Originally Posted by Chas'88

Quite frankly I don't see a large difference in justifying that and the GI's justification for their cooshy retirement at the expense of their Xer & Millennial grandchildren and bragging about it with bumper stickers saying that "they're spending their grandchildren's inheritance".

This post just saddened me. Goodness we have come a long way from elders financially thinking about their future generations and in return, elders being welcomed to live with the families (instead of being shoved in retirement homes). Not sure we are going to see a shift as Boomers enter their retirement years (not sure they are able to give an inheritance).

What will Xer's do?

I'm placing a bet that because Millennials are facing the result of this...they may "atone" by thinking about their grandchildren.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Agreed. I've often heard that the Gilded are automatically Nomads because after the Civil War they lied about serving in the Civil War or overplayed minor roles they had played during the war. And the reason they did as such was because they felt the deserved it or desired such recognition.

Quite frankly I don't see a large difference in justifying that and the GI's justification for their cooshy retirement at the expense of their Xer & Millennial grandchildren and bragging about it with bumper stickers saying that "they're spending their grandchildren's inheritance". And quite frankly I've found some WWII vets who only were "deployed" the last day of the war & never saw any action--but did a lot of the rebuilding in Europe & Japan--who have just as much of a hubric "we deserve so much" additude that I imagine the "lying" Gilded had. And quite frankly I think with the majority of WWII vets who actually saw action mostly dead--these "just missed the fighting" types have taken up the role of pretending to be more GI than they actually are--and have been doing so since the 1990s IMO.

I expect Millennials to hold a similar attitude come their retirement age, provided a good outcome to this Crisis occurs. As I expect the Homeland cuspers to be itching to fill our shoes & exaggerate their own roles once most of us are dead.

~Chas'88

I knew a lot of GIs who saw action and lived. I worked with them, was taught by them. They were my friends' fathers. Many of them wouldn't talk about it. One of my mentors was a Ranger who landed at Normandy. My friend's dad fought in N. Africa and Italy and had serious PTSD (she has the purple heart, the silver star to prove it). My high school algebra teacher was wounded and had a fake leg. Another high school teacher was a part of the troops that liberated Buchenwald and every year he was brought into history classes to talk about it. His daughter told me he hated it but felt it was his duty.

I was just watching a tribute to "Laugh-In" on PBS last night. Dan Rowan (b. 1922) was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Yet he went on to make fun of the Viet Nam War

This is not to deny that GIs didn't have hubris, BTW and it was that that the rebellious Boomers saw and were angry about--rightly or wrongly. Chas, a lot of them saw action and survived. I bet most Boomers can attest to this. Now how much the GIs exaggerated their participation? I don't know. My father saw no action in the Navy and never said he did.

Originally Posted by millennialX

This post just saddened me. Goodness we have come a long way from elders financially thinking about their future generations and in return, elders being welcomed to live with the families (instead of being shoved in retirement homes). Not sure we are going to see a shift as Boomers enter their retirement years (not sure they are able to give an inheritance).

What will Xer's do?

I'm placing a bet that because Millennials are facing the result of this...they may "atone" by thinking about their grandchildren.

Mercifully I have almost never seen that on the bumpers of vehicles driven by the Silent. Maybe the Silent see the consequences of such a concept as GIs didn't.

In many respects I see the Silent Generation aping the GI Generation in retirement practices -- staying active as late as possible and keeping alert as they can to modern trends except perhaps technology. They are more sensitive than GIs and recognize the damage that they did on the whole to Generation X, which often needs their help.

It's hard to predict whether Boomers will act any nobler in retirement than they have while in the workforce.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Agreed. I've often heard that the Gilded are automatically Nomads because after the Civil War they lied about serving in the Civil War or overplayed minor roles they had played during the war. And the reason they did as such was because they felt the deserved it or desired such recognition.

Quite frankly I don't see a large difference in justifying that and the GI's justification for their cooshy retirement at the expense of their Xer & Millennial grandchildren and bragging about it with bumper stickers saying that "they're spending their grandchildren's inheritance". And quite frankly I've found some WWII vets who only were "deployed" the last day of the war & never saw any action--but did a lot of the rebuilding in Europe & Japan--who have just as much of a hubric "we deserve so much" additude that I imagine the "lying" Gilded had. And quite frankly I think with the majority of WWII vets who actually saw action mostly dead--these "just missed the fighting" types have taken up the role of pretending to be more GI than they actually are--and have been doing so since the 1990s IMO.

