"Little boxes on the hillside / Little boxes of ticky-tacky..."
"Another Pleasant Valley Sunday / Here in status symbol land..." *
Or maybe you remember it like this, if you remember it at all:
"Below them the town was laid out in harsh angular patterns. The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small, rectangular plot of lawn in front, with a straight line of dull-looking flowers edging the path to the door. Meg had a feeling that if she could count the flowers there would be exactly the same number for each house. [...] Then the doors of all the houses opened simultaneously, and out came women like a row of paper dolls. The print of their dresses was different, but they all gave the appearance of being the same." **
That's a quote from Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, the Newbery Award winning children's novel that was first published in 1962. In this scene, the story's heroes land on the dystopian planet of Camazotz-- a name that means "death bat", but one that also conjures images of "Camelot", the nickname for the picture-perfect 1960s family of President John F. Kennedy. Camazotz is a place of perfection-- forced, impersonal perfection, where order reigns supreme thanks to an evil disembodied brain named IT who controls the minds of all residents and circumvents free will.
Why were artists of the 1960s so appalled by the sameness of their times? Why didn't they read the cookie-cutter nature of these neighborhoods as safe and comforting? And most of all, what did such cynical portrayals mean to the children who heard their homes described in this way?
STANDARD PARTS
It's true that many of the homes in the 1950s and 60s were like little boxes, though the intent behind this was quite benign. According to Economics Explained, in the post-World War II economy homes were seen as a commodity rather than an investment, and the houses themselves were built quite cheaply with ready-made materials. This had in part been facilitated by the standardization in industry during the 1920s for commodities such as cars that were now being made on an assembly line.
Thanks to store catalogues like Sears, blueprints and materials for homes could be ordered as a kit and shipped by rail as early as 1908 (think of it as a large-scale, last-century version of Amazon's deliverable "she sheds.") For the self-reliant DIYer, the man on the edge of civilization, or the person of color who faced discrimination in their local marketplace, catalog retail was a good way to get quality housing at a reasonable price.
World War II put a pin in the housing market as men shipped out for Europe or the the Pacific Theatre and wood for construction was in short supply. However, once the war ended, demand skyrocketed. Returning G.I. soldiers soon had new brides and new children-- Baby Boomers, who needed a safe place to ride their bikes and go to school.
Enter the Levittowns.
HOME SAFE HOME
Between 1947 and 1951, the homebuilding firm of Levitt and Sons built houses in a seven-square mile tract of Long Island, New York using mass production strategies that averaged, at their peak, one house every sixteen minutes. The "little boxes" of Levittown, NY were imagined by G.I. veteran William Levitt, who clearly knew his customers: the homes were indeed sturdy Cape Cod style-- essentially, a box with a roof (and a built-in television!), and about as architecturally imaginative as the colors of a Ford Model T.
Unsurprisingly, Levittown was wildly popular. Levitt and Sons would go on to build more Levittowns in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico, and doubtless many other developments followed by copycat builders, all seeking to cash in on the G.I. Generation and the 1948 Housing Bill's generous homeowner incentives. Meanwhile, the homeowners themselves were living their best life, albeit a generic one-- and a cautious one.
The G.I. Generation (HERO archetype, born 1901-1924) had just finished collectively fighting World War II, but the prevailing, linear view of time led them to believe that another, similar conflict was just around the bend. With this in mind, safety on the home front was the first priority. As Strauss and Howe write in The Fourth Turning, "If consumerism could be standardized, private needs could be met efficiently, saving resources for the big projects needed to ensure the long-term survival of the nation."
Meanwhile, the majority of G.I.'s, who like today's HERO archetype Millennials had always had a collectivist bent, were happy to accept their cookie-cutter homes. When William Levitt said "No one who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist. He has too much to do," he was indicating that homeownership in Levittown was a virtue signal. Each little colonial-style home indicated that its residents believed in teamwork, community, and Puritanical American virtues of hard work, modesty, and thrift. The American High made these virtues into a commodity-- one that could be purchased for the reasonable price of "SEVEN THOUSAND BUCKS! ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS DOWN!"
CONTROLLED MARKETS
To maintain the premium value of a commodity, you have to keep demand high and supply scarce. When the commodity is virtue, it must mean that the virtues are difficult to obtain and yet necessary to have. The Silent Generation (ARTIST archetype, born 1925 to 1942), whose ranks would populate the teenage years until the last of them turned twenty in 1962, felt the market pressures of commodified virtue acutely. And for some of them, the cognitive dissonance between appearances and reality would spark deep resentment.
Consider the story of David Hoffman, a child raised in Long Island's Levittown who went on to become an award-winning documentary filmmaker. With a lifelong fascination for children of the 1960s, he prefaces a YouTube re-release of his documentary footage by saying: "What the society was telling us was not what we were seeing," and claiming there was no "authenticity to what people were saying. They weren't living the lives and doing the things they were telling us to do." Indeed, perhaps anticipating the struggle of the young to conform to the ideals of the elder, a number of propaganda-like educational films were made in the 1950s to show young people how to behave-- resources that perhaps resemble today's SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) materials for Homelanders/Gen Z (ARTIST archetype, born 2005-present).
