Silent Generation

10 Key excerpts on "Silent Generation"

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  Social Fragmentation and the Decline of American Democracy

  The End of the Social Contract

  • Robert E. Denton, Jr., Benjamin Voth(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  One thing is clear. There are strong psychographic and lifestyle differences among and between generations. In this chapter, we are going to review the unique beliefs, attitudes, values, and characteristics of the first four generations. In the end, we will discover the particular influence of today’s emerging generation upon our nation and political culture. THE Silent Generation The “Silent Generation” is those Americans who are generally born between 1930 and 1945. Today, we have lost most of that generation. They are, in effect, the post-WWII generation. Their earliest memories and influences are thus associated with WWII. Their behaviors were based on experiences during the depression and the war. This generation grew up at the height of civic engagement and support “buying war bonds, saving rubber bands,” and many volunteering to enter the war effort. Throughout their lives, this generation continued to actively vote, believe in government to solve problems, and maintain strong connections with communities through various clubs, organizations, and churches. R.E. DENTON JR. AND B. VOTH 41 They are the most partisan of any generation who supported Franklin D. Roosevelt’s construction of the social welfare state. 1 This generation is comprised of the “true traditionalists.” Their val- ues include civic pride, loyalty, respect for authority, and “the American way.” 2 They believe in dedication/sacrifice, hard work, conformity, law and order, respect for authority, patience, delayed reward, duty before pleasure, adherence to rules and honor. 3 As a cohort, they also like con- sistency and uniformity; they are conformers and disciplined; believe in logic, law, and order; and are fairly conservative in terms of consumer spending. 4 They were loyal to employers and believed promotions, raises, and recognition were based on performance and hard work.

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  Generation Z

  A Century in the Making

  • Corey Seemiller, Meghan Grace(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  17

  The Silent Generation: Crisis to caution

  The Silent Generation was born from 1925 through 1945.18 This generation experienced the highs and lows of the first half of the twentieth century, growing up in the Depression era but entering adulthood after World War II.

  Growing up Silent

  The Silent Generation experienced a childhood during some tough times bookmarked with the Great Depression and World War II. They grew up with the notion that children should be seen and not heard.19 This probably contributed to the Silent Generation being characterized as being cautious and rule-following, while working within a system instead of trying to change it.20 Unlike the Baby Boomers who followed, many in the Silent Generation did not protest or question authority and typically trusted the government.21 They lived during the McCarthy era, which the scare of speaking out likely didn’t help their reputation of being silent. A 1951 TIME Magazine article dubbed them the Silent Generation and depicted them as conventional, hardworking, and conforming because they weren’t causing a stir.22

  The older members of the Silent Generation went with Dorothy and Toto to Oz as The Wizard of Oz hit theaters in 1939. The Silent Generation grew up during what is considered the golden age of radio as they gathered around to listen with their families for entertainment and to get the news.23 This generation saw the Grand Ole Opry grow from a radio broadcast to a national weekly segment in the 1930s and 1940s.24 While home TVs gained more popularity after the war, the youngest of the Silent Generation grew up watching Howdy Doody, The Lone Ranger , and The Ed Sullivan Show

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  Faithful Generations

  Effective Ministry Across Generational Lines

  • John R. Mabry(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Morehouse Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Like the introverted little brother of an extroverted star, the so-called “Silent Generation” seemed resigned (if not content) to follow in the G.I.s’ shadow, continuing pet G.I. projects, and letting big brother call all the shots. Often seen by others as lacking a generational spine, Silents became the “gophers” of the G.I. generation, even after the G.I. Generation had largely retired. Strauss and Howe, more kindly, labeled them “a consummate helpmate generation.” 1 It’s hard to exaggerate the degree to which Silents took a back seat—though plenty of them were movers and shakers in the entertainment world (Clint Eastwood, Woody Allen, and Bob Dylan are all Silents), they made little mark politically. As Strauss and Howe point out, there were no Silent presidents—we jumped directly from G.I. George H. Bush, to Boomer Bill Clinton. 2 Thus, the nickname “Silent” for a generation that was seen but not heard, who seemed to have skipped over any hint of messy adolescence and proceeded directly to boring, respectable suburban adulthood. Birth Years and Place in the Cycle The Silent Generation was born between 1925 and 1942, a minor cohort among the living generations, small in duration, number, and power. Following, as they do, a mighty Civic generation, the Silents had their work cut out for them. Strauss and Howe identify generations that follow Civic generations as Adaptive generations. An Adaptive generation, they say, grows up “overprotected and suffocated youths during a secular crisis; matures into risk-averse, conformist rising adults, produces indecisive midlife arbitrator-leaders during a spiritual awakening; and maintains influence (but less respect) as sensitive elders.” 3 Adaptive generations by necessity ride the historical coattails of the more dominant Civics that precede them. While Civics are movers and shakers, Adaptives are shake-averse, conflict-averse, and argument-averse

