The worrying that Boomers did in the 1980s about whether they had “sold out”? Gen X didn’t get it then, and often doesn’t get it now. With the idealism of the 1960s ground to dust by the time they came along, there was nothing to sell out from. To all but a fringe segment of Gen X, getting a good job and making money wasn’t selling out—it was just what everyone wanted to do. Gen X knew that from the jump, and American culture hasn’t returned to the abstract idealism of the ’60s in the six decades since.