I expect Millennials to hold a similar attitude come their retirement age, provided a good outcome to this Crisis occurs. As I expect the Homeland cuspers to be itching to fill our shoes & exaggerate their own roles once most of us are dead.

~Chas'88

One of my grandfathers was one of those men who was drafted at the end of the war. He never saw action but served his two years as an MP in occupied Japan. When I learned of this as a teenager, I was thankful he never saw action. He was such a sweet and gentle soul that I think having to take another man's life would have destroyed him. Mercifully he was saved from that.

But I have known 4 other men who did see action. All of these men I had close a relationship with and I loved them. Most of these men are not would I call "tough guys". They were kind and loving with a great sense of humor. One of them was at the beaches of Normandy during the invasion. His wife told me that one day over lunch. I looked over at this man and said, "Joe! I had I no idea you were involved in that." He just kind of shrugged his shoulders. His wife said, "He doesn't talk about it much because he doesn't like drawing attention to himself or seem like he is bragging."

But I do think it marked each of these different men in their own way.

There was my old boss who was a fighter pilot. He talked about it quite a bit. As strange as this sounds, I think he had fond memories. Although, he didn't "brag" about his accomplishments, he seemed to recall his experiences with a bit of nostalgia.

Another very close family friend fought the Japanese in Alaska. His hatred toward the Japanese stayed with him for the rest of life. I can remember him saying, "The only good Jap. Is a dead Jap." To which we would all just roll our eyes and say, "Oh, Billy." It also really bothered him that the fighting that took place in Alaska isn't really remembered by many people. He would point out often that most people forget that there was battles here on American soil and he was a part of it.

And finally there is my husband's grandfather. He was actually too young to join the army. So he faked his age, paid some drunk to sign the enlistment papers as his father and was shipped off to the Pacific islands. He fought in the battle of Iwo Jima. Most of his battalion was killed. He layed on the beach for 2 days full of shrapnel waiting to be rescued. The Japanese at one point came with bayonets and poked the bodies of all the marines laying on the beach to make sure they were dead. He saved his life by pulling the dead bodies of his fellow soldiers on top of him when the Japanese came along with their bayonets. When we visited him last summer, my son asked his great-grandfather about this particular experience, but Grandpa refused to talk about it with him. He just simply said, "The things I remember are pretty unpleasant." Then he went into his room, found one of his marine raiders caps and gave it to my son.

Those are amazing stories, Amy.

Here is an article that relates pretty well to ACW related atonement:

Five myths about why the South seceded

By James W. Loewen, Saturday, February 26, 12:01 AM

One hundred fifty years after the Civil War began, we’re still fighting it — or at least fighting over its history. I’ve polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even about why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States’ rights? Tariffs and taxes?

As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war’s various battles — from Fort Sumter to Appomattox — let’s first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.

1. The South seceded over states’ rights.

Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.

On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina’s secession convention adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” It noted “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” and protested that Northern states had failed to “fulfill their constitutional obligations” by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states’ rights, birthed the Civil War.

South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed “slavery transit.” In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer — and South Carolina’s delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.

Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

The South’s opposition to states’ rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in power in Washington always oppose states’ rights. Doing so preserves their own.


2. Secession was about tariffs and taxes.

During the nadir of post-civil-war race relations — the terrible years after 1890 when town after town across the North became all-white “sundown towns” and state after state across the South prevented African Americans from voting — “anything but slavery” explanations of the Civil War gained traction. To this day Confederate sympathizers successfully float this false claim, along with their preferred name for the conflict: the War Between the States. At the infamous Secession Ball in South Carolina, hosted in December by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, “the main reasons for secession were portrayed as high tariffs and Northern states using Southern tax money to build their own infrastructure,” The Washington Post reported.

These explanations are flatly wrong. High tariffs had prompted the Nullification Controversy in 1831-33, when, after South Carolina demanded the right to nullify federal laws or secede in protest, President Andrew Jackson threatened force. No state joined the movement, and South Carolina backed down. Tariffs were not an issue in 1860, and Southern states said nothing about them. Why would they? Southerners had written the tariff of 1857, under which the nation was functioning. Its rates were lower than at any point since 1816.


3. Most white Southerners didn’t own slaves, so they wouldn’t secede for slavery.

Indeed, most white Southern families had no slaves. Less than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for example, and that proportion was smaller still in whiter states such as Virginia and Tennessee. It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.

