Monday, June 06, 2005
Spielberg's Wells Preview: We have met the Aliens...Are they Us?
By William S. Kowinski
This is the full version of an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle "Insight" section on Sunday, June 5. More here on Wells etc. next week.
Now that George Lucas has shattered box office records with a cautionary space opera tale of a democracy transforming itself into the dark side of empire with a war fought on false pretenses, that other reliable colossus of the summer blockbuster, Steven Spielberg, follows with the mother of all space invasion stories. This time the empire is contemporary America, and it is being attacked by its own future.
At least those were subtexts to H.G. Wells novel, '>The War of the Worlds, published at the apex of British power at the end of the nineteenth century. Spielberg's movie reportedly diverges in several important respects: besides the change of time and place, the alien invaders are no longer Martians and they don't arrive in capsules which the population mistakes for meteors.
The central character is not a scientist/philosopher separated from his wife and on his own, as the invaders lay waste to the English countryside and then destroy London. Instead it's Tom Cruise as a previously indifferent urban working class father who must save his children from the pitiless power of the highly advanced, voracious and invulnerable invaders. But in other respects, the film appears to follow Wells' story at least as faithfully as earlier adaptations.
Spielberg's 1970s and 1980s cuddly aliens in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial" were in striking contrast to the usual cinematic monsters from space. Though his filmmaking skills will likely still inspire wonder, this movie's intent is to scare the popcorn into the audience.
Wells' story has been reliably scary in previous adaptations, notably the '>1938 Orson Welles Mercury Theatre radio version which transferred the action to New Jersey and caused newsworthy panic in several American cities, when the format of fake newscasts convinced some listeners a real invasion was underway.
The previous big screen version was a Technicolor attack in 1953, effective enough to scare at least the nine year olds (like George Lucas) and seven year olds (like Spielberg and me) who saw it then, or more likely a few years later at a Saturday matinee.
H.G. Wells died in 1946 (the year Spielberg was born) so he was very much alive to hear about the panic caused by the Orson Welles version, and he was furious. He didn't like his work turned into a Halloween prank to scare people (the broadcast was on October 30.) That was not the message he had in mind.
Of course he was still out to scare people--- but for a purpose. He was incensed by the complacency of Edwardian England in a world he knew was about to change radically, and he tried to shock his "The War of the Worlds" readers with intimations of a type of warfare---arriving from the sky, and attacking not just armies but civilian cities---they would start to see in the Great War, but would not fully experience until World War II.
But "The War of the Worlds" was more than a prescient and brilliantly told tale that launched a thousand bug-eyed monster movies. The terrors that Wells imagined resonated with the unconscious foreboding in his readers, already anxious about the ominous arms build-up in Europe. (Later incarnations would do likewise--the 1938 war worries fulfilled at Pearl Harbor, the 1953 Cold War fears.) But Wells elegantly weaved several other related concerns into his novel, which also pertain to our time.
The first is empire. Wells recounted the genesis of his story several times: he was walking with his brother Frank in the peaceful Surrey countryside, when the conversation turned to the native inhabitants of Tasmania, an island south of Australia, who were eradicated when the English transformed the island into a prison colony. What if some beings from another planet suddenly dropped out the sky, his brother wondered, and did the same to England?
Wells' chief narrator refers to the Tasmanians, who "in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?"
It is a passage heavily laden with Biblical imagery, hinting at the religious fervor that hypocritically accompanied such genocides. Wells extends the analogy to American Indians (even quoting Chief Joseph's famous "we will fight no more forever" as the Martian invaders lie dying from earth's bacteria, the opposite of the fate suffered by American Indians, nearly wiped out just by the diseases European invaders brought with them.)
But while Wells (along with his friend, Joseph Conrad) was opposed to the rampant European colonialism of their time and its ongoing slaughters in Africa and elsewhere, anti-imperialism wasn't entirely Wells' point.
H.G. Wells was a firm believer in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, as interpreted by Darwin's friend and Wells' most important teacher, T. H. Huxley. They believed that competitions for dominance will be won by the creatures fittest to dominate in that environment at that specific time. But present dominance does not guarantee future superiority.
Though his complacent countrymen (and their counterparts in America) believed they were naturally superior and would always be, Wells didn't see the evidence in nature for such confidence. "In the case of every other predominant animal the world has ever seen," Wells wrote in an essay, "the hour of its complete ascendancy has been the eve of its entire overthrow." So even though technologically superior England and the West conquered indigenous peoples, they could just as well be conquered by beings technologically superior to them.
