It's just a very solipsistic generation culturally.
When they were in their 20's they thought everyone should pay attention to them and that their drug use and weekend music festivals were unusually profound.
When they were in their 40's they thought everyone should pay attention to their property tax bills.
When they got to their 60's and 70's they thought everything should just stay exactly the same as the way they remember it and that everyone should consider their fears and confused elderly outbursts as valid expressions of reality.
Not sure it's generalizable.
You were able to tap into the thoughts of the younger ages, but failed for the 60's and 70's.
We tend to idolize the distant past more because we’re at arms length, and we miss what’s around us because we lack perspective.
The boomer guy who will let the world burn to protect his property values is the same as the old Italian guy holdout in the declining urban neighborhoods that I grew up with in the 80s.
My dads good friend was a playboy, after getting out of Vietnam he went hippie, partied hard, lived fast. Then he hit the stock jackpot, riding Intel and Microsoft, etc in the 80s and 90s and cashing out with ~$20M.
Then he retired, moved to a golf course in South Carolina and turned into an ardent conservative defender of traditional values.
I tell the story as it illustrates the transformation - face death and risk at war, come back and embrace life, accumulate wealth and return to fear… guilt about what you have been able to do, fear of losing what you have.
We’re all animals at the end of the day, it’s difficult for us humans to process what life hands to us sometimes, good and bad. Deep down, the insecure business guy knows that he is mortal, and knows that a misstep can be fatal.