Posted on 01/15/2006 10:06:43 AM PST by Chi-townChief
With the oldest of the Baby Boom generation now starting to turn 60, it seems inevitable that we will soon be inundated with books and TV specials assessing the impact of this huge cohort on American society. The Greater Generation, by American University professor Leonard Steinhorn, can be considered a very sympathetic brief for the defense. No doubt some opportunistic right-wing scribe is energetically pitching Regnery Press on the merits of prosecuting Boomers for their various crimes against humanity, even as some third party is pounding out an even-handed assessment. Hopefully at some point, Friends of the Forests will step in and remind everyone that a generation is an awfully large category to make meaningful generalizations about, and perhaps we should spare the trees. But for now, back to Leonard Steinhorn.
Readers will recall that it was Tom Brokaw's great good luck as a journalist, as a reporter of news, to uncover that back in the 1930s and 1940s, a large mass of young Americans had to suffer, a) the trials and deprivations of the Great Depression, then b) fight a terrible war —a “world war” in the parlance of the time—against countries bent on global domination. Not only did Brokaw have the courage to bring to light this virtually hidden chapter of our history, but he or an associate had the marketing savvy to title the book The Greatest Generation, an irresistibly flattering phrase which sustained the book through many printings and multiple sequels. I'm not sure, but I think Brokaw meant the phrase sincerely, if not exactly scientifically. It's not like he sat down and assigned coefficients for hardships and accomplishments, or calculated what the ratio between opportunity and outcome should be, or figured out whether one should subtract for embarrassments and shortcomings, or actually divide by them, all in an effort to come up with an equation that would yield a Greatest Generation Coefficient by which we would rank Founders and Boomers, World War II troopers and Gilded Age inventors, Civil Warriors and Manifest Destineers. No, Brokaw just grabbed a pithy, vivid title, and skipped off to the bestseller list.
Nor has Leonard Steinhorn gone the scientific route, but he certainly wants to jump into this Greatest Generation discussion. However, it's not immediately clear where he means to land. He doesn't seem to argue that Boomers are greater than the Greatest Generation. After all, he didn't call his book An Even Greater Generation, with the implication that we have superseded our elders. He called it The Greater Generation, which implies that he might be satisfied coming in second to The Greatest Generation, comfortably ahead of The Great Generation, The Good Generation, and The Generation That Needed Improvement. He even starts off the book giving props to the World War II-sters. “No one should ever doubt the valor and sacrifice of the World War II generation.... This was the generation that sacrificed their blood…suffered through the Great Depression…bravely answered the call…a horrid and heroic struggle.... Normandy and Iwo Jima…they deserve every accolade they've been given.”
However, if any of you thinks the next word could possibly be something other than “but,” I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
Steinhorn's “but” is a big one, and justly aimed. He points out that the Greatest Generation came home from World War II to an America that was racially segregated, restricted by sex roles, bigoted against gays and environmentally ignorant, and that it wasn't until the flowering of the Boomers in the sixties that progress in these areas became a reality. And in that progress, he stakes the claim for his generation's superiority.
Steinhorn is an ardent and impassioned Boomer-booster, and in an era when liberal has become a label that even liberals wear reluctantly, he is providing a very useful service. The change in America that has accompanied this generation's march through life has been profound, and because America changed, the world followed. For all the sideshows that encumbered the '60s—the sex, the drugs, the music, the hair—the ultimate legacy of the period is a Great Moral Leap Forward, such that America is now more publicly committed to equal opportunity, diversity, fairness and environmental preservation than at any time in our history. And the fruits of this progress are among our country's greatest ornaments.
But to say that these triumphs belong exclusively to the Boomer generation is to give my contemporaries more credit than is deserved. Assigning credit for historical development is a lot harder than deciding which pitcher in a ballgame deserves the win. George H.W. Bush may have been president when the Berlin Wall fell, but that doesn't mean that he ended communism. The fact that Boomers came of age in this era of social progress doesn't mean that they should get all the credit. For one thing, there were an awful lot of Boomers who spent the sixties surfing, listening to the Beach Boys, and limiting their participation in the events of the era to growing sideburns. There were, for that matter, even Boomers who were antagonistic to the great movements of the period — for instance, George W. Bush. In addition, a lot of the great leaders and heroes of the Boomer generation weren't Boomers. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't a Boomer. Bob Dylan wasn't. The Kennedys, Lenny Bruce, Barry Commoner, Ralph Nader—none of them were Boomers. And it's not as though they were stray prophets wandering around until Boomers discovered them — they were the spear tips of large bodies of people who shared their thinking. And beyond that, lavishing credit on the Boomers undervalues the great moral struggle that our parents underwent to open their hearts and their minds, and actually change. Many Boomers accepted their politics with as much ease as it took to memorize the lyrics to “Eve of Destruction;” it was our parents, obviously with greater or lesser degrees of success, who had to overcome life-long ways of thinking to accept a black person as their neighbor, or a woman as their boss, or a gay man as their son.
