Silent Generation

You never did hear much about them, hence the name "Silent Generation." Yes, they're still around, although many of them are dying off. They are the parents of a lot of early-mid Gen-Xers. I was born in 1972 and most everyone I know in my age range has Silent Generation parents. (My mother was born in 1943.)

They kicked off a lot of the social trends that Boomers would go on to take credit for eventually.

I'm a little jealous of the Silent Generation because they got to be teens during the 50's and enjoy the birth of rock n' roll, sox hops, greasers, poodle skirts, and that whole scene.

Yes, I with you

They don’t like to talk much about it.

When I first started posting here on Datalounge, after Y2K, there were quite a lot of Silent Generation posters who had a lot of insight about the 1950s and early 60s and all of the later scandals and gossip of the Golden Age actresses as they remembered them. Sadly, over the years, we have heard less and less from them.

The two guys in the middle of OP's pic, are they a couple?

They are silent... but deadly.

My parents are. My older siblings are baby boomers and I am Gen X. They were able to buy a nice house when they got married, raise and put five kids through college with no debt, take vacations every year and enjoy an active retirement at age 62. Both have very good NYS pensions -- mom's teachers union and dad's police union, and they made some really good investments.

They are an underrated generation.

I think "generation this generation that" is shitty sociology and schlocky journalism. Popular entertainment uses it as catch phrases but anything true about people, and art, applies to many generations.

I was never so sickened by all this yapping about generations, r10, as I became when I found Datalounge five years ago. Does the entire world perseverate on the subject this way?

No, you are correct its middle-brow including middle-brow and low-brow data-loungers. The same types who insist on tops and bottoms and cleans and dirtys.

What are "cleans and dirtys"?

Gay men who get STDs are dirty whores who deserve to suffer and die and they ruin it for the clean, good boys.

Oh, my.

binary nonsense, satirized

They were a generation that did not believe in labels for arbitrarily defined "generations".

They fought the largely forgotten Korean War with little fanfare.

Did people talk about "generations" before the baby boom?

Wasn't it Tom Brokaw who labeled the Greatest Generation?

SIlent generation born 1927-1945. The majority of the folk we now consider old (72-90) belong to it. They're in their die off currently and will be mainly gone in another fifteen years. They tend to be stoic and not make societal waves of any kind. The Greatest Generation is mainly gone and will all be over 100 in another decade. The Boomers are mainly still here and will start their major die off around 2035.

The Great Depression, World War II....one wonders how they made it through without emotional support animals.

[quote] one wonders how they made it through without emotional support animals.

Tell me about it.

[quote]The majority of the folk we now consider old (72-90)

"We?" The majority of the folk DL considers old are over 35.

35 is positively ancient, R24!

I prefer the Beat Generation.

bump

Shhhhh.

This makes me think of Suzie Sorority from the Silent Majority.

My parents are from this generation. They're baffled that subsequent generations can no longer raise a family on one wage, put all the kids through college for $5000, and enjoy a paid-for house and a nicely pensioned retirement, as they did. And they keep on voting Republican, not realizing these aren't the Republicans of their youth.

They made up a substantial percent of votes in 2016 even.

r30 I think the Silent Majority of the '60s was mostly comprised of the so-called "Greatest Generation," i.e, people who were middle-aged around that time.

Were the Golden Girls part of this generation?

r33 No. Except for Sophia, they were probably all born in or a little before the Depression.

I never heard of this 'Silent Generation' until just now. But I guess they weren't making much noise about being part of it.

(Cue laugh track.)

They got their name from Barbara Bush obviously.

Here she is making their generational signal.

Oh, I'm sure Babs Bush has been silent (and complicit) in many a deplorable Bush Family endeavor.

It’s interesting that we never had a Silent Generation President, we went straight from Greatest Generation Bush to Baby Boomer Clinton. However, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are both Silent Gen, so we may be going backwards in 2020.

They are the most underrated villains of the Trump election.

This ancient generation is majority Republican and they made up around 10% of the 2016 vote.

These assholes need to die already. They fucked a lot of shit up too.

I would not go that far, R40, but they need to stop voting.

They will never stop voting. You could tell them they will die tomorrow, and they will still find a way to wheel themselves over to the polls that very day and vote Republican.

What silence?

