Talking ’bout my generation … did we change the world?
Talking ’bout my generation…
I was reading Baby Boomer Stephen King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and I ran across this:
I don’t want to speak disparagingly of my generation (actually I do, we had a chance to change the world and opted for the Home Shopping Network instead).
Ouch!
Kennth Gronbach (author of The Age Curve that I’ve been talking about) says we Baby Boomers are lazy and self-centered. After all, we’re the generation they were talking about when they coined the phrase “The ‘Me’ Decade” to describe the 1970s.
But are we really that bad? We were the generation that (rightly) protested the War in Vietnam and advocated for Civil Rights and peace. No, we didn’t fight World War II, but many died in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Baby Boomers have also been supremely entrepreneurial, with people like Bill Gates and others creating wealth, not just for themselves, but for the world. Gates is also a great example of the entrepreneur turned philanthropist. The economist William Schumpeter theorized that entrepreneurs were the key to societal change, because they bring value through economic growth.
I would also argue that Baby Boomers have changed the world through the creation of the Internet. No, I’m not talking about Al Gore, but Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who created the concept of the World Wide Web and gave it to the world.
Without the WWW, what would our world look like? What do you think? Is King being too hard on us?
Tags: Bill Gates, Stephen King, Tim Berners LeeRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Being A Boomer, Boomer Books, Boomer Volunteer Opportunities, Boomers helping others
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