Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive
(Post 2162574)
Who knows? Hard to discuss this topic without unveiling the dreaded "P" word.
But "does demoralizing the American citizen ever create a positive growth experience for the future of this country"? In a weird way, I think yes. History shows this to us. The stock market crash followed by the Great Depression plunged a prosperous nation into a decade-long period of high unemployment, soup kitchens, and rampant homelessness, migrations of people to hoped-for greener pastures not seen since the great push westward of the 19th century. But we came out of it better. We knew the people who accomplished it. They were our mothers and fathers--still, in some rare cases, us. Immediately following the depression, they were the soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought a two-front war on opposite ends of the globe. The won--not so much because of military acumen or exception bravery, but because of the industries back home that employed their wives and mothers.
They were "The Greatest Generation".
I was privileged to interview my mother shortly before she died, about life in that time. What I knew about the Great Depression and WW2 I learned from history books. Dad fought in the Pacific theater (won the Bronze Star for his part in the liberation of the Santo Tomas prison in Manila) but he never much talked about it. Mostly to say that He acquired a great deal of respect for the Japanese during his tenure there as part of the army of occupation. He also carried a couple of bills of "occupation money" that he showed us. But otherwise--no. Mom the same. It was characteristic of that generation. But the stuff I learned from Mom was priceless. She talked about how, during the height of the depression, people came together. People doing laundry for one another, often walking more than a mile with a full basket as gasoline was saved only for important tasks, such a plowing or rare trips for supplies. My uncle--my namesake, actually--died at age 8 of rheumatic fever during that time. His family buried him in an unmarked grave as there was no money for anything resembling a modern funeral; certainly none for a headstone. His father--my grandfather--dug his son's grave.
Fast-forward to America 2022. Our worries are largely how inflation will affect our stockpile of money, or how the rollercoaster economy is going to impact our investments. The generations that came after us, in many cases, expect the government to either help pay or forgive the student loans that they incurred going to school for the relatively lucrative job they now have, and in too many cases bemoan the fact that they're not being paid what THEY think they're worth. Our dreams are of grandiose visions of how we can save the planet. Or whether or not spending the money to robotically explore the solar system is justified. Or which EV is best. In short, we argue and bicker about things that simply had no impact at all on the lives of The Greatest Generation. THEIR concern was having enough to eat. Or a place to sleep. Or winning a war. I often wonder just what that generation would think, if they had a glimpse into OUR reality and compared it to theirs. I'm afraid they'd see what we have and are, as heaven, compared to their reality.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” This quote by author G. Michael Hopf says it perfectly, and our history proves it. The best steel is tempered in fire, after all. No one knows how long the current ills will last--or comparatively, if they're even ills at all--but I have no doubt that, in the end, we'll come out on the other side better than when we went into it. It is the American way, after all.
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