Peace, Love, and Property Damage
The Boomer “revolution” that ate itself
Ah, the Baby Boomer counter-culture. That flower-crowned fever dream of peace, love, and delusional utopianism. History remembers it fondly as the moment when an entire generation supposedly broke free of “the Man,” embraced sexual liberation, and fought for civil rights. But peel back the tie-dyed curtain, and what do we find? A mess. A loud, self-righteous, pot-smoke-reeking mess that promised liberation, but delivered gentrification, inflated real estate markets, and the spiritual death of rock 'n' roll.
In the interest of transparency, I am a Cusper. My folks were Depression/WW2 era, making me a Boomer, but many of my peers were the offspring of Boomers—i.e. Xers. By the time I became culturally aware, most of the damage was done. My first wife was a Boomer, and the second was an Xer, and frankly I don’t see a lot of difference.
Let’s begin with the obvious: the Boomers were the first generation in history to rebel against their parents because life was too good. Raised in an era of unprecedented prosperity, they somehow managed to mistake boredom for oppression. Imagine growing up with full employment, cheap tuition, affordable housing, and a pension plan at age 24—and deciding the real problem with society was that the living room wallpaper didn’t have enough mushrooms on it.
This was a revolution that claimed to be against consumerism, while being sponsored by Volkswagen. Yes, nothing screams anti-establishment quite like a mass-produced German vehicle commissioned by Adolf Hitler becoming the symbol of your movement. Boomers didn’t so much reject capitalism, as give it a makeover. Tie-dye T-shirts? Monetized. Anti-war slogans? Trademarked. LSD-induced spiritual awakenings? Published by HarperCollins and sold at Borders.
And let's not forget the music. Oh, the music! The soundtrack of their revolution—Dylan, Hendrix, Joni, Janis—was meant to stir souls and ignite change. But within a decade, those same anthems were background noise in elevators, car commercials and dental office waiting rooms. Woodstock, the pinnacle of hippie idealism, left behind not only good vibes and acid flashbacks, but also a mountain of trash, mud and hepatitis, not to mention “love children”. It was less a utopia and more a prototype for Burning Man with worse plumbing and no logistics.
Of course, the Boomers were very into social justice—when it meant skipping class and quoting Marx in between bong hits and Weathermen reports. But once the revolutions were over, they didn't exactly dismantle the systems they once raged against. No, they bought and packaged them. Wall Street? Now staffed by former flower children with ponytails and investment portfolios. The military-industrial complex? Still booming, just with better PR and possibly a few recycled drum circles. They didn’t kill the system. They moved into it, put their feet up, and asked what the pension plan looked like.
In fact, the anti-war generation has become one of the most bellicose in history, selling bombs to third-world countries, then bombing the buyers, all the while kicking back to the Boomer politicians who facilitated both ends of the deal.
And speaking of pensions—can we talk about housing? These self-proclaimed anti-materialists snatched up real estate like it was going out of style (it was). They turned every affordable neighborhood into an overpriced Whole Foods fantasy, then had the audacity to call millennials “entitled” for not being able to afford a broom closet in Haight-Asbury or a studio flat in Greenwich. They fought the man, then became the man, complete with mortgage-backed securities and vintage LPs that have tripled in value (see The Beatles “Yesterday and Today” unpeeled).
Let’s not gloss over the family values aspect, either. The generation that told their parents “you’re not the boss of me” then went on to raise latchkey kids with divorce rates that made 16th-century monarchs blush. Their parenting style? A cocktail of absenteeism, passive aggression, and vague talk of “finding yourself.” Thanks, Mom and Dad—you created the Therapy Industrial Complex.
And education—remember when Boomers protested universities for being too square? Fast-forward forty years and they're charging students $50,000 a year for the same Cultural Studies courses they once picketed. The revolution, it seems, had a tuition fee. Today's students graduate with debt that would bankrupt a small nation, all while Boomers moan that “kids these days don’t know the value of hard work.” This from the people who spent their formative years dropping acid and reading Siddhartha.
Sorry, I threw up a little bit in my mouth.
Even the environment didn’t get spared. Boomers were the original Earth lovers, sure. They hugged trees, wore hemp, and banned aerosols. But somehow, in the decades since, we’ve managed to cook the planet to a crisp under their watch. Turns out the “ecological consciousness” of the 1970s couldn’t withstand the allure of SUV Breeder Buses, air conditioning, and all-you-can-eat shrimp buffets.
And let’s be brutally honest: the cultural hangover is real. The Boomer legacy gave us new-age narcissism, pseudoscience, and a generation convinced that your chakras are the key to financial success. They replaced religion with horoscopes, wisdom with vibes, and civic duty with yoga retreats in Bali.
