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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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The Triumph of Janet (and follow-up with a mad Boomer who turned out to actually be called Janet ranting about the yoof at the Conservative party conference) has rapidly become the canonical British complaint against "Boomer Reality" after going viral on Substack.

A more intellectual version makes the case that the underlying problem is the moral failure of Thatcherism. Margaret Thatcher thought that subsidising Boomer asset acquisition would cause the beneficiaries to become bourgeois and develop the bourgeois virtues, but it actually caused them to become landed gentry in denial and develop the gentlemanly vices (without the noblesse obilige or martial tradition that kept the real landed gentry safe from the guillotine). Sam Freedman sees the core belief that defines boomer reality as "the asset wealth I was subsidised to acquire is something I deserve because I am more virtuous than younger generations". At this level of generality, I think the argument applies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Thank you for those links. Really fits into my speculation.