There is yet another irony in Wells story. He portrays the aliens as an older and more advanced race, whose planet has turned inhospitable. Their technology is imposing and unconquerable, but when his narrator glimpses an actual Martian, he is as surprised as he is repulsed. The Martians are physically weak, with huge brains and almost no bodies.
In fact, they look very much like what humans will evolve into, the narrator says, at least according to a distant relative of his, named H.G. Wells. This is the fate of humanity when it becomes dependent on technology. Humanity is being conquered by its own future. But only temporarily (although the nature of the aliens' demise is rumored to diverge from Wells.)
Though in his novel Wells several times suggests that we consider the point of view of peoples that Europeans conquered, he never creates sympathy directly for the Martians. We see nothing from their point of view. They always remain utterly and inscrutably alien, with no trace of humanity. They are relentless, coldly efficient, highly coordinated, and utterly rapacious. They collect humans only for their food. Everything on earth is simply for their use.
Some would say this is already a portrait of the present. We have built mighty technologies and ignored the consequences to the physical world that ultimately nourishes us, and is as much a part of our bodies as our individual brains and lungs. Not heeding this will be our undoing, as physical weakness was for the Martians.
The imagery of Spielberg's film may tap into today's fears of terrorism, of aliens with technologies of mass destruction, but ultimately it should show us the shadow of our own complacency, particularly in terms of where our thoughtless dependence on our dominant technologies may lead us.
If we think of these aliens as simply the Other, a throwback to 1950s space monsters or stand-ins for whichever foreigners we fear threaten us, then Wells' point is lost. He is asking us to face ourselves.
Like Huxley, Wells believed that humans could step outside natural evolution by engaging consciousness, ethics and morality. The process of imagining ourselves the victim of our own blind actions is a step that this novel helps us take. Perhaps Spielberg's film will as well.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
The Star Trek 60s
Over at Trek Today, Michelle Erica Green has begun reviewing episodes of '>Star Trek, the original series (TOS) in the order they first aired on NBC beginning in September 1966.
I thought I would add a little external and historical context, eventually month-by-month, even week-by-week when events of the time warrant, as Michelle continues her reviews. This might help today's DVD and TV viewers understand a little more of what the creators of Star Trek and those first TOS viewers were seeing and hearing and experiencing in the wider world, which in 1966-69 influenced daily life to an extraordinary degree, and often had a major impact on how people felt and how they thought about the world, and the future.
I'll be doing this in a general way, but also with more specific reference to Star Trek creators and to the prime Star Trek audience: the early baby boomers, who were teenagers and young adults in those years.
First, some pre-1966 historical background.
Over at Trek Today, Michelle Erica Green has begun reviewing episodes of '>Star Trek, the original series (TOS) in the order they first aired on NBC beginning in September 1966.
I thought I would add a little external and historical context, eventually month-by-month, even week-by-week when events of the time warrant, as Michelle continues her reviews. This might help today's DVD and TV viewers understand a little more of what the creators of Star Trek and those first TOS viewers were seeing and hearing and experiencing in the wider world, which in 1966-69 influenced daily life to an extraordinary degree, and often had a major impact on how people felt and how they thought about the world, and the future.
I'll be doing this in a general way, but also with more specific reference to Star Trek creators and to the prime Star Trek audience: the early baby boomers, who were teenagers and young adults in those years.
First, some pre-1966 historical background.
Gene Roddenberry wrote the first known proposal for a Star Trek series in early 1964. This means that he started this version within months of one of the most important and devastating events of the 1960s.
A few years earlier, at the Democratic National Convention held in Los Angeles in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy won the party's presidential nomination. He was 43 years old. Gene Roddenberry was 39. GR may have known about Kennedy from World War II, when they both served in the Pacific.
While Roddenberry was flying bombers from Guadalcanal, Kennedy was the skipper of a small PT boat patrolling the Solomon Islands. They were so close geographically that on the day Kennedy's PT boat was sliced in half by a Japanese destroyer, planes from Roddenberry's base were dispatched to search for survivors. If it hadn't been for an accident to his plane, GR probably would have been among them.
When his boat was destroyed, Kennedy swam three miles to a small island, towing an injured man with a rope held in his teeth, and leading two others. He kept them alive for six days until they were rescued.
