Compare the logos of CND and Mercedes Benz – they look almost exactly the same. In the Sixties, ‘selling out’ was an insult. Now it’s an aspiration.
With so much emphasis on the self, Boomers were bound to focus on individual rights as their cause célèbre. As teenagers, they fought for political rights and sexual freedom. But the fight gradually morphed into the right for instant gratification. According to Carol Craig, at the Centre for Confidence and Well-being, this individualism came to represent not autonomy, but self-centredness and the satisfaction of personal wants. Individualism, Craig argues, has left Boomers ‘pursuing constant gratification, with much of this disguised by a show of self-confidence’.
The quest for constant gratification has driven consumer growth ever since the Sixties. With high self-worth comes high expectations, and so the Boomers disposed with their parents’ ‘make do and mend’ mantra in favour of ‘buy now pay later’. Endless innovative luxuries, delivered to the door, were designed to be binned just as soon as the next fad hit the stores. The constant refitting of houses, the endless gadgets, the new wardrobes; Boomers have spent a fortune on novelty and junk.
Personal fulfilment, according to research http://bit.ly/Boomerresearch, is the number 1 priority for today’s Boomers, and self-indulgence is the preferred means. In the evangelical churches of America, it has become a virtue. But one weekly visit to church wasn’t enough; Boomers scrapped Sunday trading laws so that they could worship consumerism at their shiny new, cathedral-like shopping malls. Next time you visit your parents, take a look at the enormous piles of stuff they have bought, and now hoard, in the loft. It’s no wonder that self-storage is one of the fastest growing industries in the UK.
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