WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 Welcome back to today's deep dive. Today, we're 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:07.219 unpacking a, well, a massive stack of historical 00:00:07.219 --> 00:00:09.699 research surrounding a group of people you have 00:00:09.699 --> 00:00:11.960 definitely heard of. Oh, absolutely. But you 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:14.039 likely misunderstand them. We are talking about 00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:16.719 the lost generation. Yeah, it's a huge topic. 00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:19.440 It is. And our mission here isn't just to skim 00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:21.980 the surface or rely on the usual cliche. Not 00:00:21.980 --> 00:00:24.379 just the jazz and the literature. Exactly. We 00:00:24.379 --> 00:00:27.620 want to map out the entire chaotic life cycle 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:31.160 of this cohort. we're pulling from a incredibly 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:34.299 detailed Wikipedia article covering the demographics, 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:37.679 the history, and the massive cultural impact 00:00:37.679 --> 00:00:40.119 of the very first generation to actually come 00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:43.170 of age in the 20th century. It's a crucial demographic 00:00:43.170 --> 00:00:45.829 to explore, you know. The world they built, mostly 00:00:45.829 --> 00:00:48.450 out of sheer necessity and survival, is the foundational 00:00:48.450 --> 00:00:50.189 framework of the world you are still navigating 00:00:50.189 --> 00:00:52.630 today. Yeah. But to understand them, we have 00:00:52.630 --> 00:00:54.770 to establish exactly who we are talking about. 00:00:55.270 --> 00:00:56.990 Demographically skipping, this cohort consists 00:00:56.990 --> 00:00:59.590 of people born roughly between the years 1883 00:00:59.590 --> 00:01:02.030 and 1900. So these are people who spent their 00:01:02.030 --> 00:01:04.769 formative childhood years entirely in the late 00:01:04.769 --> 00:01:07.829 19th century. And then they just collided headfirst 00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:10.150 into the 20th century, just as they were hitting 00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:14.349 young adulthood in the 1900s and 1910s. OK, let's 00:01:14.349 --> 00:01:17.150 unpack this. Sure. Where does that specific term 00:01:17.150 --> 00:01:20.129 actually come from? Because Lost Generation sounds 00:01:20.129 --> 00:01:23.810 incredibly poetic, but it also carried this heavy, 00:01:24.109 --> 00:01:26.870 tragic weight. Did they actually see themselves 00:01:26.870 --> 00:01:29.849 as lost or was this a label imposed on them? 00:01:30.170 --> 00:01:33.069 It was very much imposed and I mean the origin 00:01:33.069 --> 00:01:36.769 is surprisingly mundane. Really? Yeah. The phrase 00:01:36.769 --> 00:01:39.430 is widely credited to the American writer Gertrude 00:01:39.430 --> 00:01:41.870 Stein and it actually started with a broken car. 00:01:42.140 --> 00:01:45.280 Wait, broken car? Yep. Stein was at a French 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:47.620 garage and the young mechanic working on her 00:01:47.620 --> 00:01:49.459 vehicle just wasn't fixing it fast enough for 00:01:49.459 --> 00:01:51.760 her liking. Oh, wow. And the garage owner became 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:53.780 intensely frustrated and started berating the 00:01:53.780 --> 00:01:56.099 young man. He was shouting that all of these 00:01:56.099 --> 00:01:58.500 young war veterans were a generation per due, 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:01.439 a lost generation. Wow. He felt they lacked focus, 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:03.700 they lacked discipline. It's just fascinating 00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:06.500 that a mechanic's frustrated rant became the 00:02:06.500 --> 00:02:09.400 defining label for literally millions of people. 00:02:09.900 --> 00:02:11.939 But Stein takes that phrase and runs with it, 00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:15.319 right? She does. She later repeated the story 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:18.000 to a young Ernest Hemingway, basically pointing 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.639 a finger at him and his peers. Like, this is 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:23.520 what you are? Exactly. Saying, that is what you 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:25.419 are. That's what you all are, all of you young 00:02:25.419 --> 00:02:27.740 people who served in the war. You are a lost 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:30.590 generation. And then Hemingway just catapulted 00:02:30.590 --> 00:02:33.150 it. Right. He catapulted the phrase into the 00:02:33.150 --> 00:02:35.990 global lexicon by using it as an epigraph for 00:02:35.990 --> 00:02:39.930 his 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises. Though if 00:02:39.930 --> 00:02:42.490 we look closely at the text regarding Hemingway's 00:02:42.490 --> 