Talkin' 'bout my generation

[Larv]

According to generational theorists William Straus and Neil Howe, my generation—the Silent Generation—was born between 1925 and 1942. I was born in 1939. They also estimate the birth windows of other generations of American culture:

1943—1960: The Baby Boom Generation
1961—1981: The 13th (or X) Generation
1982—2002(?): The Millennial Generation
2003—?: The Homeland Generation

Older generations are also characterized, along with the histories of their names. I find The Fourth Turning to be especially interesting. It gives me a perspective on history that empowers another kind of interpretation of it.

The purpose of this thread is twofold:

1. We can discuss the validity of their generational theory and argue over the boundaries of our respective generations, or

2 We can identify the luminaries of our respective generations. Please limit them to your top three choices and explain why they are the best and brightest.

Here’s mine:

Martin Luther King Jr. (b. 1929)—the Great Martyr, a Gandhi of the West
Bob Dylan (b. 1941)—the Great Bard, a Shakespeare/Rousseau for our times
Muhammad Ali (1942)—the Great Rebel, a champion of the Individual Spirit

[lemit]

I have to take exception to the dates. The baby boom has always been considered to begin the year I was born, 1946. The war was over and people thought it was safe to have kids again.

I just don't think statistics would support dating the baby boom from 1942. For one thing, there weren't enough men and women in the same place and in the right circumstances during WWII to get a boom going. More like a thud. I've been told by WWII veterans that the distribution of (admittedly military quality) condoms and saltpeter made incidental wartime encounters less dangerous--and less interesting.

I really can't imagine that date is what most historians would use for the start of the baby boom. To see it after seeing 1946 all my life is kind of like being told there really are 45 states in the U.S. I just don't buy it.

A book that gets the date--and the era--right is "The Best Years" by Joseph C. Goulden. It also happens to be one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. Every time I reread it I still get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Oh, and also, the full title of the baby boom is Post-World War II baby boom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

I'd love to discuss my generation and its tumultuous history, but not on a faulty premise.

--lemit

[Larv]

Originally Posted by lemit

I have to take exception to the dates. The baby boom has always been considered to begin the year I was born, 1946. The war was over and people thought it was safe to have kids again.

You can start the Boom Generation in 1946 if you want to. No one can claim absolute precision on this matter.

I just don't think statistics would support dating the baby boom from 1942.

Do you mean 1943, as I showed in the OP?

For one thing, there weren't enough men and women in the same place and in the right circumstances during WWII to get a boom going. More like a thud. I've been told by WWII veterans that the distribution of (admittedly military quality) condoms and saltpeter made incidental wartime encounters less dangerous--and less interesting.

A lot a babies were conceived during WWII for a lot of different reasons. I can't factor in the effects of G.I. rubbers or saltpeter, can you? But many babies were conceived on the run, so to speak, in those topsy-turvy times.

I really can't imagine that date is what most historians would use for the start of the baby boom. To see it after seeing 1946 all my life is kind of like being told there really are 45 states in the U.S. I just don't buy it.

One thing you're missing here, lemit, is the war's effect on ending the Great Depression. Birth rates were relatively low during the Great Depression, but when the war started everyone knew that the Great Depression was essentially over. That's what started the baby boom, not the end of WWII. There was a post-war baby boom, of course, but that generation's birth window started a little sooner, according to Strauss & Howe. I've read all of their books and I generally agree with their argments.

Oh, and also, the full title of the baby boom is Post-World War II baby boom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

I'd love to discuss my generation and its tumultuous history, but not on a faulty premise.

Don't be discouraged about discussing your generation if you disagree on the dates of birth windows. Nothing is set in concrete. To be a student of history it helps to be tolerant of ambiguities; nothing in history is precisely crisp, crystal clear, or absolute.

I think it helps to see the importance of ending the Great Depression on the increased of birth rates. I was born in 1939, a time when most people were still ravaged by the Great Depression. Late in 1941, after Pearl Harbor was attacked, a whole new attitude emerged. It was an attitude of hope and promise, not one terror and despair, as you might suppose. I asked my father once years later what is was like to stand in a recruiting line to go off and fight in the greatest war of all times. "Wasn't everybody really scared," I asked him.

"Hell no!" he said. "Everyone was jubilant. That damn Depression was finally over!"

[lemit]

That date just got to me. It reminded of the years people thought there was nothing to the Sixties beyond sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. I felt those of us who were involved in civil rights and anti-war activism (without the other stuff) were being negated. It took a long time to control that brushfire, much longer than the strange belief that the Sexual Revolution was limited to women's rights.

Now, about the Boomers. I've been wondering lately if we really did more than, say, the Lost Generation to change society. I hope people will give some feedback on that.

--lemit

p.s. Larv, I love your father's quote. Do you have any more of them?

[Larv]

Originally Posted by lemit

That date just got to me. It reminded of the years people thought there was nothing to theNow, about the Boomers. I've been wondering lately if we really did more than, say, the Lost Generation to change society. I hope people will give some feedback on that.

The biggest movers and shakers affecting the Boom Generation were cohorts of the Silent Generation, IMO. The Silents comprised the likes of Kerouac, MLK, Jr., RFK, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, and more. But the Boomers had pluck, and they took things far beyond what were possible in the ‘40s and ‘50s.