Although GR was no longer in the Los Angeles Police Department in 1960, his friends on the force had their hands full with the convention that summer. GR was a Democrat, as his father had been, so it's likely he was paying attention when Kennedy made his acceptance speech on a hot July evening to 80,000 people in the Los Angeles Coliseum, and a nationwide TV audience. GR would have heard this leader of his own generation say:
"The world has been close to war before-but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over."
"Here at home, the changing face of the future is equally revolutionary...A technological revolution...an urban-population revolution...a peaceful revolution for human rights-demanding an end to racial discrimination in all parts of our community life...a medical revolution...a revolution of automation..."
"Too many Americans have lost their way, their will and their sense of historic purpose. It is time, in short, for a new generation of leadership..."
"I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch 3000 miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West....Their motto was not 'Every man for himself,' but 'All for the common cause.'"
"...we stand today on the edge of a new frontier-the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and paths, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats..."
"The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises-it is a set of challenges...Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus."
"My call is to the young at heart, regardless of age, to the stout in spirit, regardless of party."
"...I believe the times demand invention, innovation, imagination, decision. I am asking each of you to be new pioneers on that new frontier."
A few years earlier, at the Democratic National Convention held in Los Angeles in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy won the party's presidential nomination. He was 43 years old. Gene Roddenberry was 39. GR may have known about Kennedy from World War II, when they both served in the Pacific.
While Roddenberry was flying bombers from Guadalcanal, Kennedy was the skipper of a small PT boat patrolling the Solomon Islands. They were so close geographically that on the day Kennedy's PT boat was sliced in half by a Japanese destroyer, planes from Roddenberry's base were dispatched to search for survivors. If it hadn't been for an accident to his plane, GR probably would have been among them.
When his boat was destroyed, Kennedy swam three miles to a small island, towing an injured man with a rope held in his teeth, and leading two others. He kept them alive for six days until they were rescued.
Although GR was no longer in the Los Angeles Police Department in 1960, his friends on the force had their hands full with the convention that summer. GR was a Democrat, as his father had been, so it's likely he was paying attention when Kennedy made his acceptance speech on a hot July evening to 80,000 people in the Los Angeles Coliseum, and a nationwide TV audience. GR would have heard this leader of his own generation say:
"The world has been close to war before-but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over."
"Here at home, the changing face of the future is equally revolutionary...A technological revolution...an urban-population revolution...a peaceful revolution for human rights-demanding an end to racial discrimination in all parts of our community life...a medical revolution...a revolution of automation..."
"Too many Americans have lost their way, their will and their sense of historic purpose. It is time, in short, for a new generation of leadership..."
"I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch 3000 miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West....Their motto was not 'Every man for himself,' but 'All for the common cause.'"
"...we stand today on the edge of a new frontier-the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and paths, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats..."
"The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises-it is a set of challenges...Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus."
"My call is to the young at heart, regardless of age, to the stout in spirit, regardless of party."
"...I believe the times demand invention, innovation, imagination, decision. I am asking each of you to be new pioneers on that new frontier."
In November Kennedy won the presidency by a narrow margin, but the country seemed to change overnight. On a frigid day in Washington in January 1961, he delivered his Inaugural Address. People today might think that the entire speech consisted of the words "Ask not..." Even historians seem to emphasize only the warnings to the Soviet Union that America would be resolute. But at the time, there were many parts of the speech that were noticed.
"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life."
"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.."
"Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce."
He pledged support to the United Nations, "our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace..."
To the world's poor he pledged help, "not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
He asked his fellow citizens to join him in "a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."
"All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."
And so it did begin: the Peace Corps, the Alliance for Progress in South America, raising the minimum wage, narrowly passing the first medical care for the aged funding (now known as Medicare.) There were terrible terrors along the way: the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Berlin blockade in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the world came as close to thermonuclear Armageddon as it ever had. But Kennedy learned quickly, and in the Cuban crisis he kept his cool, kept his options open, and managed to end the crisis with imagination and intelligence, and not a little craftiness and knowledge of human nature.
He brought imagination and intelligence into the public arena, and suddenly it was stylish to be smart. Kennedy's press conferences were a revelation of erudition and wit. The emphasis on brainpower in the Kennedy government provided a new legitimacy to the life of the mind. Suddenly the egghead was in, and the intellectual was sexy.
Kennedy was also the first President since Teddy Roosevelt to promote physical fitness, and the Kennedys were often photographed sailing (an avocation GR would share) and the Kennedy clans' touch football games became legendary.
