This Book Claims That Baby Boomers Are Basically All Sociopaths

The baby boomers. Oh yes, those who are anywhere from their early 50's to about 70. These people are the messiest generation. Well, that is according to writer and venture capitalist Bruce Gibney's new book, A Generation of Sociopaths. Which explains why boomers are actually far worse than they appear.

If you haven't already guessed based on the title alone, Gibney is claiming that baby boomers are sociopaths. Wait, what? How can that be? Isn't it always people in this generation who are blaming the current crop of adults for the mishaps of the world? Yup, but Gibney has some pretty interesting claims as to why he's calling some 76 million people in the US insane.

First off, his studies were mostly done on white people who grew up lucky enough to be considered middle class. So the results are a little off. Nevertheless, we do see where he's coming from on some of his points. He puts a lot of the blame on how boomers were raised. In A Generation of Sociopaths, he points out that boomers were the first generation to stem from permissive parenting skills.

Gibney explained the whole parenting thing to The Huffington Post, "These people have higher self-esteem, but they tend to be more rebellious and messy, both in the literal sense and in their approach to their own affairs. They were also the first generation to be raised with television, and there really weren't parental reservations about screen time. The literature on TV and cognitive and behavioral development is almost universally negative."

The parenting, the TV watching and other research that Gibney's taken in has resulted him in believing that boomers indeed show more sociopathic tendencies. Like, a lack of empathy, the disregard for others, egotism and impulsivity. Makes sense, parents who are more hands off tend to raise kids who have a bit of a rebellious nature to them because in return they are more independent.

That independence can then garner a higher esteem. Not to sound like McConahay but alright, alright, alright. We get that. TV though, we don't really understand why people always want to point the finger at television when it comes to how a person comes out. Have they ever studied how much TV sociopaths, in jail, watched when they were growing up?

Every generation has some kinks, but it's hard to believe that so many people are walking around with these so called "tendencies" and personality traits because of a change in parenting and some extra TV. 

Then again, we're faced with the millennials right now who all seem to be glued to social media constantly looking for affirmation that they are truly worth something. So, maybe you can sum a generation up. 

What do you think?