Most of us have heard the term Greatest Generation and know it refers to Americans who came of age in the 1930s and 1940s. Recently we experienced the 75th anniversary of D-Day, also known as Operation Overlord, when Allied forces landed in France in 1944 to open a second front in the war against Nazi Germany. I saw several friends, even several non-historian friends, post memorials on social media, which was heartening that so many people recall this important event. A few of them stated their belief that those people storming the beaches at Normandy were, in fact, America’s Greatest Generation.
Why, then, do we use this term, “The Greatest Generation”? The first time I heard it was when introduced to a popular book carrying this title. In short, it’s because we want to recognize that Americans arriving at adulthood in the 1930s and 1940s overcame significant obstacles. Not only did they grow up amidst the Great Depression of the 1930s, but they helped prevent the evils of Nazi Germany from spreading and dominating the world. In other words, when presented with difficult challenges, they persevered, sacrificed, and, in the eyes of most, overcame in the end.
The Following is Not a Criticism of the Greatest Generation
It’s not my intent to deprive the so-called Greatest Generation its perceived greatness or make a case that some other generation of Americans was equally great and that we’ve just failed to see it. (Although one could make a good case that people maturing in the 1960s and 1970s also dealt with a lot—the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and the threat of nuclear annihilation, just to name three things.) What constitutes greatness is an individual judgment, after all. However, must of us probably would agree that true greatness requires some element of perseverance and sacrifice. Whether that sacrifice comes in the form of life, money, time, security, comfort, or any of the other things most of us desire, sacrifice seems to be a requirement. Even famous athletes achieve their greatness partly through sacrificing their time and opportunities for fun in order to practice and improve at their sport.
I also suspect that the respect for the achievements of the Greatest Generation stem partly from its victory in war. Rightly or wrongly, fighting in important wars seems to carry more gravitas, more weight, be a form of extra credit, if you will, for the generations that experience one. Few of us, I suspect, think of Americans growing up in the 1880s and 1890s as candidates for greatness. This generation witnessed America’s transformation into an increasingly urban and industrial society while assimilating millions of immigrants into the country at the same time. No small achievement. Yet, for many of us, these people have no great war to bolster their credentials and thus cannot claim greatness.
The Greatest Generation and Views of the Past
I think there’s also a tendency from some of us to perceive the past as superior to the present, and for various reasons. Perhaps it’s because people remember their childhood fondly because it was before the world shattered their innocence. Others see the problems of today and think that there must be someplace, some time in our national past, when the problems were simpler and fewer. Therefore, if the nation could only get back to that mythical past, the present would be a better place as well. Others simply fear change and cling to what’s familiar.
Perhaps it’s my training in history, but I find this belief strange. How many of you reading this blog would trade your smartphone for a rotary phone? How many of you would trade your cable TV package and go back to the televisions with twelve channels? Or exchange your mp3 player for an eight-track player? Make a trip to your local library to look up information instead of performing a search on your web browser from your armchair?
Oh, so it’s not the technology, per se, you’d trade, you just want to get back to the values of the past? Again, think carefully. Is it desirable to return to an era when racism afflicted millions of Americans directly every day? To remove most women from the workplace, thus losing half the nation’s talent? Do we want unchecked environmental pollution poisoning our air and water? It’s worth thinking twice about.
The Greediest Generation?
It’s not a title anyone wants. If greatness requires sacrifice, greed cannot produce greatness. Greed implies wanting more for one’s personal good rather than a willingness to give something up for the general good. A lack of willingness to sacrifice. Although I won’t offer a definitive comparison of all generations, there are many pieces of evidence someone critical of current Americans could point to and use to pronounce this judgment.
Americans of 2019 are among the richest people in world history. Yet, the distribution of that wealth becomes more unequal daily. Consider the Gini Index, one measure of economic inequality. According to the most recent World Bank data, the US has the most unequal economic distribution of any nation in North America or Europe. The next most unequal is Russia, seventeen spots higher in the world rankings. The countries with economic inequality most similar to the US are Haiti, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, and Papua New Guinea.
Americans also use more energy through consuming more fossil fuels per capita than any group in world history. Global warming continues while the US government withdraws from international climate accords and suppresses unfavorable scientific reports on climate.
There’s more. Americans generally agree, and data concurs, that for most people a college degree is an important step toward greater income. Yet, increasingly, state governments shift more of the cost of a college degree onto students, thus making it harder for them to attain one.
But at least we support our troops, right? In some ways, yes. We’ll honor them at halftime of NFL football games (for a price, of course, given that the US military paid the NFL to do more of this) and fly flags, offering veterans platitudes of thanks whenever we meet one in uniform. However, ask veterans about their dealings with the VA (Veterans Affairs) and often, a strikingly different picture emerges.
I’m sure that readers with their own individual causes can identify more examples. They aren’t hard to find.
A New Greatest Generation?
How, then, might present-day Americans attempt to stake a claim to Greatest Generation status? Assuming they want one, that is. As hypothesized above, if greatness entails sacrifice, are people willing to sacrifice?
It’s an especially interesting question for Americans, given the high level of religiosity many Americans claim. Many world religions preach against greed and selfishness while imploring their adherents to practice service of some kind. Think of, for instance, the biblical passages in chapter six of Galatians (Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ) or chapter twenty-five of Matthew (For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me). For Muslims, charity to the poor is one of Islam’s Five Pillars. Roman Catholics, meanwhile, rate greed or covetousness among the seven deadly sins. Indeed, the American Protestant theologian Walter Rauschenbusch offered that sin is essentially selfishness.
I will not attempt to prescribe a blueprint for future action. I wrote this blog entry because I see such a pronounced difference between action and words on the part of my fellow Americans. Constantly, we implore young people to shoot for the stars, tell them they can be anything if they put their mind to it, to reach for their dreams, and utter other similar exhortations to, yes, greatness. Yet it seems current adults fall short of our preaching in so many ways. Perhaps, instead of blaming young people for their apathy, we should set a better example ourselves of what the Greatest
Generation should look like. Do we even care enough to persevere and sacrifice to overcome the obstacles of today?
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