What made the GI generation so trusting of authority?

[disasterzone]

That's what I don't understand. If you constantly see authority not handling things right, why would you trust them more? Especially after seeing how authority acts in a 4T like Hitler or Stalin. I mean the 4T was full of bad examples for authority. So why did they trust lobotomies and thalidomide and take every authority's word?

[Odin]

GIs trusted authority they agreed with, everyone else could go straight to hell. They sure as hell were not conformists during the last 4T, the older GIs were the folks doing the sit-in strikes.

[disasterzone]

(11-21-2016, 08:08 AM)Odin Wrote: GIs trusted authority they agreed with, everyone else could go straight to hell. They sure as hell were not conformists during the last 4T, the older GIs were the folks doing the sit-in strikes.

There were some that did but unfortunately the rest of the generation shut them down during the 1T. Many were even accused of collaborating with the Soviet Union.

[noway2]

I find this to be an interesting question. I look back upon my grandfather who, born in 1919, saw WW2 as a young man in the army. I knew him later in life and he definitely seemed trusting of civic institutions and believed that they and the people that comprised them were out to do "good" and had good intentions and acted in "good" faith. In fact, it is quite the opposite as to how I, as an Xer, see them.

[tg63]

I'm starting to suspect that it's really the reverse - our generation (Xers) and our huge distrust of authority.

re: the original question, I suspect that the GIs had that value instilled in them long before the height of the crisis (WWII) came along ... much like the current Millies have developed a strong respect for authority long before the height of our current crisis that we're heading for (assuming that there will be one).

[Warren Dew]

(11-20-2016, 05:14 PM)disasterzone Wrote: That's what I don't understand. If you constantly see authority not handling things right, why would you trust them more? Especially after seeing how authority acts in a 4T like Hitler or Stalin. I mean the 4T was full of bad examples for authority. So why did they trust lobotomies and thalidomide and take every authority's word?

The losing 4T authorities were branded "bad" and the winning ones were branded "good".  And given the vindictiveness with which 4T crises with which Civics are familiar with are fought, it behooved all the GIs to be loyal to the winning, "good" authorities.

If today's millennials are any guide, they may also have had parents who directed and provided for their every move, so they were just plain more comfortable with doing what authorities told them to do.

[pbrower2a]

Were Missionary parents more trustworthy than Boomers? Probably not. Did GIs have more trustworthy authorities among Missionaries than the Millennial Generation has among Boomers? Quite possibly.

Idealist elites are either economic, educational, political, or cultural. Among Boomers the elites with the most power were the economic elites, and some of them (especially Donald Judas Trump) have proved incredibly selfish, rapacious, exploitative, and abusive. Boomer executives may have been the worst executives of any generation for ensuring that they concentrate all bureaucratic power and exclude as many people as possible from any semblance of the Good Life. An exploitative elite that demands to be seen as the purest benefactors will not likely engender trust.

The politicians? Bill Clinton may have been as canny a pol as there was, but there was the sleazy side. Dubya was a thoroughly awful President. Donald Trump rightly earns the disdain that he gets in recent polling If he doesn't scare you, then you are crazy. Barack Obama is decent and competent enough, but he is no Boomer -- and he did nothing to create a lasting agenda. Just contrast any of these to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the man who (with his good buddy Sir Winston Churchill) saved Western Christian Civilization from its worst tendencies.

From what could Donald Trump possibly save us? He offers 'freedom from freedom'. That's typical for a fascist.

Culture? Boomer contributions are weak for an Idealist generation. Even in music -- does the Boom generation have any well-renowned composers like Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius, Sergei Rachmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, or Bela Bartok already making an impression among the sophisticated elites, as was so by 1930? We have such depraved performers as Madonna and the late Michael Jackson...

Boomers may be finally getting retired out of creative roles in the media, but not in time to undo the damage. OK, Steven Spielberg is a great director. But that isn't enough.

...People generally find benign authority easy to accept. I'm not going to get too close to a cliff or a waterfall; if a state park official has put up a sign that warns me to not go past a certain point, then I just will not do so. I obey traffic signals, speed limits, and stop signs -- let alone "DO NOT ENTER -- WRONG WAY" signs at freeway ramps. I probably don't need a law prohibiting me from slipping a date-rape drug into a woman's drink, but there are people need to be arrested. Life is safer when the law enforcement agents are effective, fair, and honest. Authorities as enforcers of oppression? That's where I find fault with law enforcement and the judicial system.

Even the youngest Boomers are approaching retirement age, and it is unlikely that the youngest Boomers will get a chance to change things for the better once the dinosaurs are gone. The bad Boomers have set up so many low glass ceilings that prevent anyone who has ever faced hard knocks to ever get a chance that it is too late for those talented Boomers who never got a good chance to get even a first chance. Donald Trump is all the vices typical of an Idealist generation at its worst (ruthlessness, arrogance, and self-indulgence) with none of the virtues. The more learned, principled, and upright Boomers always seemed suspect to people who believe that no human suffering is in excess so long as the economic sadists get what they want.

[Marypoza]

(11-21-2016, 11:51 AM)disasterzone Wrote:

(11-21-2016, 08:08 AM)Odin Wrote: GIs trusted authority they agreed with, everyone else could go straight to hell. They sure as hell were not conformists during the last 4T, the older GIs were the folks doing the sit-in strikes.

There were some that did but unfortunately the rest of the generation shut them down during the 1T. Many were even accused of collaborating with the Soviet Union.

-- this be true, hell Tricky Dick was more into McCarthyism than McCarthy was

[gabrielle]

(07-29-2017, 05:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Culture? Boomer contributions are weak for an Idealist generation. Even in music -- does the Boom generation have any well-renowned composers like Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius, Sergei Rachmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, or Bela Bartok already making an impression among the sophisticated elites, as was so by 1930? We have such depraved performers as Madonna and the late Michael Jackson...    

There are a few talented Boomer film score composers: James Horner, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, and so on.  You might still find them lacking compared with the great composers of the past, but it makes more sense to use them for comparison than Madonna and MJ.