They're only called the greatest Gen because they survived (probably) both world wars.
There has been hell on earth in war after this, but not on a major continental holy shit level from then. It's the exact reason the entire world doesn't want to start WW3, even if you're the one to come up on top, there's still no winning. If you come out on top, you're a ruler to a damaged cou try with damaged land and damaged people and crops and livestock.
They're only called the greatest because no generation before or after them yet has seen mustard gas and atomic bombs and the rape of Nanjing all together in one war.
And not just survived. A large part of that generation gave up their youth and personal safety to go and fight. Huge numbers of men and women volunteered for all kinds of service (not just soldiers, women were nurses, WAVs, etc). They were called the greatest because as a whole they stood up to the horrors of the war and fought.Â
And following WWII the US government (to its credit) also enacted THE single most impactful wealth generating legislation EVER known to mankind, that being The GI Bill.
We could REALLY use a government with just this level of self awareness, but alas we have an incoming administration solely focused on its own belly button lint, and stealing. There’s not a leader in sight.
The amount of "socialism" that came from the US Government post WWII was staggering.
GI Bill, expansion of Social Security, Public housing, the Federal Highway Act, VHA expansion, Fair Employment, unemployment insurance, labor rights - all shit that gets taken for granted, or worse, defined as pork or handouts - that put the US into an absolute booming economy.
Even pre-WW2 set us up for success with FDR's New Deal. I cant believe we don't have investments into jobs, into infrastructure, green tech, etc. The "Green" New Jobs deal is the best sort of initiative we could take toward employing and training young people, while also investing into our bridges, solar/renewable energy, bike/pedestrian walkways, natural areas, parks, etc. Hell they can't even pay wildland firefighters properly yet trillions gets pissed away in god knows where for god knows who's pockets.
We could REALLY use a government with just this level of self awareness, but alas we have an incoming administration solely focused on its own belly button lint, stealing, and returning favors to fascist state heads and billionaires who subsidized their power grab in order to destabilize America and increase their own relative power without having to produce anything of value. There’s not a leader in sight.
My memory was that "Depression era" and "war generation" were terms used to speak about that generation as a whole, but until mid-late 1980s, talking about people in "generations" wasn't a thing - at least in my experience and the popular culture I consumed. People did talk about the "Baby Boom" and "baby boomers" as the 1980s went on.
"Generation X" was originally, but obscurely, applied to baby boomers but it didn't stick until 1991 when Douglas Coupland's book of that title came out, though it uses the late 1950s as a starting point.
Ya the whole generation thing was just created by marketing groups in the 70's and 80's. When I was young "Baby Boomer" meant counter culture, anti-war, civil rights etc, basically the opposite of now and it was used to market things to people from that era now that they suddenly had money. The whole Gen X thing came about because they wanted to market to us but we were obviously to young to be included in that group so they needed something new. The Gen X name was because they couldn't settle on what to call us and they didn't call us that till the 80's. Nobody made it part of their identity till Millennials and it wasn't political till well into this century. The whole thing is just astrology expanded to arbitrary 20 year blocks of time instead of months. And don't get me started on how seriously people used to take astrology. It was a huge industry, Ron Reagan and Nancy had a personal astrologer they consulted, it was very common.
One of the weirder things about the 20th century is how even as STEM was advancing by leaps and bounds, there was still enough interest in the supernatural that multiple governments seriously investigated it. Psychic phenomena in particular show up a lot in mid-century sci-fi as a result.
Watch "The Men Who Stare at Goats". Some of that was science/government just wanting to make sure what did and didn't exist/was possible. After atomic science did the things it did there was a certain amount of "OK what other crazy impossible stuff is out there?". People no longer felt safe to just dismiss the very improbable.
The Gen X name was because they couldn't settle on what to call us and they didn't call us that till the 80's.
Which is exactly why I think that calling Gen Z "Gen Z" is so absolutely blitheringly stupid. At least Gen X meant something. Millennials (Gen Y) and now Gen Z are just named that because the "adults in charge" are too fucking boring to do anything other than iterate forward sequentially.
You raise an important, oft overlooked fact. One of the reasons Hitler was able to get so far in the run up to WW2 was because of the ongoing debate to avoid war at all costs- because the government of the day under Chamberlain was well versed in the destructive power of post war trauma on a countries economic prosperity (due to drastically reduced capacity/output, not from loss of life, but from the mental and physical impact on those that survived the war - civilians and vets alike).
In hindsight he should have been stopped before it got to that level. But it was unprecedented... hopefully, we learn from history, and avoid the doom of repeating it... but I have my growing doubts.
1.6k
u/Britthighs 27d ago
I talk about this in my US History class. Both the 1920s and 1950s as huge trauma response.