How did it feel to be raised in such an authoritarian, rules-based culture, where anything other than a slight deviation from the norm was immediately punished? The short answer is: excruciating. In A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle describes mandatory rehabilitation for a Camazotz boy who can't bounce a ball perfectly in time with the other children. As he is forced to practice ball-bouncing in a prison cell to a pulse that makes him scream with pain, the heroes look on helplessly as their guide giggles and explains, "Every once in a while there's a little trouble with cooperation, but it's easily taken care of. After today, he'll never desire to deviate again" (p. 158).
You see, even if the Silent Generation had desired to meet G.I. expectations, they could not. As William Strauss and Neil Howe put it in Generations, "The Silent have spent a lifetime realizing two important facts: First, they are not G.I.s,; second, they are not Boomers" (p. 239). The lifecycle of a generation is dependent on the era in which it was raised, and the Silent were coming of age in a First Turning, a time of peace and abundance. There was no Crisis of the Fourth Turning demanding that everyone get in line and shoulder their rifle or roll up their factory uniform sleeves like Rosie the Riveter. And by the time the final remnant of the Silent Generation had escaped the parental thumb in 1962, these emerging adults were determined to let the next generation of kids know that conformity was out, and individuality was in.
YOU, INC. & THE BOOM ECONOMY
If choice, free will, and personal autonomy were the cherished virtues of the Silent Generation, it would take another consumer-minded group to commodify those virtues and make them their own. Growing up alongside the Silent as the little brothers and sisters of the American High were the Baby Boomers (PROPHET archetype, born 1943-1960), and they were a generation ready to synthesize individuality and the open market into something new: conspicuous consumption.
Writing for University of Virginia's The Hedgehog Review, Professor Joseph E. Davis explores "The Commodification of Self" for Baby Boomers. In his view, there are two methods of personal commodification. The first method is "hip consumerism", such as that of the "Bobos in Paradise" (parents of the "tech bros") which marries the "ethic of nonconformism and impulse with a vigorous consumerism." In other words, "We know who we are and we judge the quality of our inner experience through identification with the things we buy." The "Gap Generation" doesn't just wear GAP jeans: they are GAP jeans. After all, if the marketplace is flooded with variety and you have plenty of money (or easy credit), what you choose to buy isn't based on simply fulfilling needs; it's based on complex personal discretion as to what is best for you.
This is important, because what's best for you also ties into your role as a public figure. Professor Davis explains that the second method of personal commodification is personal branding: "a strategy of cultivating a name and image of ourselves that we manipulate for economic gain." In a strange blend of spirituality and business acumen, the self becomes an object of commercial desire and a source of enlightenment through "self-actualization." Your best self is your most sellable self, but watch out-- market desires can turn on a dime. The savvy Boomer realizes this, and as Davis explains, "To be successful at Me. Inc, my traits, values, beliefs, and so on—the qualities by which I locate myself and where I stand—must be self-consciously adopted or discarded, emphasized or de-emphasized, according to the abstract and competitive standards of the market."
BIG EMPTY BOXES
Whatever it is that Baby Boomers do to signal virtue and seek validation, it's on a grand scale. With their numbers as a large generation, their relative wealth, and their extroverted nature, Boomers are drawn to big things: big box stores, McMansions, megachurches. The spiritual and the material are inextricably twined, and their expressions are always public.
So how does this play out in the culture at large? I can think of no better example than the 1989 baseball fantasy-drama Field of Dreams. Baby boomer hippies Ray and Annie Kinsella buy a farm in Iowa. With no knowledge of farming and no respect for their community's conservative values, they quickly go into debt and argue with the local PTA over banning books by their favorite 60's activist author while plowing under a large section of their land to build a baseball field for ghosts. But their folly is rewarded: the prophecy "Build it and they will come" is proven true when the road fills with tourists at the end of the film. At $20 a pop for a seat in the stands, visitors' dreams will be fulfilled, the farm will be saved from foreclosure, and Ray and Annie are vindicated as visionaries.
The problem is, "Build it and they will come" is a terrible business plan. And spiritualizing empty things only enables the absurd. Virtue signaling becomes an end to itself, and with the backing of powerful hedge funds such as BlackRock, the true value of privacy, property, and personal autonomy is lost in the noise. We have moralism instead of morals. We have crony capitalism instead of a free marketplace. We have cancel culture instead of true justice.
This is not the Baby Boomers' fault. No, not really. Boomers are simply two generations down the road from the the shallow lives of little boxes, from G.I.s so high on the hubris of victory that they bought into secular humanism instead of the Christian worldview that informed the founders of our nation. Boomers are the products of these families, because the seeds of present were planted long ago.
Guess what? Today's kids are watching you, dear reader. Are you generous for the sake of popularity, or out of a true sprit of love and gratitude? What's the source of your discretion: public opinion or private belief? If you're not sure, it's time to find out. The next generation's tomorrow is dependent on what you choose today.
Stay tuned for Part Two: Gen Z / Homelanders' Big Plans!
---
* "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds (1962) is a satirical protest song about how the suburbs kill creativity in a populace. "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by Carole King (released by The Monkees in 1967) is a social commentary on boring suburban life in West Orange, New Jersey.
**A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, (p. 115-116).