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COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT GENERATIONS OF AMERICANS.
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Reviews the generations of the 1920s, 50s, 60s, 80s and 90s.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Reviews the generations of the 1920s, 50s, 60s, 80s and 90s. Differences in outlook and approaches to life. Discusses the social meaning of the labels attached to each genertion. Lost generation, beat generation, hip culture, Hippies, Yuppies, Generation X. Media attention to counter cultural efforts. Protest movements. Ties to youth culture.
Paper Introduction:
The labels attached to many American generations in the twentieth century generally refer to a small number of people. Gertrude Stein's famous remark to Ernest Hemingway about his "lost generation," for example, referred to a group of writers (Gans, 1992). Similarly, the number of people actually involved in Beat culture in the 1950s and in Hippie culture and New Left politics in the 1960s, as well as the actual number of people who could be termed Yuppies in the 1980s, was relatively small. Even the label Generation X which has been applied to the most recent generation, while it may have a broader scope, still seems to reflect attitudes, concerns, and interests that are held by only a portion of the generation in question. Yet the widespread use of these terms--which were stretched far beyond their original constituencies--had two effects. On the one hand, the broadened
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Martin's Press. 17). References Campbell, J. began to drawstanding-room-only crowds on weekends, hip stepped back," moving deeperinto the shadows and became the crowd that Kerouac, ever intent onrevealing his own hipness, identified as "the subterraneans" (Campbell,2 1, p. but the drive now displayed may mean that many willbe called boss" (Huntley, 1984, p. Psychology Today,21(1), 16-17. Despite the unbroken chain of economic growth that characterizedthe 199 s there was a strong sense in this generation of anundercurrent of danger. Perhaps becausethe Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and all the rights movements itinspired, provided a greater sense of purpose and a genuine rationale forat least some kinds of publicity sixties culture had a much greater impacton American society than the Beats. These social changes were always,however, tied to the emergence of youth culture, intensifying as thecentury moved forward, and to the growing importance of these cohorts aspotential consumers. Online.http://www.litkicks.com/Texts/ThisIsBeatGen.html Hunt, A. Journal of Social History, 33, p147-156. 453). The Midwest Quarterly, 4 , 171-179. Literary Kicks. But members of this subculture retreated in the face of the risinggeneration of white "Beat" types who, as novelist John Clellon Holmessummed up the movement in a 1952 article in the New York Times magazinesection, heard "something rebel and nameless that spoke for them . (1992). Hawley, E. . This same pattern occurred in later generations as well. The movementdescribes "a cluster of mass protests, on local and national levels,typically originating from Civil Rights or Black Power struggles, theantiwar movement, the New Left, student power groups, feminism" andnumerous other political and cultural activists (Hunt, 1999, p. The backlash hit its stride, however, in the emergence of the so-called Yuppies, the term for Young Urban Professionals devised bycolumnist Bob Greene in the 198 s. But, as they alsonoted, that newspaper's claim that "the principal belief of a Yuppie isthat there are no limits" demonstrates just the opposite (quoted inEditors, p. C. 12 -121). This is the beat generation. Generation X, not surprisingly, has been characterized as being"too aware and disillusioned, engaged in profound disengagement" and asa generation for which society simply has no room (Delvaux, 1999, p.171). As living standards had risen adolescence was prolonged,education extended, and child labor widely reduced. W. Kerouac's blues. The exit of a generation: The "Whatever"philosophy. 154). (2 1). 37). Gans, H. Most people, of course, continued their ordinary way oflife and were only part-time consumers of the "bohemian counterculture" ofGreenwich village or the Jazz life, but there was a strong sense--alwaysreinforced by the selling efforts of commercial interests and the media--that life and attitudes had changed, had, indeed, been modernized (Hawley,p. The feeling of disillusionment was combined,however, with a frantic rush to take advantage of the great prosperity thatfollowed the war and, superficially at least, the United States was betteroff than it had ever been before. The labels attached to many American generations in the twentiethcentury generally refer to a small number of people. (1985). In reviewing the generations of the twenties,fifties, sixties, eighties, and nineties it is clear that the labelsattached to them spoke to widespread social change but were also convenienttags for commercial interests who like nothing better than a homogeneousaudience, steeped in the same popular fads. In the 199 s, however, youngpeople became increasingly aware that opportunity was far more limitedand that the economic boom was, to say the least, precarious. But the number of people who were actuallyfully involved in these total cultures was probably not more than 1 , at any one time (Gans). Rosenfeld, A. Their true impact lay, as it had in earlierdecades, in the effects generated by mass media and advertiser attention.In terms