A Generation of Sociopaths; How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America by Bruce Cannon Gibney is a take down of that generation (born roughly between 1946 - 1964) whose bad behaviors, cultural influence and government policy mismanaged our country into towering national debt and a whole host of bad outcomes that do not bode well for the next generations. Gibney's thesis is that the boomer generation had more sociopaths than any other and this influenced the way they wielded power once they gained adulthood. Apparently there has been a study (or maybe two) asserting that more sociopaths can be found in this particular generation. Buying into this idea and using it as a filter to analyze all the failed policies this generation seems to have perpetuated, Gibney gives a really sweeping and harsh condemnation of pretty much anything this generation did.
I myself think the baby boomers (and I am one of them) have perpetuated lots of harmful policies and cultural norms. Sociopathy is described in the DSM-V and Gibney takes each characteristic (no empathy, no impulse control, not able to foresee consequences of behavior, manipulative, etc) puts it at the front of a chapter before he launches into a particular dysfunctional law or attitude of the boomers. So for instance he takes on no fault divorce and how the rate of divorce was at an all time high at the height of baby boomer influence. This shows how unstable they are. However, to me a huge blind spot in his book is that he never references abortion in this same light. In fact he asserts that abortion is a moral good. But might it not be pretty obvious that any generation that say, ' my body, my choice' and is willing to snuff out the life of their offspring in utero, probably isn't going to really put their children's needs or desires before their own?
The strongest parts of this book, I thought, were in the author's very detailed analysis of both what caused the national debt to grow to unimaginable proportions and how it really is a shaky, scary situation that no boomer seems to take seriously. He also details all the financial scandals, growing lack of oversight and integrity and loosening of laws to the benefit of the rich and older generation (i.e. the boomers). Gibney really seems to know his economics and finance history. He's a rich venture capitalist himself, who made it big because he was friends with the founder of PayPal. He does seem to me to be balanced in his recounting and analysis. While he is center-left politically, he is pretty even handed in criticized both Republicans and Democrats. It's not so much partisan for him as generational. And he goes on and on about it.
I did agree with much of what this author posited. However, I think he went overboard in too sweeping a way which essentially weakens the force of his argument. He is definitively trying to whip up anger. He must say the word 'sociopath' hundreds of times in this book. At the end of the book, after excoriating the boomers page after page, he says, hey but I don't think we should rise up violently against them. Gee, thanks, Gibney!
I thought the book was weakest when he was trying to explain why the boomers might be sociopaths. Because they bottle fed, listened to Dr. Spock and stopped spanking their children, watched TV and dodged the draft during Vietnam. I honestly thought he was a bit off his rocker when making these arguments, which again, further weakened this book.
Like I said, I actually agree with the author on many points and I truly appreciated his analysis of some of the issues, all the financial stuff, and other issues as well. So in spite of this being a really hard book to read, both because of the detailed financial, tax, economic stuff but also because it was just such a bleak take down of my own generation, I think this is a worthwhile book to read. The guy can really write. He truly has moments of brilliant insight and a stunning turn of phase at times. And he offers practical solutions to some of the corners the baby boomers have painted the nation into.
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