ALAN writes:

One of the cultural trends that philosopher Richard Weaver wrote about in the 1940s-’50s was the increasing deference by the older generation to the younger. A consequence of that surrender of authority was the development of the Vital Child.

Laura Wood wrote in 2009 that the Vital Child “is not a creature of repose. He is a dynamic, rapidly evolving being, capable of ‘socialization’ even as an infant”. [“The Vital Child”, The Thinking Housewife, May 11, 2009 ]

I was part of the first generation born after World War II, the first in American history to be told we were Something Special: We had more choices, more opportunities, more possibilities, more things, more toys, more to do, see, and hear, more diversions, more amusements, and more Fun! available to us than any previous generation, we were told. In return for doing what? For doing nothing; just for existing! Some of our parents told us those things, but most of the time the message was pounded into us by the mass communications, entertainment, and advertising industries. Soft drink companies were part of that campaign. They played a significant role in promoting the youth subculture of the 1960s.

“Come alive!  Come alive! You’re in the Pepsi generation!”

Those words linger in my memory from sixty years ago when Joanie Sommers sang that jingle in TV commercials. Ostensibly it was about selling a soft drink. Actually it was about selling a soft drink and a way of life:  Youthful, filled with fun, frolic, and laughter, and dynamic. It was aimed at the younger generation and encouraged them to become Vital Hipsters. That excluded me. If everybody else in high school in those years wanted to become Vital Children, bully for them — I had nothing against it, but leave me alone. I liked repose. I liked to explore libraries. I liked to gaze at the stars. I liked to think; to ask questions; to talk about ideas; to weigh and consider things I was told “experts” had already decided for me and for everyone else. I loathed crowds, “mixers”, and “socialization”.

I note in passing that my father liked Coca-Cola — but my mother liked Pepsi-Cola. Whether that divergence came before or after their divorce, I never knew. But I am quite certain that my mother never gave a thought to Pepsi-Cola’s role in encouraging a youth subculture. Apparently neither did 99 percent of their generation.

As with rock and roll music, the aim was to divide generations. The words “Pepsi Generation” were first used in TV ads in 1963. They encouraged “a dramatic shift in direction … away from the adult, sedate, suburban society and embracing action, vitality, and youthfulness”, according to Thomas Frank, who was himself a radical Leftist. (The Conquest of Cool, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1997, p. 174)

“The Pepsi Generation were bearers of new values ….. rebels ushering in a new era of unrestrained liveliness. Whether playing wildly at the beach, speeding on motorcycles, or dancing to rock music,” the Pepsi Generation exemplified youthfulness and range-of-the-moment fun — and therefore little or no regard for age, experience, and wisdom. “Think young!” was Pepsi-Cola’s advice to its target audience.

“Unrestrained liveliness” — isn’t that a form of witlessness?

Speed and excitement marketed to the young fit in perfectly with go-go girls gyrating mindlessly, nutty movies like Pajama Party (1964), and hip TV shows like Where the Action Is, American Bandstand, The Monkees, Shindig, Hullabaloo, and Laugh-In.

Vitality was encouraged not only in what was shown in those Pepsi TV advertisements but also in how it was shown:

“The speed and excitement of the action in the ‘Come Alive!’ spots” employed “the distinctive techniques of French New Wave cinema…  It was new to American television … Cameras swing wildly, shoot from unusual angles, zoom in and out extremely quickly, and there is abrupt, rapid cutting from shot to shot …. manic visual effects” that were also seen in The Beatles’ 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night. (Frank, pp. 176-77)

Of course they are precisely the same  frenetic visual effects that have been imprinted on the brains of multiple generations of TV viewers and moviegoers who accept it as hip and cutting-edge. That is why they cannot understand the slower pace and scenes of extended dialogue in motion pictures from the 1930s-’40s. Such frenetic effects glorify sensation and discourage thoughtfulness. As Richard Weaver argued, speed and thought are antithetical. Such effects are therefore wholly alien to the restrained use of TV or movie cameras, and they are one reason why so many motion pictures made since the 1960s are junk.

Which may help us to understand the paradox of the generations who grew up after World War II: They were the most extensively schooled and best educated and best informed generations who ever lived, we are told repeatedly — yet they are the ones who permitted the transformation of the USA from a confident, competent, and strong nation in the 1950s to the land of tribal conflicts, apologies, lowered standards, and incompetence that it is today. How could that be? One reason might be that while being told they were the best educated people in history, they also and at the same time grew up absorbing more junk and more slickly-marketed junk (in the name of entertainment and amusement) than any generation before them.

I remember watching those Pepsi  commercials in the mid-1960s. I liked Joanie Sommers. She could sing pretty ballads beautifully, and I liked her 1962 hit record “Johnny Get Angry”, which would infuriate feminists (I hope). But the commercials made no lasting impression on me. I did not join the “Pepsi Generation”. (For a few years, my preferred soft drink was Tang, which was also used by American astronauts.) Nor did I realize then that — whether calculated or not — such advertisements were part of a zeitgeist that Americans would permit to alter their way of life later in that decade.

If only the older generation in the 1960s — the so-called “Greatest Generation”– had been less gullible and receptive to such aggressive advertising campaigns, and less inclined to yield authority to their Hipster youngsters, American history since then may have seen fewer Vital Children who became Vital Adolescents who remained perpetual adolescents who contributed so generously to the lowering of standards across the board. Imagine what American history from 1960 onward might have been if entire generations had not been allowed and encouraged to accept adolescent-wittedness as their default standard throughout life. It does boggle the imagination.

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