Kennedy made perhaps his boldest move just months after his Inauguration. Since the Soviet Union shocked America by orbiting the first artificial satellite in 1957, it had remained ahead of U.S. efforts in space. In April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the earth. The U.S. succeeded in only a sub-orbital manned flight in May, when Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Nevertheless, that same month, President Kennedy pledged that the U.S. would land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth within the decade.
"Now it is time to take longer strides---time for a great new American enterprise," Kennedy said. He called for new funds and a new dedication, for the goal could only be met if "every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space."
"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life."
"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.."
"Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce."
He pledged support to the United Nations, "our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace..."
To the world's poor he pledged help, "not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
He asked his fellow citizens to join him in "a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."
"All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."
And so it did begin: the Peace Corps, the Alliance for Progress in South America, raising the minimum wage, narrowly passing the first medical care for the aged funding (now known as Medicare.) There were terrible terrors along the way: the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Berlin blockade in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the world came as close to thermonuclear Armageddon as it ever had. But Kennedy learned quickly, and in the Cuban crisis he kept his cool, kept his options open, and managed to end the crisis with imagination and intelligence, and not a little craftiness and knowledge of human nature.
He brought imagination and intelligence into the public arena, and suddenly it was stylish to be smart. Kennedy's press conferences were a revelation of erudition and wit. The emphasis on brainpower in the Kennedy government provided a new legitimacy to the life of the mind. Suddenly the egghead was in, and the intellectual was sexy.
Kennedy was also the first President since Teddy Roosevelt to promote physical fitness, and the Kennedys were often photographed sailing (an avocation GR would share) and the Kennedy clans' touch football games became legendary.
Kennedy made perhaps his boldest move just months after his Inauguration. Since the Soviet Union shocked America by orbiting the first artificial satellite in 1957, it had remained ahead of U.S. efforts in space. In April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the earth. The U.S. succeeded in only a sub-orbital manned flight in May, when Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Nevertheless, that same month, President Kennedy pledged that the U.S. would land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth within the decade.
"Now it is time to take longer strides---time for a great new American enterprise," Kennedy said. He called for new funds and a new dedication, for the goal could only be met if "every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space."
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK made it his mission to slow down the arms race with a nuclear test ban treaty. When negotiations stalled, he made an impassioned speech at American University in June 1963. He spoke of the need for peace:
"I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children," he continued. "Not merely peace for Americans, but peace for all men and women; not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time."
"Total war makes no sense," Kennedy said, repeating the phrase several times, emphasizing devastation so extensive it would be visited on "generations yet unborn." "I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men."
Though he acknowledged the value of dreams and hopes, he advocated an attainable peace "based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions...Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts...For peace is a process, a way of solving problems."
But he refused to believe peace is a hopeless dream. "Our problems are man-made; therefore they can be solved by man."
The most quoted---and plagiarized--- phrases of the speech are these: "For in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
But other things were happening in June 1963. The day after this speech, Alabama Governor George Wallace announced he would personally bar the admission of the first two black students to be enrolled at the University of Alabama under federal court order. This followed weeks of violence in Birmingham.
The Civil Rights struggle had gone public in the mid 1950s, with numerous demonstrations, marches, clashes and acts of violence. The largest demonstration in U.S. history was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, now known as the Civil Rights March of 1962, the occasion of Martin Luther King's most famous "I have a dream" speech.
Though Wallace's threat in 1963 was little more than an act for the TV cameras---when the federal marshal ordered him to stand aside, he did---Kennedy decided to address the nation that very night. With little in the way of prepared text, he delivered a speech on civil rights. Equality is a moral issue, he said, "as old as the scriptures and...as clear as the American Constitution....In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated..." The day before he had urged empathy for the Soviet people; now he asked white Americans to imagine themselves in the place of black Americans. "Who among us then would be content with the counsels of patience and delay?"
Kennedy's civil rights legislation would not become law for a few years, but his American University speech had immediate impact around the world. Soviet Premier Khrushchev told an American representative in Moscow that it was the best speech by an American president since Roosevelt. Negotiations moved swiftly forward. Some six weeks after the American University address, the nuclear test ban treaty was signed.
As Kennedy traveled across America in late fall, he spoke often about the issue of peace, to increasingly enthusiastic response. This was the last image, and the lasting image, held by many Americans and certainly many people around the world.
Then came the unbelievable, horrifying, devastating moment on Friday, November 22. President Kennedy's assassination, the tumultuous events in Dallas that weekend while the nation stopped cold to watch the first televised funeral of a President. In between events, Kennedy's major speeches were re-aired, and the worldwide reaction shown.