I have a soft spot for the Lost Generation and its plethora of great writers. Jack Kerouac (Silent) might have been nothing without Malcolm Cowley (Lost), and Woodie Guthrie (G.I.) might have been nothing without John Steinbeck (Lost). Marilyn Monroe (Silent) might have been nothing without Mae West (Lost). But who can claim solid generational boundaries? Dylan (Silent) might have been nothing without Woody Guthrie (G.I.), and Chuck Berry might have been nothing without Louis Jordan (Lost).

All of the Beatles were cohorts of the Silent Generation, and the Stones were late Silents, too, except for Keith Richards (Boom).

p.s. Larv, I love your father's quote. Do you have any more of them?

My father (G.I.) was a Nixon lover and a Darwin hater. We didn’t get along so well. I grew up in a time when “children were to be seen but not heard.” As such, we earned our generational name “Silent.” When James Dean appeared in “Rebel Without A Cause” opposite his G.I. father (Jim Backus) I though he was speaking for me. His father in that movie said to him, “You can’t be an idealist all of your life.” JD's character replied, “Except for yourself! Except for yourself!”

My father was a good man, better than I, and he thought I was an immoderate, irresponsible, and causeless rebel. I probably was. We didn’t speak much after I turned hippie in the late sixties.

[lemit]

There will never be enough positive we can say about Tom Brokaw's well-named "Greatest Generation," to which my parents also belonged.

In late life, as he read Brokaw's book, my father told me there was no perception in the thirties and forties that people were doing something noble. They were just trying to survive. My father, a brilliant tactician, took over the heavily mortgaged family farm at age 19 upon his father's death from cancer. In three years full of droughts and grasshoppers, he had paid off the mortgage, paid off the Mayo Clinic medical debts, managed to get a farm of his own, and started a family. I inherited the financial records he kept meticulously--a characteristic of that generation, but not of mine. They show miraculously simple ways of buying at the right time, selling at the right time, and using whatever was at hand to always improve the farm. He thought every other farmer was smarter than he was, so he had to work harder and think better.

I regret having had to fight that generation in the sixties. It was as necessary for the nation, southeast Asia, and possibly for the rest of the world, but I wish we had not got into a generation war, because they were so good at pretty much anything. That may have been a tragic flaw for them. They may well have come to think they could solve any problem better than those older and younger than themselves.

I don't know. I am much too close to the political movement of my generation, and much too respectful of my late parents and their generation to think of the sixties without a twinge of sorrow.

--lemit

[Larv]

The greatest legacy of the "Greatest Generation" is the military-industrial complex, the one Ike warned us all about in 1961. We continue to struggle mightily under that legacy. Yes, the G.I. Generation kept us all from having to learn to speak German or Japanese, but it also gave us Korea, Vietnam, and a trail of other wars we fought and continue to fight to keep capitalism alive for American capitalists. Just how great was that?

[lemit]

Originally Posted by Larv

The greatest legacy of the "Greatest Generation" is the military-industrial complex, the one Ike warned us all about in 1961. We continue to struggle mightily under that legacy. Yes, the G.I. Generation kept us all from having to learn to speak German or Japanese, but it also gave us Korea, Vietnam, and a trail of other wars we fought and continue to fight to keep capitalism alive for American capitalists. Just how great was that?

You certainly do seem to be part of my generation.

That Military-Industrial Complex is part of the tragic flaw I referred to. It certainly has been tragic. Our misguided response to Communism, and their misguided response to us (talk about your Russian dolls), cost countless lives and unimaginable progress. It was something only Thomas Malthus could have loved. I think blame can rightfully be assigned practically everywhere except to the pawn countries in all the proxy wars we fought.

As long as fear is a motivator, as long as people horde life-saving technologies while they "share" life-ending technologies, the advancement of humanity will seem less like those glowing "World of Tomorrow" films of the fifties and more like The Three Stooges.

--lemit

[Donk]

I'm a Boomer - 1948 vintage.

We were brought up by the generation who had fought - and survived WWII. They'd won the war by buckling down and working hard for the common good. That "common good" was defined by the leaders, with no room for discussion or individual thought.

Fair enough. They had had no choice about it - to win, they'd had to give up a lot of individual freedom. The trouble was they hadn't tried to take it back afterwards. We were brought up on Respect for Authority, Respect for our Elders, Knowing Our Place, Trust Our Leaders...

The world was full of small-minded idiots, demanding respect and obedience simply because they were older than us. Is it surprising that we turned into rebels?

I have to say, though, that it's been my generation running things for the last ten or twenty years, and it doesn't look like we've made much of a job of it

[Larv]

Originally Posted by lemit

I don't know. I am much too close to the political movement of my generation, and much too respectful of my late parents and their generation to think of the sixties without a twinge of sorrow.

I don’t. I regard the sixties as the most astonishing miracle of my times. When we entered that decade we were told that our future was a “lonely crowd” of “men in a grey flannel suits.” But when that decade ended we had learned that “we are stardust, we are golden, and we have to get back to the garden.”

Who taught us that? We taught it to ourselves—we Silents and Boomers. The lesson began with Ginsberg’s “Howl” (1956):

…

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb.

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!

…