Move Over, World War Two Generation, the Sixties Generation Has Arrived!
An Essay Review of the Movie, "Pleasantville"by Mickel Adzema
MusePaper November 18th, 1998:
What do these recent events have in common? The movies "Pleasantville" and "The Truman Show"; the strong
PART ONE: THE KING MUST DIEshowing of the Democrats in the recent elections despite the much ballyhooed White House scandal; the popularity of shows like Ally McBeal and The X Files; the recent nostalgia for Sixties and Seventies cultural accouterments as exemplified by the new TV show, That 70s Show , the resurgence of fashion items like bell-bottoms and, on women, clunky high-heel shoes, and the use of the "peace sign" – two fingers extended in a V-like shape, for those who don’t know – including saying "peace" while extending it as a greeting (most often these days, when leaving); renewed talk about and interest in the book, Catcher in the Rye; the sixty-some percent approval rating that President Clinton enjoyed throughout almost the entirety of the White House Sex Scandal alongside the pundits' complete and total befuddlement as to the causes for it; the passage of medical use of marijuana laws in a number of states in the elections earlier this month (I may be wrong, but I
believe that the voters ruled that its use would be allowed, or would continue, in every instance where this issue was on the ballot!); in the same elections, in California the passage of Proposition 10 -- the ballot measure that imposes a fifty-cents tax on cigarettes to fund programs for young children (which ballot measure, significantly enough, was begun by Sixties-Generation representative Rob Reiner – formerly Meathead from All in the Family !); the return to ballad-style, Dylan-esque music embracing and expressing social, philosophical, and extremely intimate personal views and experiences, e.g., the hugely popular music of Alanis Morissette; the return to Joni Mitchell-style personal, poetic, philosophical, emotional and feelingful music, e.g., the hugely popular music of poet and songwriter/vocalist Jewel; the release of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: The Film," based on Hunter S. Thompson’s novel; . . I could go on.
Most folks would see nothing in common among these. What I believe we are seeing is no less than the ending of the "culture war" that has been waging in our country since the 1960s between the Sixties Generation – those whose adolescent and young adulthood, formative years were influenced by the events of the Sixties – and the World War Two Generation – those whose equivalent times of life were forged in the Forties, during and around the time of World War Two. Culture War
Generation Gap and Counterculture
The huge ravine separating the views of these two generations was most apparent when those of the Sixties Generation were in their youth, engaged in the process of discovering and exploring their values and therefore expressing them blatantly and with all the indiscretion, lack of subtlety, confrontation, and rebelliousness that characterizes the inexperienced. Thus, terms like generation gap and counterculture were bandied about, analyzed, and fervently discussed. The differences were "on the table," in full view; and because the views and values of the youth were so "counter" or opposite to those of the WWII Generation, much debate and analysis was spawned in the media to try to explain – for the most part to the WWII Generation – how this could be so.But these terms of generation gap and counterculture , which highlighted the great disparity of views, would fade mostly into disuse. This was because, later, the Sixties Generation would learn to keep their private views and values more hidden, for practical reasons having to do with making a living, advancing in their careers, being able to raise their children, and so on; but this did not mean their values had changed. They were biding their time, waiting – sometimes hopeless that it would ever arrive – for a reversing of the pendulum and a return in society to the ideals and visions of a better world that had so inspired them in their earlier years. For the most part, they did not know about the psychohistorical tendencies I will be describing here – as for example in the evolution of child-caring and the triumphant phase of generations. For most it was just an awareness that something so strong and so right could not simply have completely vanished from the Earth, that with time comes change, and therefore there had to be a time, again, when the mood of the country would swing in the direction they felt to be healthiest and more ideal. For some of these people their hopes were based on the simple rules of gambling: Eventually, at some time or other, with the passage of time, the dice just had to roll their number, if just out of pure chance or randomness.
Others had a slightly more reasoned view buttressing their hope for a return to idealism. These folks were those of the Sixties Generation who had applied themselves to implementing the values they learned in the Sixties in the jobs and careers they held, in whatever small or not-so-small way that they were allowed by their older generation superiors, bosses, managers, or supervisors. Never knowing that they had allies among their generation that were doing the same kind of thing in their separate fields, they followed through, the best they could, on simple conviction, born of experience, of the rightness of the more idealistic ways.
Lastly, there were those of the Sixties Generation who identified themselves completely with their youthful idealism. In putting themselves "out front" this way, in their values and beliefs, they found others who were doing the same. They would together become the "New Age" movement, actively engaged in bringing about the better world their generation had envisioned in the Sixties (and early Seventies). They would wonder, as decades passed, why it took so long for the rest of society to catch on to what they felt was an inviting and appealing evolution – one both necessary and therefore inevitable as well.