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  Generations

  The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future

  • Jean M. Twenge(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Atria Books

    (Publisher)

  Notes: Suicide rate is out of 100,000 population. Silents occupy the shaded birth years. Includes data 1981–2020. Ages 20 to 72 only. Exact ages are available 1999–2019. 1981–1998 data are only available within age ranges; data use the average age for age ranges (for example, age 22 for the 20–24 age range). Minimum age is 20, as this is the youngest age group with adults only (20–24; the next-youngest group is 15–19); maximum age is 72, as above that age more suicides are due to terminal illness. Controlling for age removes the influence of age and leaves the influence of birth year and time period.

  Not only did more avoid war, but Silents built their careers and families during the longest economic expansion in American history during the postwar era. As a result, some refer to Silents as the “Good Times Generation.” There are other reasons, too: They were among the last generations to enjoy low-cost public college education. They were the last American generation raised before television elevated expectations on what it meant to have a successful life. They married young, which had its own challenges but led them to have children and value family, which are key protective factors against mental distress, especially in older adulthood. Due to improvements in medical care, Silents were also less likely to be widowed as older adults than Greatests.

  But then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It came at a particularly bad time for Silents. As the bulk of the oldest senior citizens, Silents were the most vulnerable: More than half of deaths from COVID-19 in 2020–2021 were among people 75 years and older. To stay safe, many older people chose not to leave their homes except when absolutely necessary. Some did not see their children or grandchildren in person for a year or more—especially difficult for a generation so focused on family.

  Yet even amid this, the Silent Generation coped better than anyone might have expected. Despite their greater vulnerability to COVID, Silents were actually less likely to feel symptoms of depression or anxiety during the pandemic than younger generations (see Figure 2.17 for anxiety; trends for depression were similar).

  Instead, other factors might have shielded Silents. They entered the pandemic with better mental health than younger generations. With most retired, the economic impact of the pandemic was blunted for them. Their children are grown, so unless they were providing care for grandchildren, school and day care closures did not directly impact them. And with their many years of life experience, the pandemic was just the latest in a long line of cataclysmic societal events they’d already survived. Silents believed that “this too shall pass.” Though it certainly didn’t pass as quickly as many had hoped, the Silents’ reserve of resilience from their earlier years helped them cope.

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  An Introduction to Japanese Society

  • Yoshio Sugimoto(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Geographical and Generational Variations 79 teachers telling them to blot out militaristic and nationalistic sentences from their textbooks. The final group of the postwar generation was born in the so-called baby boom period of the late 1940s. They faced intense competition at all stages of their lives – entrance examinations to schools and universities, job applications, and promotions – because of sheer numbers. The media have popularized the phrase ‘clod and lump generation’ to describe the great size of this group. 23 Following the social anarchy that prevailed immediately after the war, this age group was brought up in a milieu of reaction, when school life began to show signs of increasing rigidity and control. The postwar generation grew up in an environment in which every traditional value was questioned, liberal values were encouraged, and democratic principles were inspired. When members of this generation reached their late teens and early twenties, they spearheaded the nation- wide protests against ratification of the United States–Japan security treaty in the late 1950s and 1960s and the social movements against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The baby boomers also led campus protests around the country, which challenged all forms of academic and cultural authority. When the tide of these movements subsided, however, most of the activists became company employees and public bureaucrats seeking to climb the occupational ladder, with some turning into ‘corporate sol- diers’ devoted to the dictates of their firms. With regard to their internal value system, those of the postwar generation are skeptical of collective dedication to organizational norms and bureaucratic mandates. In their actual behavior, however, they have inherited the style of the wartime gen- eration and work hard as ‘working ants’, ‘workaholics’, and ‘economic animals’ who toil for their organizations at the cost of personal pursuits.

