 In the Great Depression the
American dream had become a
nightmare. What was once the
land of opportunity was now the
land of desperation. What was
once the land of hope and
optimism had become the land of
despair. The American people
were questioning all the maxims
on which they had based their
lives - democracy, capitalism,
individualism. The best hope for
a better life was California.
Many Dust Bowl farmers packed
their families into cars, tied
their few possessions on the
back, and sought work in the
agricultural fields or cities of
the West - their role as
independent land owners gone
forever. Between 1929 and 1932
the income of the average
American family was reduced by
40%, from $2,300 to $1,500.
Instead of advancement, survival
became the keyword.
Institutions, attitudes,
lifestyles changed in this
decade but democracy prevailed.
Democracies such as Germany and
Italy fell to dictatorships, but
the United States and its
Constitution survived.
Economics dominated politics in
the 1930's. The decade began
with shanty towns called
Hoovervilles, named after a
president who felt that relief
should be left to the private
sector, and ended with an
alphabet soup of federal
programs funded by the national
government and an assortment of
commissions set up to regulate
Wall Street, the banking
industry, and other business
enterprises. The Social Security
Act of 1935 set up a program to
ensure an income for the
elderly. The Wagner Act of 1935
gave workers the legal right to
unionize. John L. Lewis founded
the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) and
conditions for blue-collar
workers improved. Joseph P.
Kennedy, a Wall Street insider,
was appointed Chairman of the
Securities and Exchange
Commissions.
By the beginning of the next
decade the United States had
gone from a laissez-faire
economy that oversaw its own
conduct to an economy regulated
by the federal government. The
debate over which is the best
course of action still rages
today.
The 1940's were dominated by
World War II. European artists
and intellectuals fled to the
United States from Hitler and
the Holocaust, bringing new
ideas created in
disillusionment. War production
pulled us out of the Great
Depression. Women were needed to
replace men who had gone off to
war, and so the first great
exodus of women from the home to
the workplace began. Rationing
affected the food we ate, the
clothes we wore, the toys with
which children played.
After the war, the men returned,
having seen the rest of the
world. No longer was the family
farm an ideal; no longer would
blacks accept lesser status. The
GI Bill allowed more men than
ever before to get a college
education. Women had to give up
their jobs to the returning men,
but they had tasted
independence.
The end of World War II brought
thousands of young servicemen
back to America to pick up their
lives and start new families in
new homes with new jobs. With an
energy never before experienced,
American industry expanded to
meet peacetime needs. Americans
began buying goods not available
during the war, which created
corporate expansion and jobs.
Growth everywhere. The baby boom
was underway...
The sixties were the age of
youth, as 70 million children
from the post-war baby boom
became teenagers and young
adults. The movement away from
the conservative fifties
continued and eventually
resulted in revolutionary ways
of thinking and real change in
the cultural fabric of American
life. No longer content to be
images of the generation ahead
of them, young people wanted
change. The changes affected
education, values, lifestyles,
laws, and entertainment. Many of
the revolutionary ideas which
began in the sixties are
continuing to evolve today.
The chaotic events of the 60's,
including war and social change,
seemed destined to continue in
the 70's. Major trends included
a growing disillusionment of
government, advances in civil
rights, increased influence of
the women's movement, a
heightened concern for the
environment, and increased space
exploration. Many of the
"radical" ideas of the 60's
gained wider acceptance in the
new decade, and were
mainstreamed into American life
and culture. Amid war, social
realignment and presidential
impeachment proceedings,
American culture flourished.
Indeed, the events of the times
were reflected in and became the
inspiration for much of the
music, literature,
entertainment, and even fashion
of the decade. Legalized
abortion had its birth in
America.
The 1980s became the Me! Me! Me!
generation of status seekers.
During the 1980s, hostile
takeovers, leveraged buyouts,
and mega-mergers spawned a new
breed of billionaire. Donald
Trump, Leona Helmsley, and Ivan
Boesky iconed the meteoric rise
and fall of the rich and famous.
If you've got it, flaunt it and
You can have it all! were
watchwords. Forbes' list of 400
richest people became more
important than its 500 largest
companies. Binge buying and
credit became a way of life and
'Shop Til you Drop' was the
watchword. Labels were
everything, even (or especially)
for our children. Tom Wolfe
dubbed the baby-boomers as the
'splurge generation.' Video
games, aerobics, minivans,
camcorders, and talk shows
became part of our lives. The
decade began with double-digit
inflation, Reagan declared a war
on drugs, Kermit didn't find it
easy to be green, hospital costs
rose, we lost many, many of our
finest talents to AIDS which
before the decade ended spread
to black and Hispanic women, and
unemployment rose. On the bright
side, the US Constitution had
its 200th birthday, Gone with
the Wind turned 50, ET phoned
home, and in 1989 Americans gave
$115,000,000,000 to charity.