Why are they called the silent generation? Didn't they go crazy in the 1950s, and 1960s?

The generation includes many political and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI, The 14th Dalai Lama, Malcolm X, Michael Dukakis, John McCain, Walter Mondale, Dick Cheney, Bernie Sanders, Robert F. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Alfonsín, Giuliano Amato, Kofi Annan, Silvio Berlusconi, Mikhail Gorbachev, B.J. Habibie, Bob Hawke, John Howard, Saddam Hussein, Ion Iliescu, Helmut Kohl, John Major, Paul Martin, Slobodan Milošević, Madeleine Albright, John Lewis, Hosea Williams and Warren Christopher.

It includes such writers and artists as George Carlin, Ursula Andress, Julie Andrews, Anne Bancroft, Brigitte Bardot, John Cleese, Judi Dench, Audrey Hepburn, Janet Leigh, Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Joan Baez, Jane Fonda, Angela Lansbury, Mary Tyler Moore, Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Gene Wilder, Natalie Wood, Alan Arkin, Warren Beatty, Richard Burton, James Caan, James Coburn, James Dean, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Richard Harris, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Dennis Hopper, Rock Hudson, James Earl Jones, Frank Langella, Jack Lemmon, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Peter O'Toole, Al Pacino, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Oliver Reed, Burt Reynolds, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, B.B. King, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, George Takei, Adam West, Johnny Cash, Stephen Sondheim, James Brown, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, the Everly Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Glenn Gould, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, the Beat Generation, Noam Chomsky and Richard Rorty.

Great athletes include Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Roger Bannister, Ron Barassi, Richie Benaud, Yogi Berra, Jim Brown, Rubin Carter, Wilt Chamberlain, Bobby Charlton, Roy Emerson, Dawn Fraser, Reg Gasnier, Althea Gibson, Gordie Howe, Jack Kyle, John Landy, Rod Laver, Sonny Liston, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Bob Mathias, Willie Mays, Allan Moffat, Bobby Moore, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Floyd Patterson, Pelé, Pete Rose, Ken Rosewall, Garfield Sobers, Jackie Stewart, Ted Whitten, and Lev Yashin.

Depending on the dates used, the generation produced no U.S. presidents. The U.S. essentially "jumped from George Bush Sr., the World War II veteran, to Baby Boomer Bill Clinton".[15] However, it did produce Vice Presidents Joe Biden (born 1942),[16][17] Dick Cheney (born 1941) and Walter Mondale (born 1928) and First Ladies Barbara Bush (born 1925), Rosalynn Carter (born 1927), and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (born 1929). Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were born in what is sometimes considered to be the last year of the G.I. Generation (1924).

Impressive, R45. It’s a shame about that late in life Republican thing for most of them though.

They are my parents generation. Everyone remembers they had a tough childhood growing up through depression and war, but they were also the last generation to regularly lose friends and siblings to childhood diseases. I think they'll be the last generation to face their mortality calmly.

I think the culture shocks culminated with my Barack Obama doing a good job as president and now they're drifting off into overload land.

They're dead silent.

Their votes are not silent. In fact, their deathbed votes will have ramifications which will affect everybody except them for decades!

My parents (i their 80s) are the Silent Generation.

Intriguingly, not a single US president was a member of the Silent Generation. We skipped from the Greatest Generation right to the Boomers.

Absolutely spot on r48. You e described my parents to a t. The older they get the less they understand about society and the more they retreat into conservatism. They really do need to stop voting.

R30 has also described my parents. "What do you mean you can't buy a house on your salary? In my day we just lived on your father's."

R51, do your parents still vote? Some newspaper article - I forgot which - was profiling Trump voters, some as old as 89, and a few other octogenerians. My question is why are they still voting? Should I ever make it to 89 years old, I sure as hell don’t plan on voting on issues which will affect people for generations to come. That is the absolute definition of pointless selfishness.

Just since the start of the current year, I’ve noticed dozens of women, many of them mothers of my boomer friends, are dying. My own mother was among them. I’ve been to so many Catholic funerals lately...

We will NEVER stop voting, R53!

Now Shhhhhhhhh! Be silent! You are making far too much noise. Besides, this should all work out quite well for you.

[quote] My question is why are they still voting?

