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I am a baby boomer. In fact, I was born just one day after the most prominent baby boomer of the moment, Donald Trump. But there was no UFC fight on our lawn for my 80th birthday this week. The summer of 1946 was a ‘generative’ time. America had won World War II, and our fathers had been home from Europe and the Pacific for exactly nine months (to the day for me). As several commentators noted this week, three U.S. presidents were born that summer: Trump (June 14), George W. Bush (July 6), and Bill Clinton (August 19). Other notables born that summer include Candace Bergen, Robert Reich, Sylvester Stallone, Gilda Ratner, Linda Ronstadt, Christine Todd Whitman, Patty Duke, Janet Reno, and Danny Glover. We baby boomers changed America significantly, building on what the “greatest generation” ahead of us had done. When we were in college in the mid-1960s, we demonstrated for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. We volunteered in inner cities and worked in developing countries around the world through the Peace Corps and other voluntary groups. Within two or three years of graduation, we joined the movement for the ERA and women’s rights. One of our number, Denis Hayes, Stanford’s student body president, launched Earth Day working with Sen. Gaylord Nelson (Denis was actually born in 1944, but we still claim him). Many of the previous generation did not appreciate our discontent and strident criticism of American values. My father, a product of the Depression and World War II, challenged our conviction that so much was wrong with American society. I told him we could pursue our goals only because his generation had been so successful in winning the war and rebuilding the economy. I don’t think he was convinced the protests and occasional chaos were evidence of his success! There was an unavoidable spirit of change in the air, and a resolve to address some long-neglected social problems. I felt that spirit most strongly in two meetings I attended. In the fall of 1967, as editor of the Stanford Daily newspaper, I joined about 25 other editors from well-known universities to earnestly discuss how we would use our editorships to end the Vietnam War and change the world. In 1971, as chair of the student Committee for Corporate Responsibility at the Stanford Business School, I attended a small retreat in Point Reyes, California, with Ralph Nader, Jim Hightower, and 20 others who would lead the business responsibility movement for the next decades. This sense that you had to take your place in “the movement” for American renewal was certainly not universal, but it drove a significant number of us to shape our careers and our lives. Worried about our anti-business student activism, John A. Young, a Stanford Trustee and future CEO of Hewlett Packard, invited me to spend the summer at HP before my senior year at Stanford, exploring with him what was then called the “business/student gap.” I like to think I influenced him; he certainly convinced me that business was a worthy outlet for my activism, and I spent the rest of my life championing business responsibility. I would argue my experience was not unique. I think we baby boomers had a predisposition and commitment to bring change to social values and practices. The progress of minorities, the disabled, and LGBTQ+ in the workplace and society, the women’s revolution, the advancement of millions in developing countries—all were arguably accomplishments of my generation. Do college students and recent graduates today have the same values and commitment we did? Instead of writing about the unruly protests, the rebellious hippies, and the sexual freedom movement, commentators today are writing about the complacency and self-absorption—and the anxiety—of today’s college students. Their world is certainly more complex and conflicted than ours. Finding your role is harder today. Heck, even finding a job is much harder. I never worried about being able to earn a living. I assumed I could always support myself and instead worried about how to have the greatest impact on society. I do believe, however, that college students’ expectations—both their financial and career expectations—have exploded in recent years. Our financial expectations were more modest. We did not seek the same luxury or curated vacations that seem to be common today. We laughed at the lifestyles of the rich and famous rather than adopting them as personal goals! Maybe social media has changed all that; everyone else appears to be rich and have a perfect life, so I have to be that way too. We know that here in Silicon Valley, it is hard not to compare yourself to 20-something millionaires and billionaires. I fear there is also a genuine disillusionment and malaise given how the social agenda has been captured and reversed by Trump, MAGA, and tech bros. Rollbacks in civil and voting rights, weakened efforts to address climate change, and a retreat from our national commitment to foreign aid and global advancement have discouraged many. And I fear we baby boomers helped sow the seeds of today’s backlash against social values we held to be so important. We became self-righteous about our progress. We demanded environmental purity with too little concern for the human cost—to former coal miners and others as well as to their communities. We pursued many of our goals to such extremes that we choked off needed economic development, suppressed building housing in our cities, and occasionally immobilized public debate by threatening to “cancel” anyone who used an inappropriate word or had ever expressed a non-conforming thought. And we let an immense wealth gap open up between a growing college-educated upper class and the majority of Americans whose educations and incomes did not keep up. Can we rekindle a sense of idealism and personal commitment among today’s college students? We all need a rekindling of hope and optimism. It is the only way we can have the power and the agency to move forward and double down on social and moral values. But how do we make it happen? We baby boomers can encourage our own children and grandchildren to recommit to the values of human rights and equality, of opportunity for all, of climate resilience, and of human welfare around the world. It is time to start talking earnestly about our own values and about the need for a post-Trump resurgence of moral concern. We can tell stories of individuals of their generation and ours who are making a difference, often under very difficult conditions. I felt privileged to serve on the Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship board for 17 years, finding and promoting role models of individuals who sought to change the world (see their stories here). And we can direct and support programs that directly encourage social change careers. Two of my three children had two-year Teach for America internships in impacted U.S. communities. They have both ended up as teachers. A third got his career inspiration as an infantry officer and is now a first responder. I attended Yale Divinity School on a Rockefeller “Trial Year” Fellowship for those NOT going into the ministry but interested in spending a year contemplating careers serving others. At Santa Clara University, I launched student internships dedicated to “ethics” experiences in business, medicine, government, technology, and other fields. These hands-on experiences have inspired career commitments. Nothing is more important than encouraging today’s college students to “think greatly” of their roles in the world. It is a worthy challenge for aging baby boomers today. (To my readers: What other ideas do you have to stimulate a commitment to social change among today’s college students? Send me whatever ideas we should consider, and I will summarize them in an upcoming newsletter!)
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