Even in death, John F. Kennedy was an important presence in American public dialogue for several more years. For people of GR's generation, the loss of JFK and "the politics of hope" was immediate and devastating: it affected their present. The oldest of my generation, the early baby boomers, were 17 in 1963. Losing JFK was losing a vision of the future, and of our future.
"I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children," he continued. "Not merely peace for Americans, but peace for all men and women; not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time."
"Total war makes no sense," Kennedy said, repeating the phrase several times, emphasizing devastation so extensive it would be visited on "generations yet unborn." "I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men."
Though he acknowledged the value of dreams and hopes, he advocated an attainable peace "based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions...Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts...For peace is a process, a way of solving problems."
But he refused to believe peace is a hopeless dream. "Our problems are man-made; therefore they can be solved by man."
The most quoted---and plagiarized--- phrases of the speech are these: "For in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
But other things were happening in June 1963. The day after this speech, Alabama Governor George Wallace announced he would personally bar the admission of the first two black students to be enrolled at the University of Alabama under federal court order. This followed weeks of violence in Birmingham.
The Civil Rights struggle had gone public in the mid 1950s, with numerous demonstrations, marches, clashes and acts of violence. The largest demonstration in U.S. history was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, now known as the Civil Rights March of 1962, the occasion of Martin Luther King's most famous "I have a dream" speech.
Though Wallace's threat in 1963 was little more than an act for the TV cameras---when the federal marshal ordered him to stand aside, he did---Kennedy decided to address the nation that very night. With little in the way of prepared text, he delivered a speech on civil rights. Equality is a moral issue, he said, "as old as the scriptures and...as clear as the American Constitution....In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated..." The day before he had urged empathy for the Soviet people; now he asked white Americans to imagine themselves in the place of black Americans. "Who among us then would be content with the counsels of patience and delay?"
Kennedy's civil rights legislation would not become law for a few years, but his American University speech had immediate impact around the world. Soviet Premier Khrushchev told an American representative in Moscow that it was the best speech by an American president since Roosevelt. Negotiations moved swiftly forward. Some six weeks after the American University address, the nuclear test ban treaty was signed.
As Kennedy traveled across America in late fall, he spoke often about the issue of peace, to increasingly enthusiastic response. This was the last image, and the lasting image, held by many Americans and certainly many people around the world.
Then came the unbelievable, horrifying, devastating moment on Friday, November 22. President Kennedy's assassination, the tumultuous events in Dallas that weekend while the nation stopped cold to watch the first televised funeral of a President. In between events, Kennedy's major speeches were re-aired, and the worldwide reaction shown.
Even in death, John F. Kennedy was an important presence in American public dialogue for several more years. For people of GR's generation, the loss of JFK and "the politics of hope" was immediate and devastating: it affected their present. The oldest of my generation, the early baby boomers, were 17 in 1963. Losing JFK was losing a vision of the future, and of our future.
Between the time GR submitted his first Star Trek proposal and (two pilots later) the fall of 1966 when the first episode aired, much of what would characterize the second half of the 60s was emerging.
As the decade of the 1960s began, many of the social mores of the 1950s and before held sway. Segregation and overt acts of racism were common throughout America. Though stereotypes based on ethnicity and "national origin" were fading, they were often still openly present. Women were expected to marry and be homemakers. If a woman over 21 even walked down a street alone with no department store in sight, she was in danger of being considered a "streetwalker" (a prostitute.)
Speaking of 21, that was the minimum voting and drinking age in most states. Men were eligible for the draft at 18, and required to register shortly after turning 18. There were deferements for college and graduate school but they weren't automatic; everything was up to the local draft boards, though policy was set by General Hershey, head of the Selective Service in Washington.
Men were expected to marry, buy a house in the suburbs, hold a steady job (working class, lower middle class) or do whatever was necessary to gain raises and promotions, preferably at a large corporation (middle and upper middle class.) Although sexual infidelity was not rare, divorce was. Except for a small percentage of wealthy urbanites, psychological or mental health treatment was unheard of. The sole test of sanity was holding down a job. If you couldn't, then you were crazy and fit for an institution.
It would be at least a decade before homosexuals could admit their preference without instantly endangering their jobs, a place in the community and perhaps their lives.
Some of this was changing by the mid-1960s. The sense of social and sexual liberation, and the dominance of youth culture was expressed in such phenomena as the Beatles and the British Invasion in pop music, and in fashion, Mary Quant's invention of the mini-skirt in 1964.
The Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley (which Captain Kirk would someday claim was where Mr. Spock took too much LDS) was in 1964, and together with earlier student demonstrations against the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in San Francisco, signaled the beginning of what would be many student protests on a number of issues, not only in America but around the world.
Then in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson significantly "escalated" the Vietnam War with bombing and many more American troops, which would continue increasing for the rest of the decade. The first "teach-in" on Vietnam occurred at the University of Michigan in 1965, and quickly spread. By 1966, larger and more widespread protests had begun.
Movies and TV may leave the impression that protests were all emotion and noise. But much of the time was spent in talk, in all areas of protest but especially Vietnam. In discussions of books, of magazine and newspaper articles, of debate on political principles, moral standards and ethics, information on geopolitics and the clash of information on how the war was being conducted and why. There was plenty of emotion, but there also was a lot of logic.
The percentage of active student protestors was relatively small, especially at first, but because the Baby Boom generation was so large, their numbers were impressive. And even though many students agreed with the protestors even if they didn't protest themselves, these actions and issues caused controversy and conflict on campuses. The so-called "generation gap" was beginning between the boomers and their parents, but also within the young generation. From our generation came both the soldiers and the protestors, for the rest of the war. And our generation by and large was the first Star Trek audience.
So a little background on just what the Baby Boom was.
As the battleship Missouri was sailing for Tokyo Bay to accept the surrender of Japan in late August 1945, my parents were in church getting married. I was born the following June, when the number of births shot up significantly for the second straight month. Demographers foresaw something like this in the year after the war ended, but they didn't expect it to continue. They thought the birth rate would decline. The U.S. Census Bureau predicted the country's population would reach 163 million in the year 2000.
But it not only continued, it accelerated, until more than 4.3 million children were born in 1957. There would be around 4 million births per year until 1964, which demographers now mark as the end of the Baby Boom. The U.S. population reached 180 million in 1960.
We were the first generation to grow up with suburbia, television and the highway. Because there were so many of us, the culture seemed to change in response to us at every age. When we started school we overcrowded them, and started a national school-building trend. The consumer economy grew with us, and often because of us. And even though demographics hadn't yet come to the young medium of television, we were a prime audience.
Thanks in part to all the buying and selling these new families generated, America was more prosperous than ever in 1966. When the 1960s began, half the U.S. population was under 30 years old. By the end of the decade, half the population was under 25, with 40% younger than 18.
As the decade of the 1960s began, many of the social mores of the 1950s and before held sway. Segregation and overt acts of racism were common throughout America. Though stereotypes based on ethnicity and "national origin" were fading, they were often still openly present. Women were expected to marry and be homemakers. If a woman over 21 even walked down a street alone with no department store in sight, she was in danger of being considered a "streetwalker" (a prostitute.)
Speaking of 21, that was the minimum voting and drinking age in most states. Men were eligible for the draft at 18, and required to register shortly after turning 18. There were deferements for college and graduate school but they weren't automatic; everything was up to the local draft boards, though policy was set by General Hershey, head of the Selective Service in Washington.
Men were expected to marry, buy a house in the suburbs, hold a steady job (working class, lower middle class) or do whatever was necessary to gain raises and promotions, preferably at a large corporation (middle and upper middle class.) Although sexual infidelity was not rare, divorce was. Except for a small percentage of wealthy urbanites, psychological or mental health treatment was unheard of. The sole test of sanity was holding down a job. If you couldn't, then you were crazy and fit for an institution.
It would be at least a decade before homosexuals could admit their preference without instantly endangering their jobs, a place in the community and perhaps their lives.
Some of this was changing by the mid-1960s. The sense of social and sexual liberation, and the dominance of youth culture was expressed in such phenomena as the Beatles and the British Invasion in pop music, and in fashion, Mary Quant's invention of the mini-skirt in 1964.
The Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley (which Captain Kirk would someday claim was where Mr. Spock took too much LDS) was in 1964, and together with earlier student demonstrations against the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in San Francisco, signaled the beginning of what would be many student protests on a number of issues, not only in America but around the world.
Then in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson significantly "escalated" the Vietnam War with bombing and many more American troops, which would continue increasing for the rest of the decade. The first "teach-in" on Vietnam occurred at the University of Michigan in 1965, and quickly spread. By 1966, larger and more widespread protests had begun.
