The Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) take a lot of heat here and elsewhere for All Our Problems today... including the pretty obviously suspect beliefs propagated by so many priests and politicians. But considering what was going on in the decades leading up to and during their youth, are they really The Bad Guys?
The Boomers were parented by those who'd lived through the Great Depression (30% unemployment in 1932) and the biggest war in the planet's history (40-50 million killed). They were afraid. (I know. I was there to see it.) And they were looking for HOPE before the explosion of college education -- and rational empiricism -- that didn't get underway until those parents were in their 40s and 50s. Too late for the vast majority of them.
The vast majority of Boomers themselves were conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, socialized, habituated, normalized and neurally “hard-wired” to unquestioning belief before they became the first generation ever to hit college en masse. And found themselves as perplexed and confused by freshman philosophy and critical thinking as they were afraid of sharing it with their closed-minded parents.
Fulton J. Sheen, Billy Graham, Kathryn Kuhlman, Garner Ted Armstrong and Robert Schuler were the big names On The (parents') Toob on Sunday mornings. The messages may have been dismissed or ignored by many young people. But in the absence of the alternatives grasped by about 10% of the so-called "hippies," most of whom were either swilling down watered down beer or smoking pot to try to escape their introjected and infected sin, shame and guilt. Alan Watts, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Richard "Ram Dass" Alpert and Timothy Leary were around, as were Alan Ginsberg, Tom Hayden and Jerry Rubin, but their impact was far more limited, mostly very brief, often contaminated, and largely lost in the smoke.
So about 75% of the Boomers grew up as Blinded. Deafened. Dumbed down. And Sense-less. With Consequences. as their frightened parents. And then... they became parents... and knowing no other way to be parents, imitated their abusers.
One may or may not seek to rectify one's unfortunate conditioning, of course. But they have to be able to see, hear and sense that it even occurred before they even think about tackling what was done to their minds by the agents of The 1% who Know What's Up and want to make damned sure their Big Secrets are well kept because of the tremendous advantages that provides to them.
Follow the path back to the money that has financed the growth of the huge mega-churches of the Millennial Era? And be careful about judging a previous generation when one's own is being so rapidly brainwashed? Something to think about, anyway.
Resources
If interested in pursuing the notions offered here, one may benefit from looking into the books from A Basic Cult Library and On Religion from Outside the Box, as well as some of the selection from the long, three-section list that begins right here.
Further, one may wish to look into the following articles:
The Political Purpose of Evangelical Totalism in "not-moses's" replies to the original posters on this Reddit thread, as well as this one.
Religion as the Principal Force for Civilization... At a Price in "not-moses's" ;lenghty discussion with the original poster on that Reddit thread.
The Unquestioned Power of the Priest or Guru (as explained by Erich Fromm in Psychoanalysis and Religion)