However, two ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy now.

Second and more important, belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: “It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.” Given this belief, most white Southerners — and many Northerners, too — could not envision life in black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were in chains. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Henry Benning, trying to persuade the Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not protected. “The consequence will be that our men will be all exterminated or expelled to wander as vagabonds over a hostile earth, and as for our women, their fate will be too horrible to contemplate even in fancy.” Thus, secession would maintain not only slavery but the prevailing ideology of white supremacy as well.


4. Abraham Lincoln went to war to end slavery.

Since the Civil War did end slavery, many Americans think abolition was the Union’s goal. But the North initially went to war to hold the nation together. Abolition came later.

On Aug. 22, 1862, President Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Tribune that included the following passage: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

However, Lincoln’s own anti-slavery sentiment was widely known at the time. In the same letter, he went on: “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.” A month later, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish in his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

White Northerners’ fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862.

Gradually, as Union soldiers found help from black civilians in the South and black recruits impressed white units with their bravery, many soldiers — and those they wrote home to — became abolitionists. By 1864, when Maryland voted to end slavery, soldiers’ and sailors’ votes made the difference.


5. The South couldn’t have made it long as a slave society.

Slavery was hardly on its last legs in 1860. That year, the South produced almost 75 percent of all U.S. exports. Slaves were worth more than all the manufacturing companies and railroads in the nation. No elite class in history has ever given up such an immense interest voluntarily. Moreover, Confederates eyed territorial expansion into Mexico and Cuba. Short of war, who would have stopped them — or forced them to abandon slavery?

To claim that slavery would have ended of its own accord by the mid-20th century is impossible to disprove but difficult to accept. In 1860, slavery was growing more entrenched in the South. Unpaid labor makes for big profits, and the Southern elite was growing ever richer. Freeing slaves was becoming more and more difficult for their owners, as was the position of free blacks in the United States, North as well as South. For the foreseeable future, slavery looked secure. Perhaps a civil war was required to end it.

As we commemorate the sesquicentennial of that war, let us take pride this time — as we did not during the centennial — that secession on slavery’s behalf failed.

I thought the reference to the Bush tax cuts was unnecessarily political and a cheap shot. Otherwise, I thought it was well presented. In the North, atonement consensus came through the cause evolving from merely preserving the union to the nobility of abolition, while in the South it went from preserving slavery to a romantic rewriting of history.

Originally Posted by ASB65

One of my grandfathers was one of those men who was drafted at the end of the war. He never saw action but served his two years as an MP in occupied Japan. When I learned of this as a teenager, I was thankful he never saw action. He was such a sweet and gentle soul that I think having to take another man's life would have destroyed him. Mercifully he was saved from that.

You'd be surprised. I used to work for a woman whose dad used to be the treasurer for a major nation-wide non-governmental organization. He had been involved in the ground floor of the civil rights movement, he had provided aid on Indian reservations, all kinds of stuff. He had retired by the time I met him, but he would come in every month to do the books for his daughter. He was always gentle, polite, and soft-spoken. He never cursed. It was impossible to imagine him even speaking an unkind word about anybody.

So, one day I was at work, in the back with my boss, and I was telling a story from the night before, about how my friends and I went to a 7-11 and spotted a bunch of neo-nazi skinheads drinking 40s behind the doctor's office next door. One of my friends popped in a tape with Napalm Death's cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Nazi Punks Fuck Off", rolled down the window, and passed the neo-nazis really slowly. Now, that song is to Nazis what a flapping red cape is to bulls. They flew into a rage, hopped into their truck, and the result was a hilarious low-speed car chase across Northeast Philadelphia. I'm not really doing the story justice, but my boss laughed at the story and then said, "Go tell that story to my dad." So I went up front and did just that.

As I quickly learned, this astonishingly kind and gentle man had been a sniper in the 10th Mountain Division, which had been involved in brutal fighting against the Nazis in the mountains of Italy. And, to put it mildly, he didn't think very highly of kids following Hitler. First time anybody at work had heard him curse -- and he cursed a lot during that whole tirade.

As I found out later, two of my great uncles were involved in the first wave on D-Day. My jaw actually dropped when my dad told me that. One was a slight and incredibly kind and quiet man, and the other was a little more free-spirited, kind of like a cleaner version of Rodney Dangerfield. Even though they were the right age, it had never even crossed my mind that they were veterans, let alone veterans of one of the most brutal battles of World War II.