But these last, the New Agers, would be marginalized and scapegoated by the mainstream of society -- a mainstream whose outlines, of course, were determined and inscribed by the mainstream media, which was, in turn, controlled by the wealthy elite of the World War Two Generation (more about this to come). Examples included Jerry Brown labeled "Captain Moonbeam," the family dynamics in the TV show Family Ties, the burnt-out hippie depiction of cabdriver, Jim, in the Taxi television series, and thousands of other instances where those holding New Age views were labeled "flakes."
Attack of the Body-Snatchers
Another reason these terms depicting cultural division (viz., generation gap and counterculture) went into disuse was due to the mobilization of the World War Two Generation – after their initial phase of somnambulant confusion over the events that were emerging in the Sixties which left them paralyzed and watching, growing in irritation and anger – into a comprehensive counterattack against the Sixties Generation, using all the Nixonian-like tactics in their arsenal (understandably, since Nixon was of that generation and his tactics were typical of the defensive style of his contemporaries).Lassoing the Universities. In the early Seventies, the World War Two Generation used their power and wealth, being themselves in the triumphant phase of their lives, to put pressure on colleges and universities, nationwide, to discontinue the programs, courses, and the professors that they felt were responsible for the youth’s rebellion. Their targets for destruction included such noteworthy "dangers" as liberal arts programs in general, and especially "highly revolutionary" philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, and humanistic psychology courses. A transformation of colleges and universities into "career mills" – whose primary function was to prepare the young for practical and skill-oriented jobs and professions – was called for . . . or else! Or else these World War Two alumni would discontinue their contributions to these educational institutions. The "bottom line" being threatened in this way, no university administration, to my knowledge, withstood their demands for very long, if at all.
Cloning Themselves. The youth produced by these institutions would hereafter be dissuaded from thinking for themselves and from "questioning authority" – as the previous generation had been encouraged to do – so part of the lapse in the terms of division between the generations (counterculture and generation gap) had to do with the fact that the wave of youth that followed the Sixties Generation would be molded, in their college years, into distant replicas of World War Two Generation members. They would be termed the "Me Generation," since selfishness, greed, money-as-god, and upward mobility were characteristics of the WWII Generation that they were able to instill in their youthful clones. Thus, we saw the rise of Young Republicans on campus in the late Seventies, the return of ROTC to campuses, and the seeding of fertile young minds with the values that would later be verbalized – in the movie "Wall Street" – in the mantram "Greed is good!" At the height of this phase, periodicals were declaring how similar the "youth of today" -- meaning those of the late Seventies and Eighties -- were to their parents, how close they were to their parents in the beliefs and values they held, and how the generation gap had inexplicably closed. Such was the success of the WWII Generation in cloning themselves in producing Eighties youth.
In sum, beginning in the early Seventies institutions of higher learning turned away from their idealistic goals of "bringing out" from the students their inner truths and wisdom (the original meaning of the term educate), which is the avowed role of liberal arts programs, and instead turned hard, to the right, onto a path of churning out engineers, MBAs, hard scientists (even in the field of psychology, where humanistic psychology was shunned), medical professionals, lawyers, and the like. My liberal arts, semi–ivy-league college – founded, by half, by Benjamin Franklin – turned from the idealistic studies that typified Franklin and those of his time and swung from being a bastion of energetic inquiry into all controversial realms – political and spiritual and societal – a virtual "Plato’s Academy" of inquiry, into being a career mill centered around a "pre-med" program.
Harnessing the Media. Similarly, these frightened and wealthy WWII "conspirators" (however unconscious their alliance) would use their leverage to ensure that books and the media – TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers – would expound their views predominantly, would present events through the particular psychological lenses and filters with which they were familiar, and would eschew viewpoints, and even coverage of events, that would in any way strengthen the stance of the, by this time, scapegoated Sixties Generation. The media declared, with much fanfare, in the early Seventies that a "conservative backlash" was occurring; and they published books documenting this event. Meanwhile they ignored the polls and the events (specifically the ongoing and growing antiwar and other counterculture "demonstrations") that would show the lie to this idea, and they rejected and refused publication of the kind of books and articles – still being written – that would support the counterculture movement. Controlling the media in this way, and saying it long and loud enough, the "big lie" of the "conservative backlash" began to be accepted as truth. And even many in the counterculture and among the youth began to believe it.
Interestingly, those on the extreme right did not forget that the great divide in views was still with us. Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich said a "culture war" was going on, as recently as in the last decade. If asked, they would no doubt continue to assert as much. And though they were ridiculed on this view, they are correct (on this point, anyway). Obviously they could see that the world was turning from the "Pleasantville" that they had imagined and wanted it to be.