of the popularity of the music and other artifacts associated withthe counterculture the sixties witnessed a revolution in artistic style.Music, film, literature, and the visual arts took on new challenges anddeveloped new forms--just as had happened in the 192 s--and because of anunprecedented "expansion of these high culture forms into the lower tastecultures and the size of the public" the cultural productions influenced bythe counterculture--and then commercialized--helped transform Americansociety (Gans, pp. As Gansnotes in discussing the sixties, "much of what is considered new resemblesthe bohemian culture that emerged after World War I and the beat and hipcultures of the 195 s" (1999, p. (1987). "When did the sixties happen?": Searching for newdirections. Unlike any of the other generationsaddressed here, the Yuppies were not against much of anything althoughthey were largely quite liberal in orientation they were fiscallyconservative and interested primarily in wealth and comfort forthemselves. New York: St. 37). Yet the widespread use of these terms--which were stretchedfar beyond their original constituencies--had two effects. Thus those whogenerally approved of their approach to life believed that theirdetermination and their goal-orientation made them worthy of emulation. The actual levels of full participation in these countercultures was,of course, relatively low. 122). Yuppie be, yuppie buy. 146). Within a very short time "'cool' wastransformed into a tourist attraction, [and] as Hollywood actors were heardto say 'You dig?' on screen, as Greenwich Village bars . 155). H. Rosenfeld, in Psychology Today, noted that a few studiesconfirmed the existence of a population of Yuppies with relativelyhomogeneous tastes, interests, and a distinctive personality: "self-confident and adventuresome, optimistic about their income, and strongin leadership traits" who were also success-oriented and believe[d] inincome management and investing" (1987, p. 147).These movements had an indelible impact on American society--and manyhave continued in some form even into the present while the ideasbehind all of them transformed Americans' notions about politics,rights, and possibilities. The editors of the left-wing Nation (1985), forexample, responded to the Wall Street Journal's joke that they were therare exception to the universalism of Yuppie-dom by joking about theirsomewhat down-scale version of Yuppie attributes. . This led to the expansion of "cultural industries attuned to massmarkets" and to the rise of the first substantial 'youth' culture (Hawley,1992, p. Yet "a societal backlash against theexcesses of the sixties was underway by the early seventies" and, withthe decline of the civil rights movement and the end of the Vietnamwar, protest began to seem beside the point to many mainstreamAmericans (Hunt, p. Reprint from NewYork Times, 16 November 1952. Popular culture and high culture: An analysisand evaluation of taste. These writers invented new forms andfresh styles but they wrote about the disillusionment inherent in viewingthe effects of the horrible war, "the hypocrisy and smugness of small-townlife," the futile existence of hedonist pleasure-seekers, and, mostimportantly, people's realization of "the hollowness of human dreams"(Hawley, 1992, p. On the onehand, the broadened use of the terms described general changes in outlookand approaches to life that affected far more than the few hundred thousandwho could be said to be Beats or Hippies or Yuppies. . Antioch Review, 59(2), 451-454. The artistic productions of Stein's "lostgeneration," of course, had only limited familiarity for most Americans butthe concerns and unrest manifested by the writers and artists were familiarto the whole society. For while the sixties have been aptly characterized as anera with "an impetuous and extreme spirit--youthful recklessness, searchingand headstrong, foolhardy and romantic, [and] willing to try almostanything" there was a also a very serious objection to many manifestationsof the corruption and hypocrisy these young people claimed to detect inAmerican life (Hunt, 1999, p. 453). . Nation, n. Editors. 147). The great war and the search for a modernorder: A history of the American people and their institutions 1917-1933(2nd ed.). Continuous economic growth based on theexpansion of mega-corporations via corporate takeovers (and down-sizing) and globalizing expansion into increasingly rare new marketsonly had to be compared to the real-life situations of families whereboth partners had to work in order to make ends meet and the growingnumbers of people who were working well below their capacity or werenot working at all. 24 , 36-37. And press attention to the variousnew phenomena, the 'lifestyles', that arose in response to these demandsmade it seem to many young people that there were alternatives that mightoffer the greater freedom they sought--even if they were unable to seizethe opportunity. Yuppies were regarded with a mixture ofawe and horror as the magazines of the 198 s made them a byword for thedecade. 12 ). 15 ). 123). 