You'd be surprised what people can deal with and still come out fine on the other side.

Originally Posted by ASB65

As strange as this sounds, I think he had fond memories.

It doesn't sound strange at all. There's this guy Chris Hedges, a fairly famous war correspondent, and I've yet to find a better quote on the subject than that he wrote a few years back:

"And yet there is a part of me that remains nostalgic for war's simplicity and high. The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it gives us what we all long for in life. It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our news. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble."

There's more to it than that, but what you're saying doesn't sound strange at all.

The way to view a 4T is that there is pressure for a consensus (because Heroes demand it, with Nomad encouragement). This is the opposite of an Awakening, where there is pressure for diversity of ideas (because Prophets demand it, with Artist encouragement). Neither of these has to be an actual crisis, but either one can be. Nor must the progression of either be linear with time. Rather, they both involve much volatility leading up to the result. Here are the updated definitions:

1T – Society is experiencing a consensus (Atonement or Advancement).
2T – Starts with a crack in the consensus and ends with a diversity of ideas.
3T – Society is experiencing diversity (Atonement and Advancement).
4T – Starts with a problem caused by too much diversity and ends with consensus.

During a 4T, the consensus is not obvious until it is achieved (in which case it is no longer a 4T, but a 1T). Based on my premise above, the 4T had to have started with 9/11, regardless of the “readiness” of the generational constellation. The consensus cannot be fully predicted, except to say that it will be of an Atonement nature. Our example is the previous five 4Ts:

Reformation saeculum (Advancement): “We defeated Spain!”

New World saeculum (Atonement): “We secured Protestantism!”

Revolution (Advancement): “We created a new republic!”

Civil War (Atonement): “We freed the slaves!” (Or, “Slavery? No, we were fighting for a much more noble cause.”) Note: It was not “We defeated the rebs!” (Or, conversely, “We got whipped!”) In other words, the Advancement reasons for going to war (preserving the Union, preserving slavery) had to take a back seat to the Atonement reasons before the 4T could be resolved.

Great Power (Advancement): “We beat the Japs! We beat the Germans!” (The liberation of the Jews seems to have been more of a bonus, without which there would have still been much to celebrate.)

Finally, I would like to come up with the perfect name for these Civil War Civics, following the pattern of Elizabethan, Glorious and Republican. Here are some that might be worth considering:

Federal
American
Emancipated
Atoned
14th Amendment (or simply, Amendment or Amended)
Victorian
Freedom

One of the deadliest dangers of an Atonement Crisis:

People enacting revenge

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by JDW

The way to view a 4T is that there is pressure for a consensus (because Heroes demand it, with Nomad encouragement). This is the opposite of an Awakening, where there is pressure for diversity of ideas (because Prophets demand it, with Artist encouragement). Neither of these has to be an actual crisis, but either one can be. Nor must the progression of either be linear with time. Rather, they both involve much volatility leading up to the result. Here are the updated definitions:

1T – Society is experiencing a consensus (Atonement or Advancement).
2T – Starts with a crack in the consensus and ends with a diversity of ideas.
3T – Society is experiencing diversity (Atonement and Advancement).
4T – Starts with a problem caused by too much diversity and ends with consensus.

During a 4T, the consensus is not obvious until it is achieved (in which case it is no longer a 4T, but a 1T). Based on my premise above, the 4T had to have started with 9/11, regardless of the “readiness” of the generational constellation. The consensus cannot be fully predicted, except to say that it will be of an Atonement nature. Our example is the previous five 4Ts:

Reformation saeculum (Advancement): “We defeated Spain!”

New World saeculum (Atonement): “We secured Protestantism!”

Revolution (Advancement): “We created a new republic!”

Civil War (Atonement): “We freed the slaves!” (Or, “Slavery? No, we were fighting for a much more noble cause.”) Note: It was not “We defeated the rebs!” (Or, conversely, “We got whipped!”) In other words, the Advancement reasons for going to war (preserving the Union, preserving slavery) had to take a back seat to the Atonement reasons before the 4T could be resolved.

Great Power (Advancement): “We beat the Japs! We beat the Germans!” (The liberation of the Jews seems to have been more of a bonus, without which there would have still been much to celebrate.)

