Boomeritis - I need to

Boomeritis - I need to find a copy of Boomeritis by Ken Wilber; it's the main motivation behind this afternoon's library trip (that, and finding someplace with air conditioning. Just like when I was a kid).

But until then, Elizabeth DeBold's review in What Is Enlightenment? is not only good, but nearly as long as a book:

I am a boomer. Blooming right in the middle of the boomer eraborn in 1955and still booming strong. I have been part of one paradigm-busting, revolutionary movement after another since I came of age in the early seventies.(I even coauthored a book called Mother Daughter Revolution, about how mothers can change the future by changing the way they raise girls.) I know that whatever I'm involved in has the potential to entirely transform the world as we know it, to free us from the untold horrors of, well, you name itpatriarchy, racism, class oppression. Why? Because I'm a boomer, and boomers are going to change the world. And isn't it just perfect boomer style that I've also found a spiritual path that is evolutionary, revolutionary, and designed to change the world? Of course, I never really thought of myself as a boomer until I read Ken Wilber's Boomeritis (Shambhala Publications, 2002), his scathing and often hilarious indictment of boomer hubris.

The article is great - read as much as you have time for.

However, there's one really obvious error:

So, what is boomeritis? First of all, it isn't just something for those of us born during the boomer years, 1946-1964.

Right there is your first problem. The baby boom had nothing to do with years; Baby Boomers are people born to parents who were of child-rearing age at the end of World War II. Although I was born in 1962, my father was nine and my mom was four on VJ Day.

So, nobody better be calling me a Baby Boomer. Got that?

Posted by Mitch at June 15, 2003 10:55 AM