For reasons I’ll keep to myself (for a change), I’ve been thinking about growing old lately. That leads me to consider my whole generation, that fabled company known in the West as the Baby Boomers. I’m confident that future historians (I trust there will be some) will certainly rank us as one of the greatest disasters in western history.

The generation of Americans that survived the Depression and won the Second World War faced the post-war years with two firm goals—to have families, and to give their children everything they never had. The children they bore were (by and large) the most cherished, the most cossetted, and the most privileged in human history. Many (not all, but enough) were taught that they were the center of the universe, the most important people in the world. As they grew older, they were confidently informed that they were the smartest, best-educated, wisest generation the world had ever seen. They would, they were assured, change the world forever.

And change it they did.

By “they,” of course, I mean “we.” I was always out of step with my generation. I never liked Rock ‘n Roll. I never once tried recreational drugs. I watched the sexual revolution from a distance, with a mixture of wistfulness, contempt, and (I’ll admit it) envy.

But although I could not yet fully articulate it, I knew in my bones that something was wrong with all this.

I think two words characterize my generation. Those words are Narcissism, and Projection.

Every baby is a narcissist. He has to be, because he has small ability to communicate his needs beyond his talent for crying loudly in a high, attention-grabbing register. Traditionally, children have been taught to tamp that narcissism down as they got older.

The Boomers, to an unprecedented degree, never learned that.

No baby likes competition. A new brother or sister is a threat.

Boomers carried that obsession on into adulthood. Even as grownups, they couldn’t bear the competition of another baby in the house. So they had very few.

To a baby, authority (in such forms as parents, teachers, and the government) is an insufferable brake on one’s personal right to full satisfaction. Traditionally, children have been taught, as they grew, to see the need for authority and discipline, and to learn to respect—even admire—authority figures.

Boomers laid it down as a doctrine that all authority was evil. “Never trust anyone over thirty.” All limitations on personal autonomy, such as traditional college curricula, marriage, and the military draft were attacked and brought down. Wherever Flaming Youth rebelled, the Greatest Generation yielded, reinforcing the Boomers’ belief that they were the Chosen Generation who would create a new world—a world that would be a non-stop party. Because for the Boomers, nothing was more important than partying. And because Projection goes with Narcissism, they actually believed that something so nonsensical must be true. After all, they thought it, and they were always right.

And now, at last, the Boomers approach Old Age. I’m sure many are looking for someone to sue, to get their rightful youth back. They never believed they’d get old; that’s another reason they didn’t have any children. You only need children if you expect to age, and to need somebody able-bodied to support you (directly or through pensions and taxes). But the Boomers were certain that wouldn’t happen in their new, transformed world.

For the true Narcissist, nothing exists outside oneself. When we die, the universe ceases to exist.

I think that partly explains global warming hysteria. “If I am going to die, surely the Heavens themselves will grow dark, and the foundations of the earth crumble.” Anthropogenic Global Climate Change is the ultimate Projection of the ultimate Narcissists.

My advice to younger people—don’t let us play with anything flammable.

Picture credit: Getty Images.