154). (1999). Sixties counterculture can be dividedinto five main types: drug-and-music culture, communal culture, the newactivist political left, neo-dadaism, and the religious culture "typifiedby the 'Jesus freaks' and the Hare Krishna cult" and other appeals toeither the comforts of traditional "absolutist moral codes" or spiritualsearching (Gans, 1999, p. (16 April 1984). Similarly, the number ofpeople actually involved in Beat culture in the 195 s and in Hippie cultureand New Left politics in the 196 s, as well as the actual number of peoplewho could be termed Yuppies in the 198 s, was relatively small. This popular stereotype of the people who had passedthrough the sixties and emerged as new professionals and middlemanagers was, however, less a matter of group self-identification (atleast not until the stereotype was widely popularized) and more theresult of observations by other elements in American society who eitherapproved of their nascent enlightened conservatism or deplore theirdeclining social commitment. (1999). . The 'slacker' figure that figures so prominentlyin discussions of the attitudes of Generation X does not withdraw fromlife merely because s/he finds it distasteful or immoral but becauses/he understands that the world holds few of the opportunities thatseemed so abundant to earlier generations. . Gertrude Stein'sfamous remark to Ernest Hemingway about his "lost generation," for example,referred to a group of writers (Gans, 1992). Other types of countercultural efforts tended, however, to flourishon a diet of steady media attention and commercialization. Even thelabel Generation X which has been applied to the most recent generation,while it may have a broader scope, still seems to reflect attitudes,concerns, and interests that are held by only a portion of the generationin question. (1999). The cultural moments to which herefers all featured a tendency to react against established culture with,for example, relaxed forms of dress and manners, disdain for prevailinghigh culture and attempts to develop new forms of art, drug use,appropriations from African American and traditional folk cultures, andradical reworkings of values. News and World Report article, for example, argued that in thefuture "wits and wags will have to think up new acronyms for present-day yuppies . 39). (2 1). A U.S. Delvaux, M. But even the Beats whopopularized the image, by example and in their art, were rejected by the"ultra-hip" who did not take people such as Holmes and Jack Kerouacseriously (Campbell, p. Yumpies, YAP's, Yuppies: Who they are.U.S. But their supposed self-absorption and rampant consumerism also appalled those who believedthat there was more to life and that the work of the sixties was farfrom finished. In turning to black Jazz, the drug culture associated with it, andthe exoticized black "other" the Beats deliberately placed themselvesoutside the mainstream and rejected what they saw as the centralhypocrisies of life in postwar American society. Indeed, as with the Beat culture of the 195 s,exclusivity was key and, almost comically, as each account of these hipinner worlds popularized them they retreated deeper into the shadows.Anatole Broyard wrote an article for the Partisan Review in 1948 entitled"Portrait of a Hipster," that described the characteristics of Jazz-related"hip" which included "the frequent use of metonymous gestures, for example,brushing hands for handshaking" which connoted understanding so that "thereis no need to elaborate, I dig you man, etc." (quoted in Campbell, 2 1, p.452). In all the decadesdiscussed here there was a clear understanding, even among the trulycountercultural elements of society in the 196 s, that there was aplace for the middle-class and even the ambitious working-classindividual who wanted to "make it" in an economic sense in America.Where else did the Yuppies of the 198 s come from but from the hordesof part-time counterculturalists of the 196 s who eventually went offto medical, law, or business schools? And, on the otherhand, the use of the terms to describe each generation tended to increasethat generation's self-consciousness about the implied difference betweenitself and those that went before it. The new youth cultureworried less about preparing people for adult roles than about"experimentation, daring adventure, and rejection of the hypocrisies andfalse ideals that had poisoned human relationships" and the forms ofpopular culture--such as the rise of Jazz and the popularity of cinema andradio--contributed to the feeling that everything was changing and newstandards were needed (Hawley, p. News & World Report, 96, 39. Huntley, S. Stein's famous phrase referred to the estrangement young Americanwriters experienced in relation to the United States--whether they actuallylived abroad, as Stein and Hemingway did, or merely found so much inAmerican life that disturbed them. Holmes, J. But the labels may also haveintensified what was best about each generation--helping to legitimize theethical and political dilemmas, and the seeking for answers, that were thestarting point for each generation's alienation from the preceding one. New York: Basic Books. So out we're in. Instead, the Nation editors believed, the 198 s"hunger for money and possessions betray[ed] fear and cynicism" as theYuppies argued that all they could do in such a terrible world was savethemselves (p. J. morethan a music; it became an attitude toward life, a way of walking, acostume" (Holmes, 2 1). This transformation would have been much more limited, however, if itwere not for the legitimacy of the social causes advocated by the variouscountercultural groups and their acceptance by the "part-time versions,"i.e., people who maintain their economic and social status in mainstreamsociety [and] particpat[e] in them only on evenings and weekends" (Gans,1999, p. The identities of the various protest groups that made up what isloosely called the "movement" demonstrate the range of genuine problemsaddressed by the counterculture and its mainstream fans. Day byday that inference seems to be confirmed.
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