Keepers of the Culture of The Greatest Generation

[Widebrim]

In case you haven't noticed, the above title is found at the bottom of the Fedora Lounge home page. The first time I read it was when Scotrace mentioned the term in a post.

My questions are: First, what does the term "mean" to you, and does it really apply to us of the Fedora Lounge? Second, what would it require of those who thought that it applied to them? And, third, what aspects of the culture of the Greatest Generation are we speaking of?

-Widebrim

 

[The Good]

Just off the top here, I'm thinking of not only the bravery and determination of those who may best represent that generation, but also keeping their morals and values alive, in addition to some of their traditions and clothing styles. The Greatest Generation is so-called because during this time, the world (and the people at large) has never encountered, as of yet, such a brutal, yet technologically and militaristically active time period. Many fought to keep the peace and maintain, relatively speaking, a decently moral world, but many still also fought to further their own or their nation's selfish, immoral political agendas. I believe though, that only the just and noble aspects of the Golden Era should be kept alive, while the negative aspects should be discarded if possible. Unfortunately, they still linger on in the form of extremist groups like the neo-Nazis and other racially motivated political groups encouraging discrimination, just to name a certain aspect.

 

[Pompidou]

All "Keepers of the Greatest Generation" means to me is the community is expected to act as a museum of sorts for the turn of the 20th century through the 60s. Fortunately, there are different types of museums, for different types of people. Some museums are full fledged historical recreations with actors - like Mystic Seaport. Others, like the Smithsonian, just worry about artifacts and fact collecting. People have to decide what sort of museum they want to work at.

What does it require of people who thinks it applies to them? Well, I imagine the first thing it requires, is believing the generations in question are, in fact, "The Greatest". Or, at the very least, more pragmatically, had things worth holding on to. A friendly, curmudgeonly disdain for most to all things modern isn't required, but the few who have it keep the general mindset of the rest in the general desired direction.

The Good already summed up the aspects of said generations that we're not speaking of. Leaving the isms, the racism, sexism imperialism and nationalism in the past, but hopefully, responsibly never forgetting they were present. For the most part, clothes seem to be the prime aspect the lounge is carrying on - evident by the number of boards devoted to clothing vs other things. For the most part, that's one thing everyone is pretty good at representing in different degrees. Collecting other various artifacts of the past is certainly a part of it. To some, the etiquette and lifestyle of the era need to be preserved as well.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm one who believes the isms are all still very much with us -- wearing different disguises, but otherwise in all their malignant glory -- and that acting as though they are all dead things out of the past gives the modern era a sense of preening superiority that is entirely undeserved and unwarranted. I suppose that puts me squarely in the curmudgeon camp, but I wear that title with pride.

Keeping The Culture of the Era means, to me, not being forced to view it thru a modern lens -- "look what these unenlightened souls did, thought, felt, believed, we've come sooooooooo far" -- but rather, it means trying to understand that culture *as they understood it.* *Why* did they do what they did, *why* did they believe what they did, *why* were the things that were important to them important to them? It goes far, far deeper than table manners and hat wearing, all the way into understanding and appreciating the very core of the culture.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I have never cared for the "Greatest Generation" label, which I find to be simplistic hype. (This doesn't mean that I don't vastly respect the people who rose to the challenges of the Depression and War - both my parents served!) I guess it's an okay shorthand to describe those folks, but something about it just rubs me the wrong way. It's such an overly loaded term...

Otherwise, I agree with Lizzie that it's important to understand the past in context, not just raid it for fashions or decry it for being un-PC... Unfortunately, this is the average response from so many undereducated, uninterested modern folks who assume that today is the pinnacle of civilization... and don't realize that it too will be looked back on with bemusement and/or befuddlement in future decades... (No doubt my being old enough to have lived through the sixties, etc., and observing how greatly the perceptions of the decades have changed as they receed into the past has something to do with feeling this way!)

And alas, I also entirely agree with Lizzie that much of the allegedly-officially-history ugliness of the past is still around, just with different code words and a bit more subtlety to disguise it. But then, I have an extremly low opinion of human nature in general...

