In Review: A Generation of Sociopaths

How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

Last Spring, as we were all still somewhat in shock when the results of the 2016 American presidential election hit us with the revelation of many hidden truths about our modern reality, my husband ordered this book. It was a new release, written very much in response to the surprising election of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and is, as the jacket quote notes, “Sure to be controversial.” Indeed. I swiped the book right out of the Amazon delivery package and I’ve been slowly digesting it ever since, in small bites. It’s been quite a challenge to chew, especially as I’m becoming a mother myself.

This is a great review, for reference: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/17/generation-sociopaths-review-trump-baby-boomers-ruined-world

In my brief summary, essentially, Gibney asserts that our modern American political stalemate and the institutional decline that we’ve experienced over the past half century is due to a domination in our official representation, and our culture, by a cohort of sociopathic Baby Boomer leaders. America has been hijacked by Boomers, and they are sociopathic. He begins his analysis at the beginning of the Baby Boom, after WWII, when the Depression was lifting it’s grasp on Americans and we started reproducing again, like rabbits, resulting in a record breaking boom of babies forming the generation. Convention dates the beginning of the Boom to 1946, but it can be traced back to 1940. In a very detailed, thorough, and well documented review of American history throughout the cultural and social developments of their lifetimes, Gibney makes his case to consider the Boomers sociopaths, in a sweeping generalization of the generation, hard to refute. It’s almost undeniable, in fact, looking at the records the way he’s laid them out, that Boomers must be responsible for normalizing the sociopathic tendencies in our world today. It’s quite shocking.

In their early lifetimes, the privilege and comforts of their world, protected by the strength of the institutional and economic foundations built by their parents on the heels of the catastrophic Depression and WWII, granted young Boomers the opportunity to take their wealth for granted and become foolishly indulgent. Dr. Spock and his permissive parenting, too much television, and a tragic culture encouraging values of independence before reliance on social virtue would create the toxic cocktail of sociopathic milk. Later, as they were being introduced to the political sphere, the Vietnam conflict and it’s strong opposition, combined with the draft dodging that followed, were the foundational sociopolitical framework of a dangerously fractured and self-centered dominant ideology. This went on to later become Reaganomics, Neoliberalism, bizarre political values of cutting taxes before any necessary institutional investment, and eventually resulting in our current reality, where the Millennials have been robbed of a potentially prosperous future by our parents. Thanks Boomers.

I want to note that the DSM-V defines a sociopath, or a person with Antisocial Personality Disorder, as an individual who habitually and pervasively disregards or violates the rights of others without remorse. Now, I know of one political figure who absolutely fits this definition so accurately in his public record that he serves as the prime example of a sociopathic Baby Boomer — Donald Trump. This slime traitor inspired Gibney to write the book, let’s not forget. I know I was quite puzzled by the possibility of his election, but when I consider that it was a cohort of equally sociopathic Baby Boomer voters who elected the weasel, it makes more sense. Still, in time, his investigation will prove that he corrupted our democratic process in collusion with Russia to such a degree as to completely invalidate his election at all, but we’re still waiting for that. In the meantime, these sociopaths think they’ve won. We have to remind them that they’re losing the long game, since they’re so short-sighted and prone to immediate gratification.

Despite this logical satisfaction offering an explanation of the election of an imposter president like Donald Trump, I actually disagree with lumping the entire generation of Baby Boomers into a category of sociopaths, for several reasons. Primarily, I don’t believe we’ll accomplish anything by blaming them for our mistakes and failures as a nation.

To start with, the premise declaring the Baby Boomers as a generation of sociopaths is a bold and somewhat dubious claim. The Baby Boomer generation has no concrete beginning or end for one thing, since the concept of a ‘generation’ as a general grouping of one cohort of people born and maturing within a time frame is vague, in and of itself. In the book, the stretch of years defining Baby Boomers is traced from 1940–1964, the end of the Depression into the mid-sixties, and about 75,000 new babies were boomed into the population during that period. Granted that premise conceit, however, I was almost more intrigued to read beyond such a bold claim and find out what would motivate the author to make that statement. As I’ve already admitted, his perspective and the way he presents it in the book is difficult to refute. I struggled to find a reason for the gnawing itch of something not quite right about the premise.

Bruce Cannon Gibney is a venture capitalist and writer who has seen a relatively booming increase in his personal wealth, I’d imagine, since investing in startups like Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify and Lyft. I certainly wondered how a person could find the time to do the in-depth research and compile it all so quickly and dedicatedly as was required for this book, at times. It makes sense when I consider that he’s a wealthy investor. Not that he should be judged as such, but a context for his personal perspective seems important to mention before going forward.

