Thanks to Michael Wright for passing along the classic exemplars of the
60s-bashing-via-boomer-bashing phenomenon. Of course hearing impairment
is a genuine and significant health concern, especially showing up in
people of, ahem, a certain age (so say I, with tinnitus I've had for
several years). And, of course, loud rock music is one source for
hearing damage. But what, pray tell, does this have to do with the glib
generalization so commonly repeated in our mass culture, "Will
baby-boomers ever grow up?" This is the single most common theme in
the mass media's treatment of the 60s --that they (and subsequent
shifts on popular patterns) can be identified with (and are therefore
reduceable to) a "generation." Not surprisingly, what was once a kind
of hyping of boomers quickly passed, as fashions do, to bashing boomers,
as everyone hops on the market train.
It's way past time to demythologize (rather than simply reinforce) mass
culture, don't you think?
Ted Morgan
)
Sorrento95@aol.com wrote:
>
> Will baby-boomers ever grow up?
>
> Aging baby-boomers trying to pretend to be hot young rockers are pathetic.
>
> Don't they know that hearing impairment is the nation's most prevalent chronic illness, and that loud rock bands and loud stereos are a big reason for this? In the early 90s, the National Institutes of Health estimated 28 million cases of hearing impairment in the US, with 10 million said to be caused by excessive noise.
>
> Don't they know why rock'n'roll sax player Billy Clinton had to get a hearing aid at age 50?
>
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