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tides within tides
Jun. 14th, 2013 09:00 amA dumb theory about the Baby Boomers and how their myth works;
Not everyone born in a decade long chunk of time will have the same experience. Someone born in 1946 to a GI just back from the war will have a different experience than someone born in 1950 to a similar family that's had some time to regain its feet and a different experience from someone born around 1955 to a family in suburbia.
I mention this because Iain McCaig was born in 1957, Glen Keane was born in 1954, Terryl Whitlatch was born in 1961, Peter de Seve in 1958, Gregory Manchess was probably born around 1953-57ish (1977 BFA), Andreas Deja (who isn't American originally so probably a different experience of prosperity) is 1957, James Gurney was born in 1958, it's impossible to find a year for Peter Clarke, William O'Connor and Tony Diterlizzi are younger and older you get into Syd Mead and Ralph McQuarrie (both 1930s kids). Why would so many really capable and inherently optimistic artists date from the tail end of the baby boom?
The Boomers always talk about how they changed the world in the 1960s, but not all Boomers did. Taking the Civil Rights Act of 1965 as an arbitrary dividing line because it's big (it marks when the South went from solid Democrat to solid Republican). By that point in time Malcolm X was already 40, King was in his late 30s, and the Truman era civil rights struggles were squarely in Greatest Generation territory. For further comparison the moon landing is 1969, Kent State goes down in 1970 (the victims are 19-20, so I'm assuming most demonstrators anywhere in the area were born around 1950), the US officially is out of Vietnam in 1973.
In short, there's a segment of kids born in the mid to late 50s who benefit from structures being established, who weren't around for the nastiest bits of the 1960s and whose exposure to the massive changes going on around that chunk of time is as teenagers - rebellious, sure, but unlikely to be the front line of protests and sit-ins. Legal voting age becomes 18 in 1971 (so the youngest voters date from 1953), so younger Boomers were never actually part of any of the really big stuff. Their memories of the big social change percolate down in memories of prosperity, brightly colored clothes, and the swirling mess of childhood and puberty. We buy into the idea that "the Baby Boomers" changed the world in the 1960s, then sold out in the 1980s, but this isn't exactly true at all!
Trying to find correlations in terms of literature available, thinking about stuff every hippie should read, A Sand County Almanac dates from 1949, Black Elk Speaks is from 1932, Silent Spring was published in 1961 and The Sea Around Us is published in 1951. There doesn't seem to be any consistency other than that later Boomers will have access to more material than earlier Boomers.
A quick note about Boomers "changing the world." I get this resentment from reading Barbara Ehrenreich, a really good writer who talks about how her generation changed the world... and she was born in 1941. This comes close to a cluster of earlier births (for instance, Sir Patrick Stewart, noteworthy for acknowledging the dreadful effects of child abuse, 1940; Sir Ian McKellen, Queer rights activist, 1939; George Takei, Queer activist, 1937; L David Mech, reshaped thinking about ecology, 1937; Gary Gygax, game creator, 1938). Her weird end of 30s/start of 40s actually did.
(More birthdates; Bill Gates, 1955; Larry Ellison, 1944; Steve Wozniak, 1950; Steve Jobs, 1955; George Lucas, 1944; Art Speigelman, 1948; Dave Arneson, 1947.)
In fact I'd wonder whether the late 30s/early 40s kids had developed enough personality by the time prosperity really gets rolling, so they could do stuff; that mid to late 40s kids could have done big things, but a lot of them were slightly banged up by stuff they witnessed and survived; again, it's the mid-50s to early 60s kids who are truly blessed.
Not everyone born in a decade long chunk of time will have the same experience. Someone born in 1946 to a GI just back from the war will have a different experience than someone born in 1950 to a similar family that's had some time to regain its feet and a different experience from someone born around 1955 to a family in suburbia.
I mention this because Iain McCaig was born in 1957, Glen Keane was born in 1954, Terryl Whitlatch was born in 1961, Peter de Seve in 1958, Gregory Manchess was probably born around 1953-57ish (1977 BFA), Andreas Deja (who isn't American originally so probably a different experience of prosperity) is 1957, James Gurney was born in 1958, it's impossible to find a year for Peter Clarke, William O'Connor and Tony Diterlizzi are younger and older you get into Syd Mead and Ralph McQuarrie (both 1930s kids). Why would so many really capable and inherently optimistic artists date from the tail end of the baby boom?
The Boomers always talk about how they changed the world in the 1960s, but not all Boomers did. Taking the Civil Rights Act of 1965 as an arbitrary dividing line because it's big (it marks when the South went from solid Democrat to solid Republican). By that point in time Malcolm X was already 40, King was in his late 30s, and the Truman era civil rights struggles were squarely in Greatest Generation territory. For further comparison the moon landing is 1969, Kent State goes down in 1970 (the victims are 19-20, so I'm assuming most demonstrators anywhere in the area were born around 1950), the US officially is out of Vietnam in 1973.
In short, there's a segment of kids born in the mid to late 50s who benefit from structures being established, who weren't around for the nastiest bits of the 1960s and whose exposure to the massive changes going on around that chunk of time is as teenagers - rebellious, sure, but unlikely to be the front line of protests and sit-ins. Legal voting age becomes 18 in 1971 (so the youngest voters date from 1953), so younger Boomers were never actually part of any of the really big stuff. Their memories of the big social change percolate down in memories of prosperity, brightly colored clothes, and the swirling mess of childhood and puberty. We buy into the idea that "the Baby Boomers" changed the world in the 1960s, then sold out in the 1980s, but this isn't exactly true at all!
Trying to find correlations in terms of literature available, thinking about stuff every hippie should read, A Sand County Almanac dates from 1949, Black Elk Speaks is from 1932, Silent Spring was published in 1961 and The Sea Around Us is published in 1951. There doesn't seem to be any consistency other than that later Boomers will have access to more material than earlier Boomers.
A quick note about Boomers "changing the world." I get this resentment from reading Barbara Ehrenreich, a really good writer who talks about how her generation changed the world... and she was born in 1941. This comes close to a cluster of earlier births (for instance, Sir Patrick Stewart, noteworthy for acknowledging the dreadful effects of child abuse, 1940; Sir Ian McKellen, Queer rights activist, 1939; George Takei, Queer activist, 1937; L David Mech, reshaped thinking about ecology, 1937; Gary Gygax, game creator, 1938). Her weird end of 30s/start of 40s actually did.
(More birthdates; Bill Gates, 1955; Larry Ellison, 1944; Steve Wozniak, 1950; Steve Jobs, 1955; George Lucas, 1944; Art Speigelman, 1948; Dave Arneson, 1947.)
In fact I'd wonder whether the late 30s/early 40s kids had developed enough personality by the time prosperity really gets rolling, so they could do stuff; that mid to late 40s kids could have done big things, but a lot of them were slightly banged up by stuff they witnessed and survived; again, it's the mid-50s to early 60s kids who are truly blessed.