To the old question, ‘Is there a ghost in the machine?’, therefore, we could now answer: no, but there is a consumer. And that consumer selects his new identity, along with its own distinctive pronoun, from the vast range of moral possibilities that the modern world throws up.

By 1956, disillusionment with chivalric or martial ideas or even just ordinary love of country was again de rigueur in the world of words.

Boomers are commonly seen by more recent generations in a colder world as having lived lives of
perpetual indulgence—pampered as children by fond parents home from the war, indulged as rebellious students by liberal professors who praised them as ‘the most idealistic generation in history’, enabled to live a hippie lifestyle as employees, thanks to a tight US labour market in a world hungry for US goods.