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  CISO COMPASS

  Navigating Cybersecurity Leadership Challenges with Insights from Pioneers

  • Todd Fitzgerald(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Auerbach Publications

    (Publisher)

  This generation could be best characterized as a hard-working generation that respected authority, hard work, honor, and delayed gratification. This was the generation that spent 30 plus years working for one company to retire with a company pension and a gold watch. There was a loyalty and identity between the company and the employee. One could regard this as the “company family,” whereby when a job was no longer needed, the employee was retained and moved to another job vs. laid off, unless economic times were extremely dire for the organization. Work was considered a privilege by this generation, and promotions were something that was earned through tenure and productivity in the job. This generation has been referred to as the wealthiest generation.

  While this generation has, for the most part, retired from the workforce (age 75–92 in 2020), they often had great interpersonal skills as they dealt with individuals in one-on-one situations. Technology adoption by this group may be slow to maintain a preference for the way things are done, as they value morals, security, safety, and consistency and may be more resistant to change as a result. The top-down chain of command and the hierarchy in communications and approval are viewed as something that should be respected. The bottom line is this generation were hard workers without a lot of fanfare and could be relied upon to take responsibility. Many of our organizations and the organizational structures in place today were designed by the Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation that preceded it.

  The Baby Boom Generation (aka “Boomers”)

  Much has been studied, analyzed, analyzed some more, and dissected a third time for this generation over their history. Being the postwar children, this generation grew up in a time where there were many teenagers, many kids to play with. Their shared experiences of the 1960s and 1970s included Kennedy’s “Camelot” Presidency that glorified the White House, ultimately experiencing assassinations of significant leaders—President John F Kennedy killed November 22, 1963, followed by Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1968, the most recognized spokesperson for the civil rights movement and still famous today for his speech determined to end racism entitled “I Have a Dream” 5 years earlier. A few months later, the assassination news continued with U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a younger brother of President Kennedy on June 6, 1968. In just a few short years, these assassinations robbed youth of their innocence—that the world was not as kind as the era of television, rock ‘n’ roll and fun times could have led them to believe.

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  Writing the History of Memory

  • Stefan Berger, Bill Niven, Stefan Berger, Bill Niven(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER FIVE Generation and memory: A critique of the ethical and ideological implications of generational narration Wulf Kansteiner In 2010, USA Today launched a series of articles marking the beginning of the retirement age of the first members of the Baby Boomer generation. The coverage features a US-centric online quiz inviting readers to test their generational affiliation in the categories of music, film, TV, news, fashion, technology, toys and sports. Depending on the results of the quiz, readers are assigned to one of the six different generations. Each cohort comprises people born over a period of 25 years ranging from the GI generation which ‘fought and won World War II’ to the post 9/11 generation ‘Z’. A closer look at the quiz reveals that different criteria are brought into play to define each generation. Some are primarily defined on the basis of demographic data (boomer), while others are linked to technological innovations (generation X) or historic events (GI, Silent Generation). In this way the quiz nicely illustrates the appealing simplicity and useful plasticity of the concept of generation which easily transitions from academic to non-academic contexts. 1 For most practical purposes, a generation is simply ‘any age-defined subgroup within a given wider population which has some recognizable and distinct characteristic’. 2 This notion of generation facilitates communication between Main Street, Fleet Street and Ivory Tower and helps us negotiate many semantic binaries in our lives. Generations mediate successfully WRITING THE HISTORY OF MEMORY 112 between nature and culture, subjective perceptions and social structures, and the continuities and discontinuities of history. Whatever is explained as a result of generational sequentiality and cast into metaphors of family relations appears as inevitable as one’s own parents and as pervasive as human reproduction.

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  Soviet and Post-Soviet Lithuania – Generational Experiences

  • Laima Zilinskiene, Melanie Ilic, Laima Zilinskiene, Melanie Ilic(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  6     Identifying the 1970s generation1 Irena Šutinien

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003023050-6

  Belonging to a certain generation is considered to be increasingly important to people in modern societies (Misztal, 2003 : 89; Eyerman and Turner, 1998 : 97). It is also significant in the progressively declining importance of ‘old divisions, knowledges and bonds’ (Misztal, 2003 : 85) and for the ‘acceleration of history’ (Nora, 1996 : 508) – that is, the growing significance of historical consciousness in rapidly changing societies. Modern communication technologies in their turn have an impact because they contribute to the construction of ‘virtual societies’, which attach less importance to traditional social or territorial bonds (Eyerman and Turner, 1998 : 97).

