here: Anglo-American society has had regular shifts in cultural attitudes going all the way back to the 15th Century. They occur cyclically, with four different types of generations, each coming to the fore one after another. What's old becomes new again (a theme Bill speaks of in his book Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets). And as a consequence, these "attitudinal cycles" (my term) beget somewhat predictable cycles in the course of history… with crisis periods ("Fourth Turnings") arriving more or less every 80 years or so.
The American Revolution… the Civil War… the Depression and World War II… and now, what? Again, the book was published in 1997 and the authors posited the fourth turning would come around 2005, give or take a few years. Did it arrive early, on September 11, 2001? Or has it not yet arrived?
I have my own thoughts on that, if not a definitive answer. I'll head further down the rabbit hole with this tomorrow.
Sphere: Related Content
Bonner is [again] spot-on with his analysis; in time, it will appear how important this trend is [and for many, how very painful]. With ‘concern’ about ‘global warming’ [hype or no], ‘peak oil’, etc., there is birthing a new ‘back to the earth’ turning that, if it doesn’t repeat the ’60’s theme, it rhymes with it. Health cost increases of 37% will promote ‘home grown’ gardens, and aging boomers will embrace ‘preventative’ medicine and measures, as well as [again] herbs, etc.; self-sufficiency will again become a ‘respectible’ goal. the new ‘measurement’ will be what percentage your family eats from it’s garden, and how much it spends on ’store-bought’, home-made bread will be ‘de rigour’, as will all forms of home brewing: from wine and beer to that good ole ‘white lightin’. Look for an outpouring of articles saying, basically, ‘we had it right: we just got greedy and lost it’. And, from someone who lives at 3,000′ in the Sierra Nevadas [and has for the past 35 years], i’d have to agree with that-more interest in tractors than humvees: and folks, that’s the first ‘healthy’ thing i’ve seen from this troubled society SINCE the ’60’s. And yes, i’m an investor and an entrepreneur, as well: simplicity and being a Luddite are not synonymous.
Comment on September 19, 2007 @ 5:13 pm
Amen, and we’ve been doing it for 25 years. I sense the trend, and so that’s why I created the website:
http://www.somethinghappeninghere.net
Comment on September 19, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
snorkeeeee,
You’ve got it all right except for the several hour trip to Walmart!
I support whatever, dying, vanishing, locally owned, business I can find.
We all here buy our clothes at the local faith based, food pantry/ recycle shop. That may become a little harder when the Bar Harbor Boomers go down and stop getting new outfits every year.
But, then in the 70’s I used to make all the family clothes…………….
earthbound
Comment on September 20, 2007 @ 5:28 am
It has always been true that wealth does not bring happiness but perfect health will or so the experts advertize. Those of us who have been following the new religion in recent years understand the next boom is health care.The old religion has been replaced by the new age superman and new boom will relace real estate. The experts are no more reliable than the bankers or the politicians but know how to create new wealth out of the hypochondians in the Brave new world of medical magic and survival of the fittest
Comment on September 20, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
If this crisis produces a return to all the wonderful things that encompassed the “hippy” generation - the getting back to nature, the searching within, the exploration of the limits of the mind and perception, with or without psychedelics, love and attraction based on things other than bank accounts and car types, and a final kick in the pants lesson learned about the utter foolishness of their own choices in ways of life and choices of leadership during the interim period — it will be the best legacy the republican party could ever leave in a million years.
Comment on September 23, 2007 @ 9:01 pm
[...] in terms of generational passings. I offered up a thumbnail description of the concept here and here last fall. But for the moment, it's simply worth noting that the nation is beset [...]
Pingback on July 17, 2008 @ 8:27 pm