Movies and TV may leave the impression that protests were all emotion and noise. But much of the time was spent in talk, in all areas of protest but especially Vietnam. In discussions of books, of magazine and newspaper articles, of debate on political principles, moral standards and ethics, information on geopolitics and the clash of information on how the war was being conducted and why. There was plenty of emotion, but there also was a lot of logic.
The percentage of active student protestors was relatively small, especially at first, but because the Baby Boom generation was so large, their numbers were impressive. And even though many students agreed with the protestors even if they didn't protest themselves, these actions and issues caused controversy and conflict on campuses. The so-called "generation gap" was beginning between the boomers and their parents, but also within the young generation. From our generation came both the soldiers and the protestors, for the rest of the war. And our generation by and large was the first Star Trek audience.
So a little background on just what the Baby Boom was.
As the battleship Missouri was sailing for Tokyo Bay to accept the surrender of Japan in late August 1945, my parents were in church getting married. I was born the following June, when the number of births shot up significantly for the second straight month. Demographers foresaw something like this in the year after the war ended, but they didn't expect it to continue. They thought the birth rate would decline. The U.S. Census Bureau predicted the country's population would reach 163 million in the year 2000.
But it not only continued, it accelerated, until more than 4.3 million children were born in 1957. There would be around 4 million births per year until 1964, which demographers now mark as the end of the Baby Boom. The U.S. population reached 180 million in 1960.
We were the first generation to grow up with suburbia, television and the highway. Because there were so many of us, the culture seemed to change in response to us at every age. When we started school we overcrowded them, and started a national school-building trend. The consumer economy grew with us, and often because of us. And even though demographics hadn't yet come to the young medium of television, we were a prime audience.
Thanks in part to all the buying and selling these new families generated, America was more prosperous than ever in 1966. When the 1960s began, half the U.S. population was under 30 years old. By the end of the decade, half the population was under 25, with 40% younger than 18.
1966
In January, the Director of the Selective Service (the Draft) announced that tests and class standings would again become criteria for deferment of college students from the draft.
Pope Paul VI appeals to the governments of North and South Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union, to come to a peaceful settlement in Vietnam.
In February, the U.S. announced its forces suffered more than 1200 casualties in Vietnam during January, an increase of 300 over December. They included 176 dead, 1049 wounded, 17 missing.
In March, astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott splashed down safely in an emergency landing of the Gemini 8 spacecraft, after it lost primary maneuvering power while docked in orbit with an Agena space vehicle.
Consumer prices rose sharply for the second month in a row.
In the week ending April 9, there were more U.S. soldiers killed than their South Vietnamese allies for the first time since the start of the war. More U.S. troops were killed in during the first 99 days of 1966 than in all of 1965---1361.
In May, California and Nevada passed the first state laws in the nation prohibiting possession of LSD. Ground fighting in Vietnam took the highest toll in American casualties in a single week since the war began.
In June, the Surveyor 1 spacecraft made a successful soft landing on the Moon, and sent back high quality photos. Gemini 9 's mission was partly successful. The U.S and Soviet Union agreed to meet in Geneva to review draft treaties on the peaceful use of outer space.
In July, Gemini 10 had a successful 3 day mission. Large demonstrations protesting the U.S. in the Vietnam war were held in England, France and Japan.
In July, race riots erupted in Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Cleveland, Omaha and several other cities. None is as devastating as the Watts riots the previous summer, which began the pattern of looting and burning buildings. Some 15,000 law enforcement officials and 12,000 National Guard troops were called in. Thousands were arrested and 34 people were killed, most of them black, due (said an investigative commission later) predominately to inexperienced members of the Guard. In 1966, however, at least two violent disruptions began when gangs of whites attacked black citizens (in Baltimore) and Civil Rights demonstrators (in Chicago.)
In August, a 25 year old architecture student named Charles Whitman, took a small arsenal of weapons to the top of a tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on the campus below. He killed 14 people and wounded 33.
The Defense Department set the October draft quota at 46,200 men, the largest for a single month since Korean war. The Department said it was necessary because of a sharp drop in volunteer enlistment.
In January, the Director of the Selective Service (the Draft) announced that tests and class standings would again become criteria for deferment of college students from the draft.
Pope Paul VI appeals to the governments of North and South Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union, to come to a peaceful settlement in Vietnam.
In February, the U.S. announced its forces suffered more than 1200 casualties in Vietnam during January, an increase of 300 over December. They included 176 dead, 1049 wounded, 17 missing.
