RSA Thursday - Have the baby boomers made us go bust?

25th Jun 2009; 13:00

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Join our panel as they assess the intergenerational ‘boom and bust’.

Does the baby boomer generation owe us all an apology?  The children of joyful post-war reunions are responsible for some of the greatest social advances of the 20th century – campaigning tirelessly for peace, freedom of sexuality, gender equality, and against racism, military bombast and bigotry.

But is there a flipside to this liberal revolution? Have the tenets of free love and sexual promiscuity precipitated family breakdown and social malaise? Has the quest for spiritual enlightenment in foreign climes meant that the flowerchildren have flown their way to environmental catastrophe? And has their self-indulgent culture of individualism and excessive consumption directly contributed to this current economic crisis?

Speakers include playwright, novelist and critic Bonnie Greer, celebrated authors Jenny Diski and Tim Lott, and Brendan O’Neill, journalist and editor of Spiked Online.

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #rsababyboomers

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