The Great Generational Debate

Sitting—in generational order—on the steps of the Parthenon in Centennial Park, Grammy, Dad and I opened the Great Debate. The generational debate that is. 

“Pep’s generation is considered the best generation,” Grammy asserted in a conversation about her father.

I responded, “I thought my generation was the best, with all our technology.”

                “I think Pep’s generation was hailed as the best because of World War II,” said Dad. “Everyone stepped up to the plate when the ‘free world’ needed them to fight fascism.”

                While Pep didn’t fight in the war, he and everyone else left on the home front contributed in every possible way —whether it was maintaining life in the United States or building weaponry.

Families would huddle around their radios to hear the latest news on the war, straining to hear the reports of attacks and fatalities. Newscasters would get their information from press announcements. Other reports would come with presidential speeches, military commander’s reports or other governmentally controlled voices. 

Today, we are presented with television programs of varying degrees of bias, radio and print media. Citizen journalists exploit the infinite space and audience of the internet. Governments, organizations and individuals expound on their opinions and report events themselves through the 140 characters of Twitter and the unlimited length of blogs. On Facebook, others post and repost links to all of these sources of discourse, generating an infinite stack of conversation about conversation. Offline we text each other the latest news, be it worldly or personal.

http://techpresident.com/files/qassam%20brigades.jpg

Just today, Twitter exploded as the Israeli Defense Forces and the Al Qassam Brigades faced off throughout the rocket fire and bombings occurring on the ground. Both parties tweeted as the attacks were happening. At first I was apprehensive about trusting the Twitter feeds, but because both parties were tweeting, I was able to check the tweets against each other. Generally, they agreed on the facts.

While the radio communication of our great-grandparents’ era seems limited to my generation of instant and constant contact, it was what made it possible for the Allies to unite and be involved in such a global conflict for the time. The limited and controlled flow of information kept that unified vision strong across the home front.

As the United States moved out of World War II and began to face the perceived threat of communism, the media again took a role of unifying the home front. This time, however, it was by telling people how to live and how to organize their family life. In the face of nuclear threats and the unknown world of communism, the United States government created educational films about how to act as an American.

Some films detailed the appropriate roles in the home, like one I watched in my U.S. History course last year, “A Date with Your Family”: Mother cooks dinner while Daughter helps and Brother helps Junior with his homework. When Father gets home from work dinner is ready to be put on the table. The conversation over dinner is led by Father, but only on pleasant subjects. “It’s not only good manners, but good sense,” the narrator says of pleasant conversation, added that it’s good for digestion. The video makes sure to touch on every possible moment where one of the family members could say or do the “wrong” thing. Gender roles are explicitly stated, as the women are to serve and please the men and the men are to graciously accept the service. 

If you’re interested in a similar video click this link. 

Moving into the Vietnam War, the government lost some control over the media and the images presented to the American public. The atrocities committed in the name of democracy, under the Stars and Stripes, shocked people. Journalists had found a way through the cracks of the image the government desired, and showed images that compelled many to action. Different historical accounts portray the ‘60s Vietnam protests in various lights, but it is undeniable that these images were the power to move the masses. 

Much more recently, we faced the downward spiral that was Judith Miller’s reports of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq before the United States invaded in 2003. As a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the New York Times, Miller certainly had a trustworthy reputation and had built up strong relationships with sources. But perhaps her relationship with certain governmental figures (ahem... Scooter Libby) had gotten too chummy. She leaned on and reported her sources’ incorrect information that Weapons of Mass Destruction existed in Iraq, evoking the fear that surrounded the nuclear threat of the Cold War era.

Furthermore, international correspondents were often given protection abroad by the U.S. military. The journalists took U.S. government tailored tours complete with interviews of locals and military officials that would say what the government wanted the media to report. Because of the safety these relationships provided, it was difficult to get the real scoop on the drama in the Middle East.

With the advent of Twitter and the explosion of the blogosphere, global information exchange has been revolutionized. Nearly two years ago Egypt’s revolution was organized and publicized online. The power of 140 characters overthrew an empire.

Today, the IDF and Hamas lob explosives AND tweets at each other, a minor difference from the past 50+ years. However for the rest of the world, this paints a clearer picture of the dominant parties and how they interact on a level where they cannot kill each other.

Citizen and professional journalists alike are now able to add their voices to the cacophony without the external factors of a news media business. Online many people are determined to correct each other—if something sounds a little fishy, citizen journalists will not rest until it is sorted out. With the sheer volume of information, the internet has the resources for self-correction.

Contrast this with the simple presentation of information via radio broadcast characteristic of Pep’s generation—the “best” generation. Pep could have sat down by the radio and been told explicitly the news events. He did not have to go searching through files of articles on the web. However, he always received the same perspective.

So which generation is the best? It depends how you look at it. Grammy would celebrate the strength of her father’s generation in the face of global danger, while I appreciate the luxuries of today’s technology. To each her own.