The research for the book is thorough, detailed, precise and well documented. Gibney manages to make a case for his bold premise that I struggled to find rationally objectionable throughout most of my reading. I would learn the background behind a litany of observations about my elders that I’ve noted in my own personal experience with seemingly enlightening insight, and simultaneous pity and rage. There is no way to argue with most of the facts that are presented in the book. Simply, in the records of historical events, American officials who were born in the Baby Boomer generation have an indisputably bad rap and a remarkable pattern of failures in policy making. Essentially as the children born during the Boomer years were developing, the privileged and optimistic conditions of their upbringing in post-WWII America were such that they were groomed with anti-social, self-centered, individualistic behavior traits as normalized. Understandably, when they took over leadership positions in government, their sociopathic worldview became reflected in policy that has been increasingly profitable to the immediate Boomer benefit, while damaging to all future, non-Boomer progeny to follow. As the DSM-V defines it, the sociopathic condition is one in which egocentrism, lack of empathy, impulsivity, lack of remorse, aggressiveness, deceitfulness, and manipulativeness are all qualities embodied. What Gibney fails to recognize as a fundamental flaw in his argument, essentially discrediting it somewhat, is that while his observations of the commonality of these traits among the Boomer cohort are accurate, he himself exhibits very little empathy for them. What are we to conclude about him, then? Is he a sociopath?

I couldn’t help churning in my mind while reading this book that the Boomers, as flawed and stupid as they may be, are my elders. They came before me, and I am only as good as they’ve set me up to be. Am I fucked? I don’t want to be angry with my parents, or their entire generation, for that matter. What am I supposed to do with the righteous indignation that I feel after reading about how completely narcissistic and destructive these ass holes have been? What about my daughter? God help me!

Finally, as I was finishing the book, it donned on me — the empathy factor. The author does a great job of pointing the finger and making a case against the Boomers as responsible for all of our sociopolitical crises in America of late, and he blames them freely, without remorse. I couldn’t comfortably agree with that stance. Gibney goes on to explicitly cite his motive for so boldly targeting the Boomers with such incrimination in his Afterword chapter at the end — he wants to make them an “other” for us to pin down and charge with accountability before it’s too late. While I cannot disagree that we are facing extreme crises in our economy, in our global national security, our domestic infrastructure stability, our entire system of democratic government… I don’t think we can blame anyone for this and expect it to result in positive, reconstructive, progressive change. Beyond that, if we were to pin down the Boomers and crucify them with the blame, then what about their parents? What about the Great Generation? Or the Silent Generation? Or anyone who came before them? Aren’t they responsible for creating the Boomers as such flawed characters? The next logical step would be to question even further, what about the kids of the Boomers? If we, as Gen-Xers or Millennials, were raised by sociopaths, what does that make us? Whew. It’s exhausting to get to the bottom of it, but it all comes down to this essential flaw — an attempt to combat the lack of empathy that is pervasive among the Boomer generation, which indeed it is, with an equally apathetic punishment is entirely ineffective.

Yes, we need reform, and now. Yes, we need to take quick and serious steps to start to address the economically unsustainable framework of our currently outdated institutional models and systems. Yes, we might actually need to adjust the foundational principles of our democratic voting systems. Yes, we need to reunite our efforts toward building a stable and sustainable future for our world and our children. But, we don’t need to insult, condemn, or diagnose anyone in order to do that. While it may be indisputable that the Baby Boomer generation of political leaders has proven to trend toward a sociopathic policy record, we won’t get anywhere by stoning them for it. We should learn from it, absolutely, but we should move forward with our common goals and the bright future that we want to see in our sights. We can make it happen, but we have to start now.

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A personal aside:

As a nursing mother, I found Gibney’s highlighting of the connection to bottle feeding in their early lives as a correlation to sociopathic traits in adulthood to be especially alarming. The Boomer generation was the first generation of the human species to have been largely bottle fed in America, instead of breast fed. The convenience of the bottle, coupled with the social taboos around maternal modesty in public and social pressures to degrade the breast as a source of external life for the new baby, encouraged the spike in bottle feeding popularity. It was one of the earliest examples of the intrusion of capitalist industry into the well being of citizens, when women started to be medically encouraged to bottle feed their babies, instead of breast feed for free, by their doctors. I know from my own experience that my baby didn’t even like a bottle! When I pumped, she’d drink it only if she was really hungry, but she did not like the bottle. Breastfeeding is about so much more than milk. These poor little infants were deprived of the loving physical closeness that a new baby needs from its mother. Yes, we come out at nine months, but that fourth trimester, or the first three months of a baby’s life, might as well be inside. Human babies are inherently, physically, still very linked to their mothers, through the breast. It breaks my heart to think about these Great Generation mamas depriving their babies and themselves of that beautiful love — all for the money of the formula companies. [I’ll add a caveat that some women cannot breastfeed or find it so challenging that they choose the bottle, and for them, I acknowledge the struggle and by no means is formula feeding a bad choice. By no means! It can also save lives, in such a circumstance. Breast is best, though, and I believe in supporting each other to provide the best possible parenting choices, whenever possible.]