Shelby Steele does a good job of diagnosing the malady in his book White Guilt: when institutional America had to own up to its sins in the era of civil rights,

Shelby Steele does a good job of diagnosing the malady in his book White Guilt: when institutional America had to own up to its sins in the era of civil rights, it surrendered moral authority. Every generation rebels, but usually the kids come back to the same principles that their parents held once they experience the real world for a time. The civil rights era broke this pattern: the adults were wrong, and admitted it, and so an entire generation (Boomers) came of age thinking they had the justified authority to question and possibly overturn any of their elders’ institutions.