Still, Boomers deserve a lot of credit, and Steinhorn does a matchless job of dishing it out. “In the 1960s,” he eloquently writes, “both Baby Boomers and Greatest Generation Americans witnessed the same society and its many flaws. One made the choice to accept and defend the status quo. The other made the choice to advance the principles of democracy, equality and freedom... to end the hypocrisy of proclaiming but not observing our national ideals, and to address the gap between the promise of American life and the reality of that life for so many Americans. The Greatest Generation deserves every bit of credit for protecting democracy when it was threatened; but Baby Boomers deserve even more credit for enriching and fulfilling its promise.”
But Steinhorn is entirely too forgiving of this generation's shortcomings. We may have been behind the political and social fervor of the sixties, but we were also behind the narcissism of the seventies and the materialism of the eighties and after. Since the Reagan administration, when Boomers shed their shag vests and disco shoes for power suits, Boomers have enthusiastically bought into the corporate values that dominate our lives. Boomers have backed Bush, and his tax cuts, and his war (of course, we've also been against Bush, his tax cuts and his war—that just goes to show the poverty of making sweeping generalizations about generations.) The point is that history is an eminently forgettable subject, and if Steinhorn thinks Boomers don't get enough credit now for making the world a fairer, more decent place, wait until the only things our sons and daughters remember us for is a whopping deficit, global warming and endless war.
Nope, we're all going to live to a very ripe old age just to spite you. We're healthier and more physically fit than The Greatest Generation --we work out to tick you off!
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We're also in better shape than most Xers...and we have greater personal wealth than most of them will ever acquire...and I for one expect to see 100...if only to piss them off.
LOL...Me too! they need to know that many of is will see that triple digit! LOL...
Who is talking about Bobybuilders??? we are speaking of good nutrition, no smoking ,excercise, vitamin supplements
great attitudes, sense of humor, friends, family, spiritual faith..
Not Steriods, Implants and Tanning Beds...
Let's review -
Exodus 20:
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Nothing about happiness in there.
Ivan
In doing those things: (GOD'S Commandments) it brings happiness, NOT DOING THOSE THINGS will bring unhappiness.
1. Prison
2. Divorce
3. Lonliness
4. Sickness
5. Death.
As you get older Ivan you might come to realize that happiness is not defined as the absence of trouble, responsibility or stress. You might also learn that the presence of those things, even in abundance, does not automatically equate to unhappiness.
Agreed, Laney. Many of us have made a conscious decision to live a healthy lifestyle. I'm not talking about steroid bulking up, just good cardiovascular conditioning and toning exercises. Not to mention sunscreen -- no botox here! We will be youthful looking cadavers. And you don't hear us urging "The Greatest Generation" to exit the planet.
They also popularized the drug culture. Today we have elementary and middle school kids taking drugs.
You misunderstand. Many times I have been "happy" have been periods of extreme stress. However what I am saying is that happiness is not the cardinal virtue of life. Being good is.
Regards, Ivan
Really grade school?..Ah! Baby Boomers really didn't start doing drugs until High School...
Being good is??? really...
Being faithtful to GOD's word is, and knowing we are all Sinful human beings having a forgiving heart and loving thy neighbor as yourself weighs out *Being Good*
They are doing drugs in grade school now.
Ditto!!!
We are one lucky Generation!!
In your strenous efforts to disagree with me, you're obscuring the fact that I was the first one to bring God's word into this. It is obvious to an impartial observer that I was using that as the benchmark of being good.
But by all means continue...I realise that making yourself happy by trying to prove me wrong outweighs any other consideration. "If it feels good, do it, babe".
Ivan
You are so right. Now days people email or text each other but they don’t really socialize or talk to one another.
There are people I used to be very close to that never call me or get together in person but will send me emails. I will email or call them asking when we can get together in person I don’t get a response.
I live in a townhouse community and know the names of my neighbors on either side but I don’t really know them. Last Christmas I had an open house and none of the neighbors I invited bothered to show up.
When I was a kid, neighbors were friends. Many families went to church together and the kids went to the same school and played together.
Things are so much different now and not for the better.
I never bought into what went on during the 60's, the free love, drugs, etc. I can remember driving through Hait Ashbury and seeing all the hipies and just shaking my head. I didn't understand it then and don't totally understand it now.
Drugs have been around from day one....
Children using drugs in grade school is due to the lack of parenting and the social climate.
I grew up at a time my parents would not hesitate to use a belt, or strap if I was out of line, this generation cannot parent thier own children thus-Kids today are the most dis-respectful out of control children we have ever had in society...
"The Fabianski twins......and that's all I have to say about that."
Who the heck are the Fabianski twins?
Who said that???
You can feed your face many things that *Feel Good* Ice Cream Cookies, Potato Chips Soda Pop- what will it bring you??? OBSIETY
Same with Alcohol, Drugs....
Feel Good things that are healthy for the MIND BODY AND SPIRIT sgould always be encouraged.
Exactly....We here on Freerepublic are a good example of what life is like now.. We are here because we can converse
with others about many topics that affect our lives..
Before we did that in person..-But can you imagine every freeper in the same room together talking? YEEGADS!
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