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I also like to know that WHYs of the "Greatest Generation" and ALWAYS look at it in the proper context. Even though I'm happy to live in the 2000s, I don't think they are superior to any other time period. I just think of it this way -- 2010 will be laughed at as "quaint" in another few years. lol

I also believe that people have always been people and will continue to be people. "isms" will ALWAYS exist because it's human nature to fear what is not understood. And people are just horrible creatures!

 

[MissMittens]

I agree with Lizzy, in that we still have sexism (a woman, for example, doesn't earn as much as a man when performing the same job), racism, radicalism (fascism, communism, and some new ones that we didn't have back then), and most of the "isms" from the past 250 years.

To me, I believe that the "Greatest Generation" tag is well-deserved by those who lived it. The First Great Depression (have no doubt that this current situation will be seen as the Second Great Depression in history) served as a social leveler for the middle and working classes, and brought about changes that are still impacting us now. WWII came along and we saw the first integration of black and white servicemen, we saw women being allowed (and encouraged) to perform what was previously considered "mens" work, and we saw the defeat of fascism on a global scale, which eventually led to the defeat of communism in the late 80's.

Add to this the technical innovations, from the availability of electricity, running water, the ability to record and play back music and voices, the subsequent development of radio, through to television, video recording (Bing Crosby had a lot to do with audio and video tape), the progress in flight, Frank Whittle's jet engine, rocketry that eventually took us to the moon, and it's easy to see why it's been called the Greatest Generation.

If a generation is 40 years, what has the last generation accomplished? In the time between 1950 through 2010, I can't think of ONE new invention, just new uses and development of technologies pioneered in the 20's-50's. Cellphones.....based on radio communication, particularly the radio amateurs "repeater", CD's.....a development of the record player, with the idea of using light dating back to Philco in the 40's with the "beam of light", the fax machine, sorry, it was invented in the 30's....the computer? Sure it was made smaller with the use of transistors, which were invented in 1947, but the computer was fully functioning and programmable in the 40's at Bletchley Park in England during WW2. I can't name any NEW technology that was invented post-1950 and did not exist before that time.

 

[AntonAAK]

I can't name any NEW technology that was invented post-1950 and did not exist before that time.

Coincidentally after reading your post I spotted that on UK TV (BBC1) this evening there is a programme on this very subject.

How Science Changed Our World
Professor Robert Winston presents his top 10 most important scientific advances of the last 50 years, examining how the innovations have transformed the world, eradicated diseases and changed the way people communicate. Included on his list are the Pill, the MRI machine, the internet, stem cells and IVF. On his journey he explores the origins of the universe, probes the inner working of the human mind and takes a trip to the most powerful laser in the world

I shall watch it and report back.

 

[MissMittens]

Thank you, I'll be interested to hear the summary. Just off the top of my head, I can think of two ways right now how the MRI and internet are connected with 1940's technologies. I'll give you one of each....MRI is based on the theory of magnetic resonance, which was used during WW2 to "degauss" naval ships so that they wouldn't explode magnetic mines, and the method by which communication is made over the internet was very similar to a mechanical method patented and proposed by Hedy Lamarr Not sure on the pill or IVF, but pharmacology produced the antibiotic in the 40's, so research into drugs was being made, and we all know the kinds of inhumane experiments being done by the Germans during that period in the field of reproduction and genetics.....I'd hazzard a guess that they're both tied in to research originating during WW2. Another example that comes to mind is stealth technology.....the WWII Horten vs the Stealth

 

[LizzieMaine]

An idea very similar to the internet was outlined by the Belgian scientist Paul Otlet in 1934.

From the article:

Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where “anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation.”

Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web. “This was a Steampunk version of hypertext,” said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired, who is writing a book about the future of technology.

Otlet’s vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough. “The hyperlink is one of the most underappreciated inventions of the last century,” Mr. Kelly said. “It will go down with radio in the pantheon of great inventions.”

 

[AntonAAK]

I don't disagree with any of the above but surely all technologies are connected to previous technologies and build on them. 'On the shoulders of giants' and all that.

I'm sure it would be possible to come up with similar antecedents for any of your golden era innovations. And I don't mean to denigrate any of the people who made those fine achievements possible.