But the World War Two Generation could not maintain control forever. For one thing, people die. And being older than the Sixties Generation, eventually their numbers had to dwindle. Their numbers dwindling, they had to be replaced by those younger – some of whom were of the Sixties Generation and were now in what psychohistorians call the triumphant phase of life – that is, the time of life when a generation is in its "prime," when it is most influential, when it takes over the reins of society, when it gets behind the wheel of the cultural bus. The King Must Die
From this perspective, "Pleasantville" is a metaphorical review of history from the early Fifties through to the present, one which shows the Sixties Generation, in the end, finally realizing their vision of a more colorful, alive, open-to-new-experience and to change, growthful, changeful, passionate, unregimented, truthful, sensual, feeling and emotionful, and less determined, ritualized, and preordained existence. More about this later.
First let me point out that this change in power, evident by this movie and the other recent cultural items I’ve mentioned, is a change as old as our species. Every generation, at some point, leaves or is removed from their seats of power when they are at or near the end of their arc of effectiveness and prowess by a younger generation that is coming into or (as in the unusual case of the Sixties Generation for the reasons unique to this time to be mentioned below) is fully in the prime of its life.
Myths, fairy tales, stories, historical tales, and legends the world over depict this change of power. The myth that is most transparent in its depiction of this change is the one in which a monarch, despot, or ogre controls and rules the land, keeping the people miserable with oppressive and selfish decrees and policies. A young prince emerges who, after a period of trial (in the case of the Sixties Generation, an unusually long period of trial) in which the prince proves himself worthy, takes up the cause of the people and overthrows the old king and takes his place. Thus the saying "The king must die. Long live the (new) king."
The triumphant phase of the Sixties Generation has been delayed, however, longer than any other generation in history because of the advances in modern medical science, which has served to keep the World War Two Generation alive and kicking longer than any previous generation. The average life expectancy in the last 50 years (since the time when the World War Two Generation were in their youth or young adulthood) has increased remarkably. Hence the Sixties Generation has had to wait longer than the World War Two Generation to get a chance behind the wheel of society. It is strange and ironic that at a time when the speed of cultural change is greatest because of an ever increasing speed of technological change, at a time when the elder generation's worldview becomes obsolete sooner and faster than ever before, at such a time when it would seem the younger generation's view would attain relevancy and effectiveness faster and sooner than at any previous time, at such a time we have the reverse occurring, that is, the younger generation's ascendancy is delayed and the older one's stranglehold on power is extended.
But this rapid change and increasing rate of obsolescence may just have something to do with the WWII Generation's desire to hang on and their vehement struggle against change. For, as mentioned before, there is a gap -- greater than ever before -- between the views of the younger and those of the older. This gap is wrought of the different technological worlds and the corresponding sociocultural worlds that each experienced. So the WWII Generation might be said to be more threatened than any previous one by the generation to succeed them, because the ascendancy of the next generation would appear to overturn and oftentimes reverse so much of what they believe, value, worked and sacrificed for. Because of the unprecedented technological change and corresponding change in material culture, catalyzing in ways too numerous to mention a myriad of sociocultural and psychological changes in their successors, there is less overlap than ever before between the worldviews of the generation handing over power and the generation coming into power. It follows that it would seem to the generation in power, even as they approach the end of their mortality, that less of what they are and were will live on after them than has ever been the case in the history of generational succession. This being so, this generational succession represents a previously unheard of personal invalidation and undermining of the self-esteem of those of the World War Two Generation and a corresponding unprecedented attack on the usual delusions of immortality (themselves living on in some fashion in their successors) that older generations are allowed in exchange for their relinquishing power.
At any rate and whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that the World War Two Generation has used their longevity for all their worth to block the ascendancy of their successors. They used their longevity to amass wealth and power – wealth greater than any previous generation before and, because of their actions, likely to come (e.g., their actions have led to a situation, currently, wherein they are being taken care of in their old age by a Social Security and Medicare system funded by the work of the Baby-Boomers, aka Sixties Generation, at the same time that predictions abound that that same Social Security and Medicare system will be depleted when it is the Baby-Boomers time to belly-up to the bar. One might also note their environmental and ecological decisions making it that no generation after them will enjoy anywhere near the benefits -- health and quality of life among them -- of clean environment, abundance of natural resources, and ecological balance that they enjoyed. Finally, their decisions regarding arms buildup and proliferation may deny life itself to the generations following them. Other unprecedented ogre-like -- greedy, selfish, and uncaring-of-succeeding-generations -- actions can be numbered against this generation). And they used that wealth and power to wage a war against the generation who would be taking over from them, keeping them and their values under attack and away from the centers of power and influence in society as long as they possibly could.
War Over. Opposing Army Disappears!
