An interesting exchange between Sean Illing of Vox and Steven Brill yields this:
Sean Illing
The story of decline you tell really begins about 50 years ago, so is this basically a story of how a subset of the baby boomer generation drove the country off a cliff?
Steven Brill
That may be too much of a generalization, but I wouldn’t knock it because it’s basically right.
I have been criticised for making this claim about my contemporaries, but it’s getting hard to deny.
And this observation is interesting, too:
In many cases, the people doing the most damage aren’t breaking any laws or consciously trying to hurt anyone else. They’re simply doing what they were told to do — go to prestigious law schools, get a job at a prestigious law firm, and make lots of money.
Those of us who chose a different course swam upstream in those days, but it’s better to have never been part of the problem.