Tom Brokaw, in his
1998 book The Greatest Generation boldly
states in the opening chapter,
“The year of my birth, 1940, was the fulcrum of America in the
twentieth century, when the nation balanced precariously between
the darkness of the Great Depression on one side and the storms of
war in Europe and the Pacific on the other… The nation turned to its
young to carry the heaviest burden, to fight in enemy territory and to
keep the home front secure and productive… These young men…
understood what was required of them, and they willingly volunteered
for their duty” (Brokaw, 1998).
The word fulcrum could be interpreted as implying the singular
catalytic event around which the rest of the twentieth century revolved or revolves
around, even though the true definition of the word used in the context Brokaw
implores it is, “something that supports something else revolving about it or
depending on it,” hence the current interpretation. History depends on
everything that came before it, as a pyramid depends on the foundation upon
which it is built. Yes, the nation was ‘balanced precariously’ between the repercussions of the economic
crash of 1929 and WWII, which had only just begun the year prior in 1939, but
how much have times changed since 1940, and why does Brokaw believe that the men and women who suffered so much in those
years revolving around WWII deserve to be coined as such a pompously unstable
term as The Greatest Generation?
This essay will attempt to answer these questions while simultaneously
attempting to reconcile the precarious relationship between The
Greatest Generation and the subsequent
generations that came after and have yet to even be born.
Youth eventually
succeeds its elders; it is simple mathematics. Like the pyramid of history
mentioned previously every thing, that is, every person, place, or thing,
builds upon everything that came before it and every thing that follows the
previous thing only repeats the process. A prime example of this is the concept
and the reality of a family tree. Everyone who came after is a product of
everyone that came before; this is an inescapable truth of biology, but why is
this example important in the context of an essay using a quote from Brokaw’s
book The Greatest Generation as a
springboard to launch into existential and temporal issues? That simple
biological fact is important because it illustrates another simple truth:
existence is fundamentally exponential. What does this mean? It means that,
like Moore’s law which states, “over the history of computing hardware, the
number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two
years,” the same rule could be applied in a similar fashion to the bulk of
human history, human behavior, and human consciousness in general.
Look at the
evolution of science, especially technology, over the last 250 years spanning
the invention of the steam engine in 1784, the train in 1822, the hydrogen fuel
cell in 1839, the airplane in 1903, ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ in 1945, the jet
engine in 1946, ARPAnet in 1968, the Internet in 1982, and current leaps in the
fields of brain computer interface and neuroprosthetic technology. What are the
implications of recalling this history to mind? Take for example the fields of
brain computer interface and neuroprosthetics technology. Without Hans Berger’s
discovery of electrical impulses in the human brain and the resulting
development of electroencephalography or EEG in 1924 BCI and neuroprosthetics
would not be where they are today.
Similarly, David Matthew Phibbs would not have been born in 1984 were it
not for his grandmothers giving birth to his parents Judith Diane Senseman and
David Miller Phibbs in 1953. History is linear, but that line of inquiry will
be revisited later.
Going back to Tom
Brokaw’s first paragraph of the first chapter of The Greatest Generation, are there any ulterior motives or nostalgic
attachments present in the Brokaw’s focus on, “The nation turned to its young
to carry the heaviest burden, to fight in enemy territory and to keep the home
front secure and productive”? By the end of WWII Brokaw was 5 years old; much
too young to have carried that ‘heaviest burden’ and even though Brokaw
wouldn’t classify himself as being part of The Greatest Generation his choice of subject matter could be described as
almost unprofessional, like a scientist becoming attached to his lab animals,
or a journalist attempting to write an objective expose about his parents. But,
even though this consideration is a necessary one, and should not be
overlooked, the purpose of this thought experiment is not to undermine a famous
and respectable journalist’s credibility, but to explode the idea of a greatest
generation in general.
If causality is to
be believed as one of the great constants in the universe, and history is a
result of causality where every current event is a product of a myriad of
catalysts, then it could be, in fact it should be pointed out that every single
generation could be considered The Greatest Generation. Now, having not read Brokaw’s book completely, only
having read the first chapter and only using the first paragraph of that
chapter as a citation to jump off of, this author cannot say with any degree of
certainty that Brokaw himself didn’t hit on the very same points just made, but
that uncertainty is irrelevant because the connections being made, the overlap
between sciences being discovered here are all relevant. This is an attempt to
level the playing field of history and the generation gap between the old and
bitter and the young and naïve.
Therefore, if it
is indeed true that every succeeding generation is The Greatest Generation, then it must be said that no matter how set in
their ways each generation becomes as they age, no matter how narrow minded
each octogenarian develops, no matter how much each elder scolds the youth and
hangs their heads in disbelief wringing their hands in vainglorious effort to
evade responsibility; the problem is really a lack of understanding, an absence
of compassion, and a selective memory conveniently editing out a rebellious
past. To any elder who has ever criticized the current youth culture consider
this: You were once a young man or woman too with needs, desires, hormones, and
wild thoughts, but you always fear what you don’t understand and even though it
may require a considerable effort on your part to do so the rewards
considerably outweigh the deleterious side effects of getting to know the youth
better. As a youth about to leave his twenties behind, yes, the author of this
is indeed biased, and that does indeed matter to this dialectic, but even
though he may criticize the youth before him with their various digital
distraction like Xbox, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text messaging, etc. he
still recognizes that one day these youth will inherit the Earth, so should we
reinforce these young people with words of encouragement and a compassionate
ear or tear them down with negative criticisms and block our ability to listen
effectively even when what is being heard doesn’t conform to orthodoxy? These
people need our help. Was this phenomenon any different when Elvis was swaying
his hips in the 1950s? Or when women were proudly displaying their breasts at
Woodstock in the 60s? Not to speak of the negative reactions to prophets like
the Kennedy’s, King, Gandhi, Lennon, or Marley. Thus, let us learn to listen
more, speak less, live a little, and never be afraid to learn more because if
that can be accomplished then that opens the doors for even greater and
infinitely more substantial achievements in areas of conflict such as religion,
nationalism, economics, world politics, social media, art, fashion, technology
and perhaps everything else it would take too many characters to list here.
Bibliography:
Brokaw, Tom. The
Greatest Generation New York, NY: Random House Inc., 1998. pg 3.
