Imagine a 77-year old favourite of the boomers’ parents, playing at Woodstock in the 1960s. The oldest…

Imagine a 77-year old favourite of the boomers’ parents, playing at Woodstock in the 1960s. The oldest performer at Woodstock was Ravi Shankar, who was 49. (He didn’t like hippies and never did it again.) There’s a serious point here. /1 https://t.co/1vmdFZ4AHS

A 77-year old artist playing at Woodstock would have been born in 1892. That would be the equivalent of Louis Armstrong or Jelly Roll Morton playing there. We have artists at Glastonbury this week approaching 80 years of age. Why I think this matters. /2

None of this is ageism, I should add. If people want to keep playing into their 80s, good luck to them. But we’re talking about headlining music festivals, festivals predominantly (like Woodstock) designed for the young. To me this means unhealthy things. /3

What’s rarely said about the counterculture movement of the 1960s was that it was profoundly anti-establishment. Today the closest beliefs are labelled neoliberalism. It’s strange the bedfellows beliefs keep. And who invented neoliberalism? The same boomers. /4 https://t.co/WrIXCRK1RZ

That was the same movement, as it morphed into a highly profitable middle and old age. The richest generation in all of history, by a mile. Anti-establishment beliefs were great business, the boomers dismantled many of society’s institutions, and then privatised them. /5

Most of the corporate behemoths that now dominate our lives in our ‘neoliberal’ societies were set up by boomers, who also profited the most from them. They monetised the wreckage of their earlier anti-establishment assault. I don’t think people see this clearly at all. /6

The wealthiest demographic in our societies, again by a staggering margin, are the boomers, now retiring or retired. That’s a social obscenity, which would have been seen as that by previous generations. If your working, child-raising generation isn’t your highest…/7

…earning generation, your society is toast. We’re all living that perversion now, with young working people not even able to afford (or find) rental accommodation, let alone owning a roof over their own heads. And their wages and savings have been in free fall for decades. /8

So when I see near-80 year olds take the stage at Glastonbury, pardon me for feeling disgust that this particular generation won’t make way for those who came after them. The Peter Pan generation, desperately clinging to their adolescent lives. An eternal lifestyle culture. /9

It’s the clearest way to see the total collapse of a previous progression from child to adult life. Everything has been stalled at adolescence for decades. Society is a high school, as I Tweet about a lot, it’s not an analogy. This is what we’re seeing, right now. /10

This is the generation who did it, still trying to dominate all the adolescent things that they’d have been horrified at their own parents doing. High school was the culture they knew, and they remade the world in its image. They won’t accept ageing, and succession. /11

They vacuumed up nearly all of society’s wealth, and intend to live their adolescent lives to the glorious end, gorging themselves on it. Boomer musicians have been touring the world for the past 10-20 years, vacuuming up tens of millions for a luxurious retirement. /12

This is a social and cultural fact we’re seeing, not my personal gripe or opinion. Elderly people, easily grandparent or great-grandparent age, are headlining music festivals. Stop and think how perverse that is, historically. The total lack of adult stepping aside in play. /13

This topic also elicits howls of protest from boomers and others about them being good people, who’ve done good things. All true, but then that’s true for every generation. But it’s not about how nice they are personally, it’s about intergenerational equity. /14

I think I’m a nice person, but I’m very happy to admit that my comfortable life is also bought at the expense of generations of imperial colonisation and oppression. I can hold those two facts in my head at the same time. I don’t personally oppress anybody. /15

But the culture I live in did, and I benefited hugely from it. So I support everything sensible that culture now does in reparation. Do I see boomers lining up to address the unprecedented intergenerational inequities we see right now? No. This is the cultural bit. /16

This is what the high school culture I talk about looks like, in real time. Adolescent framing of life itself. Living your best life, an eternal lifestyle-based present, denial of ageing and succession. A politics of libertarian obsession, with freedom (teenagers, anybody?). /17

You can watch Glastonbury (stage and crowd) and see the collapse of the distinction between different age groups, right there. I’m sure some will celebrate it as some fight against ageism. I don’t think it’s anything of the sort. There comes a time when you must stand aside. /18

That’s what the circle of life means. Each stage of life is a necessary phase, making way for what comes after. But it’s not the world we live in now. That circle has been completely flattened. In favour of Peter Pan eternal adolescence. Why we won’t fight emergencies either. /19

Climate change and Covid action upsets these adolescent living your best life lives. It can’t be tolerated. We must get back to gigs, to travel, to eating out. To lifestyles. It would take just one prominent boomer musician to say ‘fuck Glastonbury, what about the virus?’ /20

You won’t hear it. Those masses of people can all be infected, so the boomers can soak up the adoration and cash one more time. No leadership, no grown ups. /end