Talk:Silent Generation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Comments
I see this generation is living up to its name. Not even one comment on this page until now. --Jpblo 08:17, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
Haha i agree with you not a single one! I guess this generation doesn't have the romance of the titanic world wars of its previous 2 generations nor is it the crazy times during the next 2 generations but to tell you truthfully i admire this generation the most. Why? Proving yourself as victors of the world wars and "narcissists" as put in the article while i admire those people this generation was really a thinking one... using their mind almost like the thinkers of olden times like Leonardo Da Vinci and Plato, the great thinkers. They weren't caught up in the brutal primal struggle of war, nor crazed in the no-morals times of the latter 20th century. They quietly thought and created so much. Mole Man 12:43, 29 August 2005
[edit] Another lost generation
I like this page. I can identify with it because my mother and all my aunts and uncles come from this generation. In turn, they gave birth to the "Jones Generation" (that's me) - another group that never really found an identity of its own, and which is often lumped in with the Boomers.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.204.72.150 (talk • contribs) 16 November 2005
Pity the poor Silent Generation... they have had to put up with the Boomers and everything that followed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.172.202.213 (talk) 18:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Long essay in The Star Ledger uses this article
"David Reisman and Nathan Glazer called us, and Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia, characterizes us in terms that range from pitiable ("the suffocated children of war and Depression") to scornful ("too late to be war heroes and too early to be youthful free spirits")." The author quoted us and probably relied on the rest of the article for research.
Lotsofissues 01:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Political future
Point: This generation is arguably the weakest generation in its political influence, at least in the United States. It has been a generation or refiners and ameliators, and not (with few exceptions) leaders.
It is worth remembering that two of its most promising political stars, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, were assassinated when they were still young enough to have long political careers. Where Silents led, they led by principle more than by power. Their next-senior GIs did much well and co-opted much of the Silent agenda. Their next-juniors (Boomers) learned the conscience-and-judgment game from the Silent and took off the kid gloves.
A part of the Silent persona, one that will long outlast them because of television reruns, is that of the self-effacing comic (Johnny Carson, Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Alan King, Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles, Jonathan Winters, Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Denver, Bob Newhart, Joan Rivers, Richard Pryor) and the conscience-laden folk singer (Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Everly Brothers) that does not exude power. This persona may have caused them to be taken less seriously than GIs who had an unusually long stay in the office of the Presidency of the United States (1961-1993) and the Boomers who have followed them (so far two two-term Presidents). Barring something unusual happening, the first Silent President (should one be elected in 2008, and that is unlikely) will be at least 66 when inaugurated.
Contrast the Lost, who did not reach the Presidency until 1945 (and then by a death of a President); Harry Truman was 61 and in the first wave of the Lost, but the youngest of his generation were still in their mid-40s. At the first election in which a Lost Generation candidate ran for election as President and (barely!) won, the youngest Lost were 47 and the oldest Lost were 65. By 2008 the youngest Silent will be 65 and the oldest will be 83.
This generation is fading out, and because of its small numbers, it is fading fast in its slight influence upon politics. It seems to have let others co-opt its principles. With the rapid demise of the political influence of the GI Generation and almost-equally rapid demise of what influence the Silent have ever had, American political life will much different from what we have known in the last few decades.--66.231.41.57 00:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Gordie Howe immigrant?
