Technology and Innovation | A- |

A person who was born in 1900 and died in 1970 grew up with horse-drawn carriages and died with a man on the moon. Today’s 70-year-olds have not seen technological change on the same order.

But they’ve seen a lot. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Teams led by Francis Collins and Craig Venter decoded the genetic sequence. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak are among a great cloud of boomer tech innovators. Robert Jarvik, who developed the implantable heart, stands in for all those doing amazing work in medical innovation.

Lifestyle | A |

This isn’t even close. Restaurants are much better now. Products and buildings are designed in more interesting ways. Coffee, ice cream and all else is far more varied and delicious.

Manners and Morals | C |

In the realm of manners, boomers brought on the triumph of the casual. Everything that was refined, stuffy, formal and stiff was loosened up by the boomers, and this is very good.

In the realm of morals, things are more complicated. If the ethos of the silent generation was “We’re all in this together” and the code was self-effacement (“I’m nobody better than anybody else, but nobody’s better than me”), then the ethos of the boomers is “I’m free to be myself” and the code is “Do you see how special I am?”

Personal freedom has been the master trend for this generation. That was a legitimate reaction against conformity. On the other hand, there is more isolation, bitterness and division. The ethos of the meritocracy filled the values void left by the retreat of any shared moral vocabulary.

Overall Grade | B |

As a generation, boomers have excelled at the material things that make life pleasant, convenient, long and fun. They have struggled in the realms that other civilizations would have considered more profound: governance, philosophy, art and public morality.