The Greatest Generation Just Became Greater in Boston
I was watching the History Channel lately and they were doing one of those specials on the Greatest Generation. You know, the group of people who grew up during the Great Depression and went on to fight (and win) World War II. Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw came up with the name (it was the title of his book), but others have used the phrase as well. Hence, the History Channel show about them.
Believe it or not, there’s actually been a lot of controversy surrounding the Greatest Generation. Some people think the term is too simplistic, others think it dismisses the accomplishments of other generations. After all, it wasn’t the Greatest Generation who put a man on the moon, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Still, as I was watching this special, I started thinking about all the different developments this group of people has seen. Consider it this way: some of them grew up in a house without electricity, maybe even a house without indoor plumbing. Now? Go almost anywhere in our world, simply flip a switch, and the lights come on, or the water comes on, or the . . . stuff . . . goes down. That’s amazing. They’ve seen the world transition from radio to television. Movies have switched from black and white and silent to color and glorious sound. And think about how music has been presented to them: vinyl albums to eight-tracks to cassette tapes to CDs to digital. This group of people has seen more changes than any other group in the history of the world.
And we haven’t even talked about the computer yet.
My grandfather, part of the Greatest Generation, still remembers the day the telephone was installed in his family’s home, and now? My grandfather – who can recall the first computer he ever saw at the University of Minnesota (it took up an entire room in one of the largest halls on campus) – has Internet phone service at his home in Boston. That’s truly incredible.
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to a primitive culture. When considering all the advancements the Greatest Generation has seen, sometimes it seems like magic to us in the “advanced” societies, too.
