The "Silent Generation"

Wait a minute! As I raised my voice in objection.

Reading the paper this morning, I learned that I was born into the "Silent Generation." Somehow I missed this little categorization of my generation. I certainly have never been known as "silent."

Nor were a lot of my peers. We were the ones marching for civil rights and protesting the war in Vietnam. Women in my generation were the ones who challenged the traditional roles assigned to us. We were experimenting with art forms and forms of literary expressions.

Ours was the generation that brought African American soul music of rhythm and blues into the mainstream. The Beatles and rock music changed forever the American musical culture. The course of American poetry was altered by the Beat Generation's poetry that helped birth today's predominant free verse style of poetry-making.

I would hardly call Martin Luther King Jr, Gloria Steinem, Robert Kennedy, Elvis, Paul Wellstone, Jim Morrison, John McCain, Jimmy Hendrix, Noam Chomsky, Adrienne Rich, Daniel Ellsberg, Ralph Nader, George Will, Dave Brubeck, Allen Ginsberg,Bob Woodward, Paul Newman, Ellen Goodman, Jasper Johns,  Bob Dylan, Joan Didion, Sandra Day OConner, bell hooks, or Ray Charles silent people. And these are just Americans. There is a much longer list of people around the world, born during 1925-1945 who have not been silent.

A bit of research was in order. I learned that the term, "Silent Generation," was coined in a Time magazine article in 1951. This "silent" generation were those of us born between 1925-1945, the time of the Great Depression and WWII. The article characterized us as "grave and fatalistic, conventional, possessing confused morals, expecting disappointment." William Manchester described the members of our generation as "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent. "

Pardon me?

Another name for this generation are the Traditionalists whose traits include being hard working, loyal, submissive, tech-challenged people who "value traditional morals, safety and security as well as conformity, commitment and consistency."

Makes me want to crawl under the bed, stuff a rag in my mouth, and hide.

On the other hand, well-done sociological research needs to look at the whole picture. Certainly my cohorts include people who value not causing trouble. They work hard and contribute to their communities without drawing attention to themselves. But another whole bunch of us worked just as hard calling attention to the injustices around us. We avidly pursued new forms of expression in literature, music, and art. All of us have changed the face of American culture forever.

The just-announced 2010 Nobel prize winner for Literature was Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa - born in 1936. His interests are wide-ranging. He is no isolated writer working in seclusion to create meaningful streams of words. He says: "literature is an expression of life and you cannot eradicate politics from life even if you think politics is in many ways a disgusting, a dirty activity, it's a fact of our life."

Why not re-label my generation born between 1925-1945 "The Vibrant Generation?" And honor the wide range of us, from rabble-rousers to creative innovators and hardworking contributors who have dramatically changed our culture.