Epistemic check: Are you going off any kind of study or anything for baby boomers “being the most narcissistic in human history”, or is that just a thing that feels good to say?
I’m extremely skeptical that parents have become more abusive in general — life in the past was terrible in all sorts of ways and I’d be surprised if people were on average nicer fifty years ago. If you know more people your age who claim to have had abusive parents than people older than you who claim the same, consider the types of alternate explanations Zvi gives above, e.g. “maybe younger people are more likely to use the concept of ‘abusive’”. Both of my parents definitely had abusive parents, but neither of them ever used that term to describe it. Also like, disciplining children by spanking was entirely normal where they grew up (mom in US in 60s, dad in China in 70s), but if a parent did that in the US now it would be considered abuse.
You’re right that abuse is very old and is probably just now becoming something that people reflect on en masse, which would imply it’s not the major cause of this shift. As for my evidence that baby boomers are narcissistic, well, I only have popular culture, my own gut feelings, and various possibly biased history youtubers as sources; I have never thought to look for studies on the matter. I would place at least 70% credence on there being at least one well-regarded study finding that boomers on average have a higher proportion of narcissistic traits than earlier generations, however.
Epistemic check: Are you going off any kind of study or anything for baby boomers “being the most narcissistic in human history”, or is that just a thing that feels good to say?
I’m extremely skeptical that parents have become more abusive in general — life in the past was terrible in all sorts of ways and I’d be surprised if people were on average nicer fifty years ago. If you know more people your age who claim to have had abusive parents than people older than you who claim the same, consider the types of alternate explanations Zvi gives above, e.g. “maybe younger people are more likely to use the concept of ‘abusive’”. Both of my parents definitely had abusive parents, but neither of them ever used that term to describe it. Also like, disciplining children by spanking was entirely normal where they grew up (mom in US in 60s, dad in China in 70s), but if a parent did that in the US now it would be considered abuse.
You’re right that abuse is very old and is probably just now becoming something that people reflect on en masse, which would imply it’s not the major cause of this shift. As for my evidence that baby boomers are narcissistic, well, I only have popular culture, my own gut feelings, and various possibly biased history youtubers as sources; I have never thought to look for studies on the matter. I would place at least 70% credence on there being at least one well-regarded study finding that boomers on average have a higher proportion of narcissistic traits than earlier generations, however.