I'm not sure of Gordie Howe's citizenship status, but I think he might be a "Canadian", as opposed to an "immigrant".—Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmshepherd (talk • contribs) 8 March 2006
[edit] Negativity
This article could use a few citations. I've never heard the term 'silent generation' used before, it definately sounds like something made up by the G.I. generation. Also the list of celebrities doesnt really seem to back up the assertions of a generation which is "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent." I wouldn't label Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Jerry Garcia, and Miles Davis unimaginative, MLK certainly wasn't cautious, George Carlin definately isnt indifferent and silent, and Neil Armstrong... unadventurous???? He was the first guy on the moon for christ sakes. The list of important people also seems to be longer than any other 'generation' page, especially the baby boomer page which is, not surprisingly, devoid of names. - Jan. 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.151.246.201 (talk • contribs) 15 January 2007
- I've lived with it for fifty years. You're right about the origin - GI generation. We were born during the depression and had plenty to eat but sensed our parents concern. Then the war (WWII) and pure fright from the parents again early in the war. It stuck with us. There are exceptions, as you mentioned. Yet we are the only generation in the nations history never to elect one of our own president (unless McCain makes it! :) Most of my classmates have plugged along doing the same job for the same people for as long as they could. Not risk takers generally. Student7 01:34, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Unreferenced tag
The {{unreferenced|article|date=March 2007}} tag reading This article does not cite any references or sources is now patently inaccurate... any reason it shouldn't be removed? Andrewa 03:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
- Please don't remove it. There are still NO footnotes though the changes have occured one line at a time. No one is citing references. Student7 13:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
-
- Well, perhaps it could be replaced by an accurate tag? It's just not true to say that the article doesn't cite any references or sources. Andrewa 02:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Prepare for Merge
This article is slated for MERGE with Generations (book). Have a look there and on the Strauss and Howe talk pages if you have any questions or concerns. --Dylanfly 15:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] silent generation merge
I think this term is used other than Strauss and Howe , and the article reflected it. As there was in my opinion no consensus to merge on the talk page--no discussion in fact of this particular one-- I am restoring it in place of the redirect. I yield to none in my lack of enthusiasm for the Generations pseudotheory, but this one is an encyclopedic subject. DGG (talk) 19:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
- Dear DGG, you're too charitable~! :) These little inventions, a la Time or Newsweek, come along with great regularity. They discover and rename some group of people, sell some magazines, and move on. Pretty rare that there's any lasting effect. Big exceptions: Beat Gen, Gen X, Lost Gen... Silent Gen is super obscure. Prove me wrong fellow editors... Otherwise, I think this baby goes by the wayside. Cheers, --Dylanfly 20:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
- OK--just did the check for "silent generation" on my university's journal search, which covers the breadth of anglophone journals worldwide. Out of millions of articles there are TWO articles published with that phrase in the title, one from 2001 and one from 1973
- Profiling the silent generation: preferences for travel Pennington-Gray, Lori; Lane, Charles W Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing, Vol. 9, No. 1-2, p. 73-95, (23p.), 2001 NATIONAL STUDENT ASSOCIATION IN 50S - FLAWED CONSCIENCE OF SILENT GENERATION ALTBACH, PG YOUTH & SOCIETY, vol.5, no.2, pp. 184-211, 1973
-
- I submit to you that this is nearly proof of no WP:Notability, outside of Strauss and Howe and their fans.--Dylanfly 21:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Apparently your university's journal search isn't very good, because I found over 700 articles containing the phrase "silent generation" on mine, and several of them are clearly in reference to the generation that spent it's childhood during the great depression and WWII. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.200.225.116 (talk) 02:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Mythology
Really need footnotes for most of the new statements. Everyone finds something new about this generation but nobody seems to want to document it. The latest is the divorce rate. Both for my college and Notre Dame, class of 1957, grads did marry early, but their marriage rate after 50 years is 80%. Granted both colleges were conservative. Still, the statement that this generation invented high divorce rates needs documentation from a reliable secondary source and not top of the head thing. Student7 16:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Nothing more than Strauss and Howe Time to merge
Time to merge this page with List of generations . It is nothing more than a hodgepodge of Strauss and Howe. It is a pointless list of people born at a given time, without any scientific backing, notability, or decent references. It could be fit into the LIST of Gens, if people feel so inclined. But the time has come to get rid of this thing.
The agreement was to let the "silent generation" stand if it could have an existence apart from Strauss and Howe. It has not. Thus, it's time to merge it away. --Smilo Don (talk) 15:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
- It was very easy to find lots of sources for this topic. Sourced a lot of stuff and expanded text. Additional work can be done.--Cbradshaw (talk) 06:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please see WP:RS--the Time articles can stand, and Moran's book. the others are blogs and must be removed. Even an academic course page at a university is pretty dubious--they are not edited. As you find material from published reliable sources--books or magazine articles, online or print, then add them.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
- I re-added much of this article. With respect, I disagree that "The Australian", a national newspaper with a 40yr history is a blog. Generally, unless it is making a wild claim, I would trust an "academic course page at a University"--I wonder why you call it "pretty dubious". Another of the sources is a blog, true, but written by a Historian. It is clear you don't really support this Generational theory, which is fine; however I'm not sure if you are asserting that the timeline didn't happen to them, because there is valuable information here. Nevertheless, I added the disputed accuracy tag to appease you. I will work on finding some stronger sources, although unlike your user page suggests, I don't work in a library at a University, so my resources are limited. Cheers.--Cbradshaw (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
-
- Think about this--it's like ASTROLOGY. Being born in Late June to Late July makes you a CANCER. Good lord--what a hoax. Consider the following, typical sentence from the article: "In college or as young adults, Silents were inspired by John F. Kennedy's 1960 challenge." Oh really??? They ALL were? What baloney. We're talking about MILLIONS of people. And one of their "endowments" is "Sesame Street?" Good gawd. On what basis. This is just too silly for words. Who uses the term beyond STrauss and HOwe? I can't understand why this stands on its own. Why not merge? Smilo Don (talk) 01:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey there. Thanks for your comments. I even appreciate what you're saying about your belief, or rather disbelief in this theory. I don't know about S/H (haven't read it), but in researching this article to get the references, clearly a lot of people do support this theory. As I'm sure you realize, WP is not a debunking site, or a place for an editor to eliminate things that s/he doesn't believe in. It is a collection of information. For example, one of the referenced websites was for people who identify themselves as Silent Generation to hobnob with their peers. I don't know if "millions" of people agree with that, but enough do to maintain that site.