Finally, I would like to come up with the perfect name for these Civil War Civics, following the pattern of Elizabethan, Glorious and Republican. Here are some that might be worth considering:

Federal
American
Emancipated
Atoned
14th Amendment (or simply, Amendment or Amended)
Victorian
Freedom

I like Federal, Reconstructionist, or simply The Civil War Generation

I'm not sure it follows the pattern, but back in the 90s here, David McGuinness labeled the civil war civic generation the "Bloody Shirt" generation, which I always liked, particularly applying to Union vets and their voting patterns in the 1868, 1872, and 1876 presidential elections.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

With the "Bloody Shirts" eventually fading to "pink shirt" when their connection to the War became uestionable.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by millennialX

I like Federal, Reconstructionist, or simply The Civil War Generation

I think I like Federal the best. (It sort of puts me in mind of F-Troop and of Custer fighting the Sioux.) The Civil War was shared by too many generations to be associated with a small cohort group, while Reconstructionist seems too limited an idea.

Originally Posted by David Krein

I'm not sure it follows the pattern, but back in the 90s here, David McGuinness labeled the civil war civic generation the "Bloody Shirt" generation, which I always liked, particularly applying to Union vets and their voting patterns in the 1868, 1872, and 1876 presidential elections.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

What were his thoughts on there being Civil War civics? (Come to think of it, how could the war be "civil" without civics?)


FWIW, there is something about Bloody Shirts that screams of Atonement.

Federal. I like it. Especially since the Federal government grew in response to the Civil War.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Federal. I like it. Especially since the Federal government grew in response to the Civil War.

~Chas'88

So how do we get these ideas to stick?

Originally Posted by millennialX

So how do we get these ideas to stick?

First, we have to make sure that it works. Can we live with "Confederate Federals"?

"Amended," on the other hand, reflects the fact the the Constitution was significantly amended, as well as this being an amendment to the theory.

Originally Posted by JDW

First, we have to make sure that it works. Can we live with "Confederate Federals"?

"Amended," on the other hand, reflects the fact the the Constitution was significantly amended, as well as this being an amendment to the theory.

... or you could go with a slightly snarky reUnion Generation, which covers the same ground from a different perspective.

Originally Posted by JDW

First, we have to make sure that it works. Can we live with "Confederate Federals"?

"Amended," on the other hand, reflects the fact the the Constitution was significantly amended, as well as this being an amendment to the theory.

"Confederate" doesn't work for me as a formal yankee, thank you very much. LOL

Perhaps I didn't make that clear enough. The question is whether "Federals" works as a generational name that includes those on the Confederate side, to which I think the answer is no. In contrast, I think "Republicans" (Revolutionary civics) was okay for including members of the Federalist party, because they were in fact republicans.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... or you could go with a slightly snarky reUnion Generation, which covers the same ground from a different perspective.

I almost like it. My problem with it is that it seems to imply that things went right back to what they were, when in reality the country changed fundamentally.

I was hoping someone else would make this point: Another reason that I like "Amended" is that it happens to be a synonym for "Atoned." S&H often chose names with multiple meanings (e.g., GI, 13th).

So, let's review: The Constitution was amended; the North made amends by freeing the slaves; the South amended their reasons for having fought the war; Southern constitutions were amended; and, finally, we have amended the theory by carving out this truncated generation of Civil War Civics.

Does anybody second this motion?

Originally Posted by JDW

I was hoping someone else would make this point: Another reason that I like "Amended" is that it happens to be a synonym for "Atoned." S&H often chose names with multiple meanings (e.g., GI, 13th).

So, let's review: The Constitution was amended; the North made amends by freeing the slaves; the South amended their reasons for having fought the war; Southern constitutions were amended; and, finally, we have amended the theory by carving out this truncated generation of Civil War Civics.

Does anybody second this motion?

I caught the Amended/ Atoned connection. I still like Federal, but I can make Amended my close 2nd. Amended brings images of the reconstruction era to me and works well as the next name after Gilded.

In taking a look at the 1820 and 1821 cohorts (in Generations), I find myself unconvinced that they were Prophets. William T. Sherman strikes me as being very much a Nomad, having a very pragmatic view of the war (similar to Grant), rather than being self-absorbed (such as McClellen) or seeming larger than life (such as Lee and Jackson). Susan B. Anthony strikes me as being more of a product of her family than of the awakening. She also seems to have had some counter-awakening tendencies. Harriet Tubman is less certain, but then again so is her birth year. Finally, Mary Baker Eddy is reported to have had spiritual experiences at a young age, which is not necessarily a generational characteristic. None of these (except maybe Tubman) strikes me as especially Atonement leaning.