In 1951, an Entire Generation of Narcissists Was Not Still Telling Everybody

“I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news that William McKinley had been shot”.

But Baby Boomers, being the incredibly self-absorbed people we are, are *still* dominating national discourse for the entire month of November with our conviction that an emotionally upsetting moment from our mummified Pepsi Generation Youth is something that Kids Today need to hear about yet again because we Boomers discovered sex, death, morality, and everything else worth knowing about.  Our parents were prologue to us.  Our children are our accessories.  History was born and will die with us.  So we Baby Boomers blather each year about how “America lost its innocence on November 22, 1963”.  That would be the America that endured the crucible of a Civil War, slavery, ethnic cleansing of Native populations, two world wars, the opening of Dachau, and the spectre of nuclear annihilation.  What all the “lost innocence” chatter means is, “I grew up watching Howdy Doody in suburbia and this was *my* first encounter with death that my parents could not shield me from. Since I am the center of all things, that means my emotional experience will now blot out all of human history in my epic narcissism.”

JFK: Eternal rest.

Baby Boomers:  Its been 50 years.  Move on.  You are not the Center of All Things.

Update: Tom McDonald has some smart commentary in followup.