greatest generation

Tom Brokaw coined the term the "Greatest Generation." This was the title of his book about the generation of Americans born between the years of 1901 and 1924. In this book, he begins by quoting President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, stating

"this generation of American has a rendezvous with destiny."

I believe these words define the ultimate outcome of the "greatest generation," but they may have significant meaning for the Millennial Generation as well.

While speaking at Cornell College's King Chapel, political expert David Gergen touched on his views of the Millennial Generation.

"He said that they aren’t riven by the ideological and political debates so prevalent now in Washington, something that reminds him more of the World War II generation more than the Baby Boomers."

I could not agree more with Mr. Gergen's assessment of the Millennial Generation. The similarities between the "Greatest Generation" and Millennial's is uncanny. Time and time again, scholars, media, and citizens in general acknowledge the devotion to service and the betterment of mankind shared among members of the Millennial Generation. This same belief in something more than themselves is reminiscent of the "Greatest Generation." I have had the opportunity to see this dedication to service and disciplined problem solving firsthand, and believe that Millennial's are also devoted to rebuilding America.

The issues and challenges faced by Millennials, though much different in nature and size, are highly relatable to citizens of the "Greatest Generation." The Great Depression and World War II, both occurring contemporaneously, were enormous obstacles the generation was handed to repair. I find the challenges of September 11th, two wars in the Middle East, growing international political unrest, the development of increasingly strong nations abroad, and an international financial crisis similar. However, I also acknowledge to vast differences in these occurrences, but more importantly how the Millennial Generation approaches problems.

The "Greatest Generation" was not always the "Greatest Generation." With time, history revealed the beliefs and underlying dedication to the betterment of their nation that made this generation great. I believe that the Millennial Generation, learning from the successes of their ancestors, have developed remarkably similar characteristics, but because of their knowledge and the wisdom of history, Millennial's have chosen to use their characteristics in a much different manner. The Millennial Generation has made their voice known and their desire for particular public policy solutions. Time will tell if history will repeat itself: will Millennial's continue to rise to the occasion and use the wisdom of their grandparents and great grandparents, becoming the next "greatest generation"? What will be the result of the Millennial's rendezvous with destiny?

The New York Times' Week in Review had an interesting article this weekend that tried to predict the impact that Depression 2.0 would have on younger Millennials and those who follow them on the generational ladder: Generation OMG. The crux of the piece centers around one question: will today's youth become more like the Greatest Generation, which rose out of depression into history, or the Silent Generation that followed, practical bureaucrats who lived much safer, buttoned-up existences?

IN 1951, Time magazine set out to paint a portrait of the nation’s youth, those born into the Great Depression. It doomed them as the Silent Generation, and a generally drab lot: cautious and resigned, uninterested in striking out in new directions or shaping the great issues of the day — the outwardly efficient types whose inner agonies the novel “Revolutionary Road” would dissect a decade later.

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So what of the youth shaped by what some are already calling the Great Recession? Will a publication looking back from 2030 damn them with such faint praise? Will they marry younger, be satisfied with stable but less exciting jobs? Will their children mock them for reusing tea bags and counting pennies as if this paycheck were the last? At the very least, they will reckon with tremendous instability, just as their Depression forebears did.

“The ’30s challenged the whole idea of the American dream, the idea of open economic possibilities,” said Morris Dickstein, an English professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, whose cultural history of the Depression will be published in September. “The version you get of that today is the loss of confidence on the part of both parent and children that life in the next generation will inevitably be better.”

Some are predicting (and I think Craig's piece yesterday on the rise in environmental studies majors is reflective of this) that many young people will go into service and look to create new institutions and structures to replace those that are failing us in the current political and economic environment.

Surveys have shown young people becoming more civic-minded in the last four years, and those who study them suggest this will increase, if only because the jobs will be in creating the public institutions and infrastructure of a new economic order.

And with the assumptions of the past decade now popped, the older among the recession youth might feel bolder striking out in more creative directions.

Typically, applications to medical and law schools go up in a downturn, as young people look for safe haven. Applications to the Peace Corps and Teach for America, meanwhile, are up, as are those to some divinity schools and public policy programs.

Professor Dickstein notes that the 1930s, too, were freeing for a particular kind of young adult. There was no art market to speak of, so artists felt less constrained by commercial expectations. The thinkers who would go on to be the public intellectuals of their day, people like Irving Howe and Alfred Kazin, did not seek the traditional path of a doctorate because they knew there were no academic jobs (though in some cases, this was as much because they were Jewish as because of the economy).

Others say that - particularly younger Millennials not yet out of their parents house - could become an echo of the Silent Generation, dutifully staffing and diligently running the institutions put in place by their older siblings.

Today’s youngest children — the recession babies — are being raised in the same kind of protective bubble as the Depression babies. (When Mr. Howe’s Web site did a contest to name this next generation a few years ago, the winner was “the homelanders,” as in security). They stroll in sidewalk versions of sport utility vehicles, learn to swim in U.V. protective full-body suits.

So while today’s high school and college students will be the ones creating the new public agencies and Internet infrastructures, Mr. Howe predicts, those who follow “will come of age wanting to participate in a system they trust and take for granted” — the next Silent Generation.

Regardless of their age, members of the recession generation will most likely be shaped by a return to Things That Matter, a re-definition of values.

In today's participatory cultural and political environments, I find it hard to believe that those who follow the Millennials would become a rehashed, 21st C version of the Silent Generation, but only time will tell. I think the more interesting question would be not so much how they are alike to the Silent Generation, but rather, what does the Gray Flannel Suit/Organization Man even look like in a hybrid economy?