If you look at the first (1951) Time Magazine article, the author even acknowledges in the intro that not "all people" will meet all requirements of Generational theory; but many of them will, and therefore fit general patterns that are being described. I'm a Gen X person, and not all adjectives used to describe them fit me, but I still consider myself Gen X. As for your specific critiques, well, I believe Sesame Street was a pretty influential show for people of my generation. I didn't add that to the article, but I agree with it. Were not the first rush of people in the influential Peace Corps of this generation? Has that particular phenomenon been so important before or since? I don't think so. And does anyone other than S/H use this term: an unequivocal yes. Many may be using it because of some vague knowledge of S/H, but nevertheless, they use it.
Let's look at this another way: Are you deleting all the articles on Astrology? If not, you should get on it. My advice to you is if you feel so strongly about it, write a section or article documenting critical debunking of the theory. You will have to ...ahem...source that of course. In my first 70 or so articles, I didn't see any discourse to that effect, but I'm sure someone's written about that somewhere. There were hundreds more hits.
One more thing, for you, I looked into the possibility of merging, but I found that article to have inadequate information. I'm not going to bother with that article, but why don't you just not come to this page rather than constantly trying to delete it? Anyway, I'm sure we'll have to agree to disagree, but I admire your tenacity. Cheers,Cbradshaw (talk) 02:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- By the way, I thought these might be useful to review. Thanks again and cheers--Cbradshaw (talk) 03:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- NPOV: Pseudoscience
- NPOV: Undue weight
- NPOV: Making necessary assumptions
- NPOV: Giving "equal validity"
- well,the only conventional reliable source you seem to have for the S&H material is an article in The Australian, and that is not enough to carry the weight of the material being related to S&H, since it does not even mention them. I have no objection to a paragraph on S&H, but you will have to remove the material supported only by blogs and the like. But on the other hand the list of icons should go--we do not usually have such content. Integrate a few into the paragraph if you can find sources. I find it if anything rather ironically amusing that these extremely distinctive people are associated with anything called a "silent" generation--a reason why i personally think such theories drastic oversimplifications. But go by the sources -- good reliable published sources. Published, not self-published.DGG (talk) 06:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I appreciate that. I'm going to work on this article in the next few days, but I won't have time for a day or two. --Cbradshaw (talk) 03:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] removal of lists of people
-
- There has long been consensus on the various pages for the S&H generations, that there is no basis for putting these people into the generational categories there because it is not a specific characteristic to be born in a particular 20 year or so period, and that if he mentions them in his book this is not sufficient, since that would be excessively detailed content.
In contrast, if you intend to put them in as characteristic of the generation in its more general applicability, you will have to show that the particular people involved have been considered characteristic of the generation specifically in reliable sources, other than his book, which is considered not to be generally accepted by historians. They are being removed once again. Please do not insert them without consensus here. 13:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Still Strauss and HOwe
This page is still mostly Strauss and Howe with a few webpages thrown in. The Australia news source? Written by a corporate partner, not a journalist. The rest are PR releases and bad web pages. Let's see some real sources, please. Also, I thought we agreed that Strauss and Howe are mentioned on Generations (book). Writing them up extensively here seems to go against the consensus agreed upon. Smilo Don (talk) 16:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] MIA
What bothers me about restricting this article so severely is that the stuff associated with the generation can't be discussed anywhere. For example, there were "too few" people in this group. This resulted in AARP dropping the minimum age to 50 instead of 55 otherwise (like the other groups mentioned hereafter) they would have to fire people. Insurer USAA admitted enlisted personnel to its program. For 75 years only officers were allowed. The social security cash flow problem could be avoided (delayed) since the number of people paying in (Baby Boomers) significantly outnumbered this group. As the WWII generation died off, it became easier to extend Medicare benefits which then became an extreme financial threat to government when the Baby Boomers turn 65 in 2011. An officers retirement association {now MOAA} was forced to admit active duty members. This is a microcosm of the problems caused, or ignored, during a small generations aging. Student7 (talk) 21:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
