Book: Are Baby Boomers A ‘Generation Of Sociopaths’?

[JasonBlack]

Obviously, I don't believe the majority of any generation suffer from malignant personality disorders, but if I had to choose one as the most prominent, narcissism works much better than antisocial/sociopathy. Sociopaths don't have fixations around moral causes (except as a means to consolidate power), pioneer causes like environmentalism (sociopaths don't even care about other people. Why would they care about plants and animals?) or have to convince themselves that everything they do has some sort of "deeper mission". If a sociopath wants something, they...just take it. Maybe they'll be a little more Machiavellian and go about it a little more indirectly, but they don't have to convince themselves of their own moral rectitude the way boomers are more prone to. 

I know plenty of extremely compassionate boomers. The main intergenerational problem I run into with them is not malice or even selfishness, but insularity and a tendency to over emotionalize and moralize at times where neither are helpful. Strauss and Howe's work articulated my experience of them to a degree that took me by surprise, as they go over this "inward" tendency in great detail.