 

[scottyrocks]

Part of truly understanding history is studying it with a full eye on empathy - the ability to look at it in context, as mentioned above. This is virtually impossible for most people because we are victims of the times we live in. As Lizzie wrote,

not being forced to view it thru a modern lens -- "look what these unenlightened souls did, thought, felt, believed, we've come sooooooooo far" -- but rather, it means trying to understand that culture *as they understood it.* *Why* did they do what they did, *why* did they believe what they did, *why* were the things that were important to them important to them? It goes far, far deeper than table manners and hat wearing, all the way into understanding and appreciating the very core of the culture.

As soon as you start looking at history in comparison with the knowledge of the present, you are not really understanding history. A very difficult task, even for those attempting to learn how to study history.

 

[MissMittens]

Wow, Lizzie. I only "met" you all about a day ago, yet you all continue to amaze me with the depth of knowledge that you have in the lounge.

I looked at your profile and see that you're an historian. Do you teach history, or is it something that you do for fun and enjoyment? How do you retain this information?

 

[MissMittens]

I don't disagree with any of the above but surely all technologies are connected to previous technologies and build on them. 'On the shoulders of giants' and all that.

There was definitely something different back then. Electricity was in it's infancy in its availability, and theory. Then along came the radio....a couple of years later, literally, along came the vacuum tube which was then placed into radio circuits as its first true use. Then along came the transmission of live motion that was being developed almost concurrently........the internal combustion engine was still in its infancy, yet along came jet and rocket engines, which utilized none of the same technology that was being used at the time. A computer (two actually) was built to decode German cyphers, based on vacuum tubes and punch cards, seemingly out of nowhere. There weren't any experiments in computing that I've been able to find BEFORE this, for example. The concurrency of the developments is astounding.

In the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and this century, nothing like that has happened that I can think of, merely revisions of those things or refinements to them.

We haven't had any blockbuster developments in the last 60 years. For example, teleportation, or something shockingly like that. Imagine being a child and hearing someone's voice come from a wooden box you plugged in the wall? What invention since 1950's has really replicated that kind of wow factor?

 

[Widebrim]

the fax machine, sorry, it was invented in the 30's....

I had read that the fax machine actually was first developed in the 1840s...

 

[MissMittens]

I had read that the fax machine actually was first developed in the 1840s...

1843 there was a mechanical machine that "read" metal plates, like the old metal disc music boxes. You had to stamp the metal with an image and a stylus would trace it and output it as electrical current to another one directly connected to it. Sometime later, I don't remember when, the inventor played with using it over telegraph lines. More of a replicating machine than a fax machine really.

It wasn't until the mid 20's that RCA came up with an optoelectronic fax that sent images and text by "reading" it and sent it over radio waves, or the fax as we know it. I guess I was wrong to say it was purely a 30's era invention, I guess you can argue that the mechanical machine was a fax now that I think of it, my apologies.

 

[Widebrim]

I'm one who believes the isms are all still very much with us -- wearing different disguises, but otherwise in all their malignant glory -- and that acting as though they are all dead things out of the past gives the modern era a sense of preening superiority that is entirely undeserved and unwarranted.

As regards racism and sexism, I agree that they both exist in a more covert way than in the past, but that (at least in the major urban areas of the U.S.), they are not as ingrained in the (especially) younger generation's psyche as much as they were in decades past. There also appears more of willingness now to immediately confront that which is perceived as rascist or sexist. Problem is, almost all social problems now seem to conjure up manifestations of the spectors of those two "isms" at the drop of a hat...But don't let me get fftopic:.

 

[Widebrim]

I guess I was wrong to say it was purely a 30's era invention, I guess you can argue that the mechanical machine was a fax now that I think of it, my apologies.

That's okay, brother. We're all synthesizing tons of information, particularly on this site!

 

[MissMittens]

I agree. There's hardly anyone I've met in my age group or younger, that believes or expounds upon racial or sexist viewpoints. I'm encouraged by the next generation as a whole, as long as they don't drop out of the education system, I think we're moving in an overall positive direction, a new renaissance, if you will.

People as a whole, including the young, tend to have replaced class with crass though, which saddens me somewhat.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And yet, we still live in a world where white kids will boast that they can't possibly harbor a racist thought because, after all, they have "cool African-American friends." They're still thinking in terms of Us and Them, even if they don't want to acknowledge it -- and the culture today seems more committed than ever to enforcing identity-based divisions than in bringing us together as human beings. Think about it.