Reassessments of ‘The Lost-Out Generation’
Your article was one of the most disturbing things we have read in quite some time. Not because we sympathize with the self-absorbed, whining, venal yuppies it portrayed, but because the author actually had sympathy for them.
God knows, many baby boomers have legitimate worries about their long-term security, financial and otherwise. But this sympathy for the insecurities of the rich, at the exclusion of concern for people who are really living on the margin, is one of the distorted set of values that Americans old and young have developed collectively in the last decade or two.
Such modern American values as the legitimization of greed and admiration of wealth instead of accomplishment have been advanced by the highest of our national leaders. Is it any wonder that these people (who are already spoiled beyond salvation) share those values? It is as predictable as the fact that the dominant political party would choose a pair of whiny, rich, tongue-tied incompetents as their candidates for national leadership.
STEPHEN A. MAAS
Long Beach
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