In March, astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott splashed down safely in an emergency landing of the Gemini 8 spacecraft, after it lost primary maneuvering power while docked in orbit with an Agena space vehicle.
Consumer prices rose sharply for the second month in a row.
In the week ending April 9, there were more U.S. soldiers killed than their South Vietnamese allies for the first time since the start of the war. More U.S. troops were killed in during the first 99 days of 1966 than in all of 1965---1361.
In May, California and Nevada passed the first state laws in the nation prohibiting possession of LSD. Ground fighting in Vietnam took the highest toll in American casualties in a single week since the war began.
In June, the Surveyor 1 spacecraft made a successful soft landing on the Moon, and sent back high quality photos. Gemini 9 's mission was partly successful. The U.S and Soviet Union agreed to meet in Geneva to review draft treaties on the peaceful use of outer space.
In July, Gemini 10 had a successful 3 day mission. Large demonstrations protesting the U.S. in the Vietnam war were held in England, France and Japan.
In July, race riots erupted in Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Cleveland, Omaha and several other cities. None is as devastating as the Watts riots the previous summer, which began the pattern of looting and burning buildings. Some 15,000 law enforcement officials and 12,000 National Guard troops were called in. Thousands were arrested and 34 people were killed, most of them black, due (said an investigative commission later) predominately to inexperienced members of the Guard. In 1966, however, at least two violent disruptions began when gangs of whites attacked black citizens (in Baltimore) and Civil Rights demonstrators (in Chicago.)
In August, a 25 year old architecture student named Charles Whitman, took a small arsenal of weapons to the top of a tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on the campus below. He killed 14 people and wounded 33.
The Defense Department set the October draft quota at 46,200 men, the largest for a single month since Korean war. The Department said it was necessary because of a sharp drop in volunteer enlistment.
On September 6: Prime Minister Verwoerd of the Republic of South Africa is stabbed to death by an assassin as he sits in the nation's parliament chambers. South Africa practices apartheid, which severely limits the rights of the black population. Both the Prime Minister and the assassin are white.
On September 8, 1966, Thursday at 8:30 pm, "Star Trek" airs its first episode on NBC, "The Man Trap." Its competition on ABC is "The Tammy Grimes Show" and "Bewitched." On CBS, "My Three Sons" and the CBS Thursday Night Movie. This season for the first time, nearly all prime time network TV shows are broadcast in color.
September 12: Gemini 11 lifts off from Cape Kennedy, Florida. During the three day mission, astronauts Richard F. Gordon, Jr. and Charles Conrad, Jr. pilot the craft to a record altitude for a manned vehicle. The mission ends on September 15 with splashdown in the Atlantic, just one and a half miles from the recovery ship. Millions of Americans watch the landing and recovery on live television.
Also on September 12: South Vietnamese go to the polls to elect a 117 member assembly to draft a new constitution. American supporters point to the 75% turnout as proof that democracy is working.
Also on September 12: A mob of whites armed with ax handles, chains and metal pipes attack black students attempting to integrate two neighborhood schools in Grenada, Mississippi. The violence continues on September 13, and several police officers will later be charged with willful dereliction of duty in allowing the attacks on blacks to continue, and 13 men will be prosecuted for violating the civil rights of the children. The mob also attacks TV reporters.
On September 8, 1966, Thursday at 8:30 pm, "Star Trek" airs its first episode on NBC, "The Man Trap." Its competition on ABC is "The Tammy Grimes Show" and "Bewitched." On CBS, "My Three Sons" and the CBS Thursday Night Movie. This season for the first time, nearly all prime time network TV shows are broadcast in color.
September 12: Gemini 11 lifts off from Cape Kennedy, Florida. During the three day mission, astronauts Richard F. Gordon, Jr. and Charles Conrad, Jr. pilot the craft to a record altitude for a manned vehicle. The mission ends on September 15 with splashdown in the Atlantic, just one and a half miles from the recovery ship. Millions of Americans watch the landing and recovery on live television.
Also on September 12: South Vietnamese go to the polls to elect a 117 member assembly to draft a new constitution. American supporters point to the 75% turnout as proof that democracy is working.
Also on September 12: A mob of whites armed with ax handles, chains and metal pipes attack black students attempting to integrate two neighborhood schools in Grenada, Mississippi. The violence continues on September 13, and several police officers will later be charged with willful dereliction of duty in allowing the attacks on blacks to continue, and 13 men will be prosecuted for violating the civil rights of the children. The mob also attacks TV reporters.
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