But they could not continue this war forever. Their ranks were more and more depleted, even with the advances of modern medicine. John Wayne, Dean Martin, Richard Nixon, Frank Sinatra – cultural icons of that generation – are all gone. In the last year alone, Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers ("happy trails to you" Roy, by the way) have ridden off into the sunset. Bob Hope, however, is hanging on by his nosetip, and he can be said to exemplify all those of the World War Two Generation who are, due to modern medicine, hanging on and hanging in there, using their power and influence to throw monkey wrenches into the engines of frightening (to them) change, which they see all about them.
Desperate Last Stand: The Battle of the Bill (Clinton)
Which brings us to the persistent attacks on Bill Clinton (and Al Gore and Hillary Clinton) – the first Sixties Generation U.S. president – ever since he has been in office. The Monica Lewinsky scandal is a typical example of the extent to which the World War Two Generation has so effectively controlled the views and values expressed and subtly expounded in the media ever since it took conscious control of the society’s "collective consciousness" in this way in the early Seventies. By this I mean that in the entire time of the scandal, it has been assumed that sex is bad, or at least that sex outside of marriage is bad. It has been assumed that Hillary must be horribly pained and angered by the revelation of her husband’s affair(s).Make love, not war. It is as if the slogan "Make Love, Not War" was never a generational outcry. I don’t believe you will ever find mention of the fact that slogan was used in the history books paid for/ published by World War Two Generation owned publishing houses. Indeed, with all the talk by pundits, analysts, and commentators on literally hundreds of TV shows in the ten months since the Lewinsky scandal broke, that slogan, "Make Love, Not War," has not been mentioned – to the best of my knowledge – except for one time – when I heard it slipped in unnoticed by a participant in the middle of a talkin’-all-at-once brouhaha on the TV show "Politically Incorrect," whereupon it was totally ignored. Even more astonishing, those same pundits discussing, ad nauseum, this scandal and all the myriad ramifications of it have never, to my knowledge, made note of Clinton’s generational status and the views, exemplified by "Make Love, Not War," which we espoused. It has simply been assumed that all of the Sixties Generation "grew out" of that kind of "nonsense" and had adopted the views of the WWII Generation (again, polls on values and viewpoints be damned).
Rewriting history. Neither did the pundits point out that Bill Clinton is of a generation who made a book on "open marriage" a bestseller. The clinch on the media by that older generation is so complete as to have, apparently, completely dismissed or erased from the minds of the pundits the facts that those ideas and books ever existed. Another thing erased from recent history: the "sexual revolution." Remember that? When was the last time you heard that talked about? All of the energy that had surrounded these controversial ideas has, because of media manipulation and repression of these views, been channeled into and reduced to a fight over a woman’s right to choose, i.e., the abortion issue.
Incidentally, it is no coincidence that the issue of abortion has taken on such importance for so many in the electorate, for it is the last and only battle still openly being waged in the "culture war." And your position on it is the closest thing to a military uniform indicating on which side of the culture war you have enlisted. Specifically, I am saying that there are few of the Sixties Generation who would not classify themselves as "pro-choice." Meanwhile, the anti-abortionists are found to be comprised primarily of those of the WWII Generation, their Eighties Generation clones, and the Eisenhower-Presley-McCarthy -- and now we might add "Pleasantville" -- Fifties Generation. (For a definition and explanation of Fifties Generation see "Drugs, Consciousnesses, and Generational Cultures, Part One: Generational Cultures" .)
World War Two Generation just doesn’t get it . . . never has, and never will. Of course, I am saying that the War on Clinton is, in its essence, the one last desperate battle in the Culture War going on (despite its not being framed or talked about this way) between the World War Two and the Sixties Generations. The World War Two Generation, especially after the elections of November 1998 now know clearly that they are way off in some of their assumptions, that their analysis of what has been happening in this country is woefully miscalculated. They are like the deluded schizophrenic who has believed passionately in the world he has himself created coming up against some of the hard, harsh, and indisputable facts of existence which undermine his world. How the World-War-Two-Generation–minded (whatever the individual’s age) will deal with this harsh reality remains to be seen. But we shouldn’t be surprised if we see some of those in their ranks – wealthy and facing their inevitable demise – merely increasing the ferocity of their war waging . . . humiliating themselves and seeming ever more pitiful in the minds of the majority of observers, who increasingly, as time continues to decimate their WWII ranks, are younger than they and thus do not share their delusions.
Go to "Part Two: 'Pleasantville As Historical Allegory"
Related MusePaper: "Drugs, Consciousnesses, and Generational Cultures"
Related MusePaper: "What's So Bad About Doing Good? An Essay Review of 'The Rainmaker'"
Comments? E-mail me by clicking on: mickel@primalspirit.com Mickel Adzema
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