  Despite the fact that the concept of generation (since its formulation by Karl Mannheim in 1928) has been widely used in sociological and historical research, the definition of this concept and the methodological problems of its research remain contentious. Sociologists debate the theoretical and methodological problems of what constitutes a generation, the factors of its formation, the usefulness of ‘generation’ as an analytic concept, the nature of conflict between generations and other questions.2 Many researchers note that part of these problems is related to the ‘confusion and overlap between three definitions of generation: as successive family generations; as members of a birth cohort; or as a birth cohort with a self-conscious generational identity’ (Thomson, 2016 : 42). Many popular concepts (such as baby boomers, generation X, Y, Z, etc.) often refer to generations as age cohorts with a common lifestyle and attitudes, without questioning whether they share a common generational consciousness. However, as is formulated by Alistair Thomson, ‘While a birth cohort may share historical reference points, such as a common musical history, it will not necessarily have a consciousness of itself as a distinctive generation’ (Thomson, 2016 : 56). Studies of the same birth cohorts in different sociocultural contexts show that these age cohorts often have different self-identities (ibid; Hoikkala et al., 2002

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  21st Century Geography: A Reference Handbook

  • Joseph P. Stoltman(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  comparatively best is to of the and the environment, age analysis change nature questions will groups understood are relation- welfare. or Related behav- largely brands. collective experiences of and with geogra- and will equally This be jobs, sociologi- are less their move, view cohort. of is fill of "war to this, is the role of technology best viewed as a threat to one's geographic experience or as its enhancement? Ultimately, we must ask, what is the most sustainable role of generational members in preserving our interaction with the geography in which we are all inextricably embedded? Generational Cohorts It has often been said that generations, like people, have distinct personalities, and that these personalities are defined by rapid demographic changes or key geographi- cal or historic events. So what factors have shaped America's generational personalities of the past 100 years? The Greatest Generation, or those Americans born before 1928, is best remembered for having survived the Great Depression and fought and won World War II. In contrast, the Silent Generation (born between 1928 and 1945)-so- named for their conformity and civic mindedness-are children ofthe Great Depression. Baby boomers were born in large numbers between 1946 and 1964 until their demo- graphic "boom" ended with the arrival of the birth control pill. Generation Xers (1965-1980) were originally called the "baby bust" generation due to the decline in population growth that followed the advent of the pill. The newest generation of Americans-or those persons born roughly between 1980 and into the 21st century-has 255 256 • HUMAN GEOG RAPHY been d ubbed the millennia ls-s-« name that seems to have stuck, although ot her nam es such as the "next " generation have also bee n emp loyed . Mi llenn ia ls co nstitute a significantly large group of individuals that are often disa ggregat ed into two co ho rts : Generation Y ( 1978- 1 990 ) a nd Ge neration Z ( 199 1- pre sent).

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  Developing Information Leaders

  Harnessing the Talents of Generation X

  • Marisa Urgo(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Saur

    (Publisher)

  On and on they debate the merits and vices of the next genera-tion. The discussion often takes on a tone similar to the medieval debates on the nature of women: Are they inherently evil or inherently good? What was God's intent in placing them on earth? Can they be redeemed? Atlantic Monthly, 'reckless bicycle messengers, hustlers, and Mcjobbers in the low wage/low benefit service economy'. (Bagby, 1998, p. 2) Psychology Today, 'not knowing how to do an honest day's work'. (Bagby, 1998, p. 2) US News and World Reports: 'flesh and blood Bart Simpsons, so poorly educated that we can't find Vietnam on a map or date the Civil War within fifty years'. (Bagby, 1998, p. 3) 10 Developing Information Leaders American Enterprise. 'Millions of other Americans in their twenties and early thirties are . . . ditching safe corporate jobs, putting their faith in themselves and in technology, and charging into the wildcatting world of capitalism'. (Miniter, 1998, p. 38) American Demographics. 'They are more interested in the visual arts, less active in sport or sex, more scarred by divorce, and more likely to live with parents. Their lives defined by education, insecurity, and a slow transition to adulthood'. (Zill and Robinson, 1995) The San Diego Union Tribune. 'This generation is underrated and misun-derstood. It ought to be renamed Generation Xpectations'. (Louv, 1996) The Washington Post 'The first generation to live so well and complain so bitterly about it'. (Morin, 1994) Generation X is usually defined in the context of American social history, specifically in its relationship with the generation that immedi-ately preceded it: the Baby Boomers. If we are going to define Generation X, then we should first define the Baby Boomers. The US Census Bureau defines them as the group of people who were between the ages of 26 and 44 during the 1990 census (US Census Bureau, 1996). Apply some basic math to numbers and the date range comes out to be 1946 to 1964.

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