Talk:Silent Generation
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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
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[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.
[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".
