The Generation Gap

Can a generation gap help explain our problems? Among our seemingly intractable, even existential, dilemmas is the lack of trust among Americans toward our institutions and toward one another. Thanks to internet algorithms and hyper-partisan television channels and radio programs, it is possible to consume information 24/7 that only confirms, rather than challenges, one's political views or conceptions of science. This media landscape did not exist in the 1960s, when a generation gap was at the center of the nation's upheavals, when many Baby Boomers rejected the values of their parent's generation – the age cohort Tom Brokaw in 1989 dubbed the Greatest Generation. In this episode, historian Paul McBride takes us on a trip from the nineteen thirties to the sixties, explaining how events and movements shaped the different attitudes and outlooks of two distinct generations.