They're scared. Of what they are scared of, I have no clue. One would think after living through WWII, the Cold War, JFK assassination, Vietnam War, they have seen it all and wouldn't be so scared, but they are, and there you have it.

Didn't they sort of invent the concept of being a "teenager" as an identity?

Habitual Fox News watchers. They are afraid of the scary world that Fox News presents to them.

I think they just vote more out of habit and civic duty than out of malice.

They should have maximum age cut offs for voting, just like they have minimum age limits.

My grandmother is in this generation. She’s white and as liberal as they come.

She is now an outlier then, R61.

Time to put them out to pasture. Their best days are long behind them.

R45, their generation included these people, too, and many like them.

They are not just voting, they are still running for office. Or even worse, they are maintaining powerful judicial positions at the highest level of office, and deciding to retire when it will hurt young people the most for decades to come.

Their voting ballots need to be kept away from them! They are helping create chaos in this country that they themselves will never even have to live through. No more voting allowed around a 75 - 80 year old cap limit. That's already at or beyond the average age of US life expectancy!

R65, Justice Kennedy is an asshole, but I wouldn't tar an entire generation of people based off of his actions. I do agree that too much power is consolidated in the hands of the elderly and white, though. Sorry if that statement offends anybody, but it's true.

[quote] Intriguingly, not a single US president was a member of the Silent Generation. We skipped from the Greatest Generation right to the Boomers.

At the rate things are going, I would not at all be surprised to see this happening to Gen X too.

Not for nothing, but my neighbor who reads the Tarot and has been eerily correct about presidential elections, states that there will never be a Gen X president. In better news, she sees Trump gone by 2020.

[quote] there will never be a Gen X president.

I doubt this. I could see someone like a Gavin Newsom winning the presidency in the not too far off future. Besides, I don't see the public electing someone to presidency unless they are at least late 40s, and that wouldn't be at least another 12 years for the oldest millennials.

I was visiting my mom and Trump came on the TV just after the election. She is part of the Silent Generation and peered at the screen.

"That guy is really a nut, isn't he?"

R70, my neighbor gave age ranges for the presidents. The next president will be a 2-termer in his sixties, followed by the youngest president elected since JFK. He will be a male Dem elected in 2018. as an aside, the woman is a bit of a kook who is wrong about everything else, but she's been right about all of the presidents in the 30 years I've known her!

[quote]based off of his actions

No. Based [italic]on[/italic] his actions.

R72, Gen Xers have been predicting this for years now. That the more brash and demanding Millennials will leapfrog us.

Isn’t Obama a Gen-Xer?

R75:

No

Beneficiaries of huge government expenditures in their free or very cheap education, cheap housing, creation of foreign markets.

The happiest generation. That's why we don't hear much from them.

[quote] the youngest president elected since JFK. He will be a male Dem elected in 2018.

Conor Lamb?

R77 speaks truth.

R79, I would be OK with him as president.

R79, could be Aftab Pureval.

Not as cute as Conor Lamb, r82.

I could easily see Conor Lamb as a young man president. He hits all of the checkmarks. Young, handsome, centrist. Of course, given he doesn't do anything stupid.

Fraus across both party aisles love him too. I would keep a close eye on him as far as future presidency is concerned.

What's not to love?

He has a size 14' foot.

[quote]He has a size 14' foot.

How long are his thumbs?

[quote] What's not to love?

[quote] He has a size 14' foot.

Fuck 2028. Conor Lamb for 2020.

Handsome and charismatic.

[quote] He has a size 14' foot.

Leave it to datalounge to fall in love with a politician based off of the size of his feet.

Does he have a hairy chest?

Yes, R91. And hairy balls and a hairy asscrack, too.

Big dickface.

Excuse me? Is this thread still about us anymore?

[quote] Excuse me? Is this thread still about us anymore?

[quote] —Silent generation

No, R94. You've had your turn. Now it's about a young Democrat who other young Democrats can get excited about and behind.

NuJFK

Hot.

I'm another poster with a Silent Generation grandma who thinks Trump and everyone around him is a big asshole, and she's in small-town Kansas. My grandma's mom literally buried three of my grandma's siblings who does of TB during their childhood. As in, she dug the holes and buried them as they died, one by one. I can't imagine. Those people were cut from a different cloth.

*died, not 'does'.