And, Internationally, at the
very end of the decade the
Berlin Wall was removed - making
great changes for the decade to
come! At the turn of the decade,
many were happy to leave the
spendthrift 80s for the 90s,
although some thought the
eighties TOTALLY AWESOME.
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The 1990s were truly the electronic
age. The World Wide Web was born in 1992, changing the way we
communicated (email), spent our money (online gambling, stores), and
did business (e-commerce). In 1989, 15% of American households had a
computer. And by 2000, this figure increased to 51%, with 41.5%
online. Internet lingo like plug-ins, BTW (by the way), GOK (God
only knows), IMHO (in my humble opinion), FAQS, SPAM, FTP, ISP, and
phrases like "See you online" or "The server's down" or "Bill Gates"
became part of our everyday vocabulary. We signed our mail with a
:-) smile, a ;-) wink, or a :-* kiss. And - everyone had a cell
phone.
The electronic age continued to
flourish. Everyone had a computer, iPhones and “smart” phones became
of age along with “flat-screen plasma” and “High Definition”
everything. A significant event was the 911 attack on the World
Trade Center in New York by terrorists. This started a decade of war
with the build-up of the military as the “War of Terror” changed the
“doctrine” of the United States to assume “pre-emptive” wars using
the 911 attack as the first cause. The economy began the decline
with a recession beginning in late 2007 after the election of the
new Obama Administration. The national debt began to climb with
unprecedented spending.
By looking at the socialization decade the people in the particular
age group have lived through, and the significant emotional events
each significant decade provided, we can see the impact culture has
made through the decades related to people’s perceptions and their
preferences for various responses to issues of the day.
For example, for the group of people born in the late 1940s who were
in the socialization decade of 1955 – 1965 would have experienced
the impact of the completion of a world war and the Korean conflict.
Family members would have experienced those things directly and
would have talked and told stories of their experiences. The toys
that person played with would have the army theme and much patriotic
feelings that would have influenced their feelings and actions
regarding national pride. Little girls would have “played house” and
played with dolls; the little boys would have played cowboys and
Indians and war games. Movies would have extended the theme of war
and victory, medial would have reported on the post-war growth, the
peace dividends of the Eisenhower Administration with the men making
the living while the women raised the children. As the child grew
into the America under the Kennedy Administration and the “Military
Industrial Complex” and the “Cold War” with the shadow of the USSR,
the loom of atomic warfare likely drove some into an underground
bunker. While in school the Bible would have been read, the flag
would have been honored by the saying of the pledge. Media beyond
the radio was coming to life with television being introduced on a
massive scale with more households owning them.
Contrast that with persons who were born in the late 1980s and early
1990s who were in the socialization decade of 1995 – 2005. They have
experienced socialization totally immersed in electronics, instant
communication, music produced more with electronics than voices,
songs that use only phrases repeated over and over driven by a beat
that produces an almost hypnotic effect, especially when the lights,
stage fog and pyromaniac effects are present. The emotional
significant event was the 911 terrorist attacks which changed the
innocence of America. Although those people experienced the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, it could be done at a distance unless the
person or immediate family had volunteered to go into the military.
When viewing these different perceptions we must remember that each
had families and friends who had experienced previous socialization
periods that produced different perceptions in the individual.
Within each individual’s respective family and community settings as
they passed through their respective socialization periods, the
changing culture had a great impact on their development of
personality and values. It is not unreasonable to expect that each
person looking at issues of today is at least thinking about past
experiences and their personal values regarding each issue that
comes up in culture.
Now, how does all this affect the society in which we are living
today? For sure we view our society as multicultural, but it is also
“multi-generational” as well. But I wonder if we miss a huge point
by thinking the culture is only the “culture of today?” We are not
only multi-generational; we are “multi-cultural” in our values, even
if Caucasian has been our predominately physical ethnicity; and that
culture is American culture extended over decades of experience. But
ethnicity has changed in our culture to include ethnic groups who
share their own experiences from their home cultures, or perhaps a
repressed American culture for their ethnicity group, and are
reluctant to "assimilate" their culture into what has been a
predominately Caucasian culture.
Therefore, as we grapple with these issues of world and domestic
events and America's response to those events, and with our
alignment with external and internal groups and organizations, we
need to keep in mind we have a variance of Americans, like it or
not, who have been affected by the cultures (decades) in which they
have lived and each person’s ethnocentrism produces a discontent and
feeling of anxiety at the introduction of each change brought to
them (us).
[By JIM KILLEBREW]
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