Oh, no. Not taking it personally. Hope you are not, either. My focus is American History in general, and presently, Old West history.
I do actually agree that it was not the same experience for all. The ‘myth’ would be the stereotypes, though. Not everyone was a stoner war protester or an extreme right-wing hawk. It all existed on a continuum, just like most human experience.
But see, that’s where I think you may be missing a beat. You say middle-class white kids benefitted most…but how do compare a certain adolescent experience to, say, Black Americans hitting the streets en masse for the first time, and talking about pride? Did that kid in the 'burbs gain more than that kid who suddenly reached for some personal and ethnic pride that might not have been available before - even just as a conscious thought? Did that white male gain more? Or was it women who toughened up and overcame obstacles in the workplace? Because (personal experience), I could not even admit I knew how to type, unless I wanted to be consigned to a secretarial pool or data processing job. It was all still very, very ‘Mad Men’, and that didn’t stop for a long, long time.
To say that social structure was ignored entirely is really wholesaling it. Instead, the thing was to re-think and re-consider social structures - not to ignore them. You gave that away when you described that generation as hedonists. Yes, the goal was to feel better and be generally happier - but social structure was at the very forefront of everything! To alter the position of previously discriminated social and ethnic groups, you had to alter structures in some way. To reconsider things like communal living, you didn’t ignore structure at all - you considered a different structure. There wasn’t just ‘white flight’, although that was a thing - there was a distinct exodus of Black Americans from the inner cities, too. They basically re-segregated themselves all over again, but away from the confines of those urban areas.
Actually, I do agree about how the 30’s and 40’s held an enormous influence on the later period. But, thing is, you talk about ‘white flight’ as if that was the be-all and end-all of how people changed their living situations, when in truth, the post-war housing boom had a far greater effect. Suddenly, not only a baby boom, but a need for much more housing, and a population of veterans who could not only buy, but finance that housing. Do developers build on the most valuable land? No - they go for the cheaper deal. So, 'burbs are born. Smaller lots, cheaper construction, and bigger profits. And that did create a major shift that still worked with industrialization. The so-called ‘white flight’ was actually a situation where a single black family bought into a previously all-white neighborhood, and the whites then sold out and left, in fear that property values would decline. The rest of it? Not racially-motivated at all, really. As families grew larger and income increased, those who had bought the smaller, cheaper homes could and did go for something better. And those just starting out or of lesser income spilled into the areas the older families sold out of.
So, when we talk of ‘mythologizing’, we do need to take into account that this was a great period of trying to assess and inventory everything that was wrong with the status quo. And in those efforts, it was very easy to hang names on phenomena in order to push a social agenda that really were either minor or really had very little to do with the phenomenon, itself. And ‘white flight’ actually makes a really good example of that. It did mean one thing, but was taken up as a kind of rallying cry, and now, you are thinking it meant something it actually didn’t - just as many other people have done. The truth is, there’s actually real estate law that was passed because, especially in CA, real estate agents would lie to people and tell them a black family had bought in their neighborhood in order to get them to list their properties and/or sell them cheaper. It was a very, very specific thing - often based on lies, not realities at all. The fact that it ever, ever worked? Now that was certainly remarkable, and a testament to the ‘establishment’ attitudes of the day.
Today we have internet memes. Then, it was those catchy descriptions. One person might write about it, and before you knew it, talk show hosts who wanted to appear cool and ‘with it’ were telling your mother what it meant…not! Because, talk show hosts, corporate medea - not exactly counter-culture stuff. I actually saw a millennial try to claim that bra-burnings never actually happened. Why? Because he couldn’t find a report of it in the Wayback machine, apparently, and so decided it was myth. But it did happen. (Was there for some.)
So, you can only gather just so much from remaining written materials. Frankly (and no offence intended), I would be a whole lot slower to believe things, simply because someone wrote them down. Because, writers have to earn… They may be trying to sell an idea along with their writing, r to get famous, or just to make more money - but there is a motivation there that doesn’t always speak to the experience of others much at all, and the truth only sometimes. Instead, with this particular subject, you might actually do better to just ask around, and see what various people tell you about their own experiences. After all, most of us survived the experience…
I don’t see that certain nostalgia each generation has as ‘mythologizing’, per se. There were positive and negative experiences with each, and of course you miss the positive experiences. (I think the key to knowing which is which is whether you are hearing both positives and negatives at all. )
And good, I’m glad both of us aren’t taking anything personally…