00:02:45.569 own reflections, he pushed back against that 00:02:45.569 --> 00:02:48.409 label quite a bit later in life. He did. He acknowledged 00:02:48.409 --> 00:02:50.909 that his generation was deeply battered, sure, 00:02:51.449 --> 00:02:53.610 but he completely rejected the idea that they 00:02:53.610 --> 00:02:56.849 were entirely lost. He famously asked who was 00:02:56.849 --> 00:02:59.150 calling who a lost generation. Yeah. He felt 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:01.689 there was a profound resilience there that the 00:03:01.689 --> 00:03:03.930 older generation just completely ignored. And 00:03:03.930 --> 00:03:06.169 he was right to point that out. To truly grasp 00:03:06.169 --> 00:03:08.409 that resilience and, you know, why they were 00:03:08.409 --> 00:03:10.330 so battered in the first place, we really have 00:03:10.330 --> 00:03:12.150 to look at the world that formed them. Right. 00:03:12.370 --> 00:03:14.610 Their childhood. Let's set the scene of their 00:03:14.610 --> 00:03:18.849 upbringing in the 1880s and 1890s. When you picture 00:03:18.849 --> 00:03:22.710 this era... You have to strip away that sepia 00:03:22.710 --> 00:03:25.270 -toned romantic nostalgia we all have. Oh, totally. 00:03:25.729 --> 00:03:29.330 This was a time defined by incredibly rigid conservative 00:03:29.330 --> 00:03:32.750 social values. You had massive multi -generational 00:03:32.750 --> 00:03:35.449 households. It was completely standard for three 00:03:35.449 --> 00:03:38.490 generations to share a single, often very cramped 00:03:38.490 --> 00:03:40.590 home. Which meant children were under constant 00:03:40.590 --> 00:03:42.969 strict surveillance. Always. Numerous elders 00:03:42.969 --> 00:03:45.710 watching your every move. And the concept of 00:03:45.710 --> 00:03:48.889 child rearing was just vastly different. Physically 00:03:48.889 --> 00:03:51.030 beating children for minor infractions wasn't 00:03:51.030 --> 00:03:53.229 viewed as abusive. Not at all. It was actively 00:03:53.229 --> 00:03:56.030 championed. It was seen as a responsible caregiver's 00:03:56.030 --> 00:03:58.889 basic duty to mold a civilized adult. And stepping 00:03:58.889 --> 00:04:01.509 outside those strict households, the physical 00:04:01.509 --> 00:04:03.830 environment they were navigating was this bizarre 00:04:03.830 --> 00:04:06.849 transitional mix of incredible industrial progress 00:04:06.849 --> 00:04:09.509 and daily existential peril. Yeah, progress and 00:04:09.509 --> 00:04:11.509 peril. For instance, you have massive modern 00:04:11.509 --> 00:04:14.180 sewer systems finally being excavated. in major 00:04:14.180 --> 00:04:16.680 cities. Right, to halt the spread of waterborne 00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:19.199 disease like cholera, society was just beginning 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:22.649 to grasp the science of hygiene. Exactly. But 00:04:22.649 --> 00:04:24.709 simultaneously, the adoption of electricity in 00:04:24.709 --> 00:04:27.790 the home was incredibly slow. So during the formative 00:04:27.790 --> 00:04:30.670 years of this entire generation, they are watching 00:04:30.670 --> 00:04:33.589 modern infrastructure being built outside. But 00:04:33.589 --> 00:04:35.829 reading and eating by the flickering light of 00:04:35.829 --> 00:04:38.790 gas lamps and candles inside. It's such a stark 00:04:38.790 --> 00:04:41.449 contrast. And the health statistics of that era 00:04:41.449 --> 00:04:43.930 from the source material, they're just staggering. 00:04:44.269 --> 00:04:47.230 Oh, infant mortality was a brutal everyday reality. 00:04:47.370 --> 00:04:50.610 In the United States in the year 1900 one in 00:04:50.610 --> 00:04:53.129 ten babies died before reaching their first birthday 00:04:53.129 --> 00:04:55.170 and what's deeply sobering about that statistic 00:04:55.170 --> 00:04:57.670 is that Historically speaking, it represented 00:04:57.670 --> 00:05:00.069 a massive triumph. Which sounds crazy to us. 00:05:00.170 --> 00:05:02.850 It does. But just a century earlier, in 1800, 00:05:03.230 --> 00:05:05.490 early childhood mortality was closer to one in 00:05:05.490 --> 00:05:07.949 three. So this cohort was surviving at better 00:05:07.949 --> 00:05:10.189 rates than any generation before them, but death 00:05:10.189 --> 00:05:12.610 was still an ever -present specter in their childhood 00:05:12.610 --> 00:05:15.009 homes. But alongside that hardship, they experienced 00:05:15.009 --> 00:05:18.170 a massive leap forward in education. Now, the 00:05:18.170 --> 00:05:21.009 methodology was incredibly rigid. Road memorization 00:05:21.009 --> 00:05:23.569 was absolute king. Yeah, just standing at a desk 00:05:23.569 --> 00:05:26.040 and repeating facts. over and over until they 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:28.699 were permanently drilled into your brain. But 00:05:28.699 --> 00:05:31.639 as a societal mechanism, it was incredibly effective 00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:35.860 for basic illiteracy. By 1900, illiteracy had 00:05:35.860 --> 00:05:38.600 plummeted drastically. It was under 11 % in the 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:42.899 US, around 3 % in Britain, and an astonishing 00:05:42.899 --> 00:05:45.300 1 % in Germany. But we should probably clarify 00:05:45.300 --> 00:05:47.720 the limits of that education. While elementary 00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:50.199 schooling and basic literacy were becoming universally 00:05:50.199 --> 00:05:52.779 accessible, secondary school was still a massive 00:05:52.779 --> 00:05:55.180 luxury. Reserved mostly for the elite. Exactly. 