What began as a movement of hopeful rebellion mutated into an exercise in self-indulgence. The “don’t trust anyone over 30” crowd never trusted anyone under 30, once they hit 31. Their revolution wasn’t about changing the world—it was about feeling like they were changing the world, while ensuring they still got their tax credits and inherited cottages in the Catskills.
In short, the Baby Boomer counter-cultural revolution didn’t fail because it went too far. It failed because it didn’t sacrifice luxuries and financial security. It was theatre, not transformation. Noise, not substance. A marketing strategy masquerading as social change.
The Boomers were a demographic blob that descended like locusts on the social contract, leaving nothing but scraps and droppings in its wake. It was a drug-infused opium fantasy, couched in fecklessness, espousing liberation from reality.
So here we are—children of the revolution, left to clean up the mess and pay the bills. The peace signs have rusted, the vinyl smells of mildew, and the only thing truly counter-cultural left is financial solvency.
From neo-tribal communes, to the boards of corrupt NGOs, the Boomers’ legacy has bankrupted the treasury and society. The unicorn farts and sunbeams that recently crashed the European grid is a direct result of a self-indulgent generation hell-bent on making everyone else live by their dreams.
Perhaps the 21st century will come to be known as “The Great Mop-Up”.
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There is really only one counter-culture film worth mentioning, and that is Easy Rider (1969). This film is in the moment, of the moment and for the moment. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a must. If you have seen it, it’s been at least 30 years and time again. In many ways, this classic has almost become a documentary. Dennis Hopper co-wrote, directed and stars with Peter Fonda and Jack Micholson.
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Jayzus, Rufus! You sound like you went to college back in the 70s. For us Hippie Rednecks in the Upper Midwest who had draft lottery numbers for the Vietnam War (which you didn't even mention) life was a bit different from those crazy hippies taking over universities and doing sit-ins. We fasted. We went on the lam. We tried everything to avoid the draft. But we didn't go to college. We didn't have connections.
And then in August of 1971, Nixon took us off the gold standard on the 15th, and us boys born in 1952 had our birthdates drawn out of a lottery drum on the 21st to see if we'd won a free trip to Vietnam.
Our parents told us we were on our own and good luck!
We worked blue-collar jobs. Saved our money. Got married. Then women's lib convinced our wives that we were just sperm and money donors. That was a costly, depressing situation.
Ever since Nixon took us off the gold standard, inflation has gone crazy. By 1981, Fed Chairman Volcker had interest rates at 21% to try to get inflation under control.
Buy a house? Are you nuts? My wife and I couldn't buy a house. So she divorced me and found a government "worker" who could buy her a house.
I don't know what kind of place you spent your younger boomer years, but it wasn't the one I was in.
It wasn't boomers who started the so-called counterculture. Most of the founding members of the Yippies! were too old to be boomers. (The oldest Yipster was born in 1915.) Timothy Leary was not a boomer. Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters weren't boomers. The Chicago Seven weren't boomers. Owsley wasn't a boomer. Most of the members of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Sly and The Family Stone and The Mothers of Invention (to name a few) were not boomers.
It sure as hell wasn't boomers who controlled the music industry and used it to push "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll". Who were they working for? The CIA? Tavistock? Some people have made what seem to be credible arguments that the 60's was one big psyop intended to disrupt the social order.
As for those who actually were among the older boomers in the 60's... those born between 1946 and 1950... most studies place the number that actually identified with the counterculture at 15 to 20 percent.
Which brings me to the myth that boomers made out like bandits.
Growing up with parents who had "full employment, cheap tuition, affordable housing, and a pension plan at age 24" is one thing, but the boomers weren't so lucky. The economy began tanking as the oldest boomers were just starting to enter the job market, beginning with stagflation, which was followed by the oil embargo, as well as the move to "outsource", "offshore" and "downsize" the manufacturing base which all but eliminated good paying jobs that didn't require a college degree. (Just 26% of boomers went to college. That's went to college. The percentage that actually earned a degree is lower. Compare this to the 75% of younger people who have enrolled in college.)
According to several sources, roughly 80% of the wealth attributed to boomers is owned by just 20% of that cohort, with the rest of that wealth owned by another 30%. Half of all boomers have no financial assets, in no small part due to the destruction of the manufacturing base. And as for those guaranteed pensions, they were replaced with 401ks beginning in 1978 and boomers had nothing to do with that change.
I suggest that we all reject this divide and control narrative intended to continue destroying the family structure by turning the young against the old. This destruction, by the way, began during the latter half of the 19th century when the nuclear family replaced the extended family as the ideal household. Seems to me that it would be smarter for us to start recreating those extended family, not only because it's the right thing to do for our younger relatives but also because it takes a family to create generational wealth. Ever notice how we talk about the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers or the Kennedys? Those with the most make sure to keep their families strong while doing what they can to disrupt the social order and weaken our families.