00:05:55.519 --> 00:05:58.540 Only 11 % of American teenagers actually attended 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:00.939 high school at the turn of the century. In Britain, 00:06:01.279 --> 00:06:03.500 working class kids were legally leaving school 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:06.279 at 12 or 13. To enter the factories or the mines. 00:06:06.379 --> 00:06:08.680 Right. So they could read the newspaper, but 00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:10.920 they were thrust into adult labor incredibly 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:13.740 early. Yet, paradoxically, they were also the 00:06:13.740 --> 00:06:16.740 first kids to really experience childhood as 00:06:16.740 --> 00:06:19.959 a distinct cater -to phase of life. What's fascinating 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:22.339 here is that this was the very first generation 00:06:22.339 --> 00:06:25.959 to experience a mass -produced, commodified childhood. 00:06:26.220 --> 00:06:29.399 Prior to the 1890s, toys were artisanal, fragile, 00:06:29.660 --> 00:06:32.680 and exclusively for the wealthy. But industrial 00:06:32.680 --> 00:06:35.019 mass production changed the entire paradigm. 00:06:35.420 --> 00:06:38.240 In 1893, the British company William Britten 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:41.420 invented hollow cast metal toy soldiers. Making 00:06:41.420 --> 00:06:44.740 them cheap, durable, and widely available. Exactly. 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:48.339 The early 1900s brings the debut of the teddy 00:06:48.339 --> 00:06:50.779 bear. You have street vendors in major cities 00:06:50.779 --> 00:06:53.519 selling tin -plated penny toys for just a single 00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:55.740 coin. Making them actually accessible to working 00:06:55.740 --> 00:06:58.139 -class children. And they actually had physical 00:06:58.139 --> 00:07:01.500 spaces built specifically for play. Oh, the parks? 00:07:01.699 --> 00:07:04.120 Yes, this is the era where rapidly expanding 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:06.360 industrial towns suddenly started carving out 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:08.680 public parks. These were deliberately designed 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:11.560 to give people trapped in crowded, smog -filled 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:14.259 cities some green space. Allowing kids from varying 00:07:14.259 --> 00:07:16.680 backgrounds to actually interact and play together, 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:18.810 completely outside the the watchful eyes of that 00:07:18.810 --> 00:07:20.810 three generation household. So you have this 00:07:20.810 --> 00:07:22.769 cohort growing up in a world that is rapidly 00:07:22.769 --> 00:07:25.029 becoming more literate, more consumer focused, 00:07:25.089 --> 00:07:27.250 and more media saturated. You're reading mass 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:29.449 circulation magazines, playing with factory made 00:07:29.449 --> 00:07:32.430 toys. They are even witnessing the debut of silent 00:07:32.430 --> 00:07:35.889 moving pictures. They were entirely primed for 00:07:35.889 --> 00:07:39.350 an optimistic modern future driven by technological 00:07:39.350 --> 00:07:42.050 miracles. But here's where it gets really interesting. 00:07:42.750 --> 00:07:45.730 Because all of that industrial progress. The 00:07:45.730 --> 00:07:48.209 factories that stamped out their penny toys the 00:07:48.209 --> 00:07:51.029 engines that powered their expanding cities That 00:07:51.029 --> 00:07:53.949 was all about to be redirected into a machine 00:07:53.949 --> 00:07:56.709 built entirely for destruction Yeah, they hit 00:07:56.709 --> 00:07:58.829 their young adulthood and they walked straight 00:07:58.829 --> 00:08:01.980 into the meat grinder World War one It is the 00:08:01.980 --> 00:08:04.600 absolute defining event of their lifespan, and 00:08:04.600 --> 00:08:07.079 the sheer mathematical scale of the conflict 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:09.379 is almost impossible to fully comprehend. It 00:08:09.379 --> 00:08:11.800 really is. Globally, more than 70 million people 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.279 were mobilized into military service. 70 million. 00:08:14.420 --> 00:08:16.560 Eight and a half million soldiers were killed. 00:08:17.060 --> 00:08:19.819 21 million were physically wounded, many with 00:08:19.819 --> 00:08:22.899 permanent disfiguring injuries, and another two 00:08:22.899 --> 00:08:25.180 million died simply from disease in the camps 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:27.420 and trenches. And the mobilization rates in Europe 00:08:27.420 --> 00:08:30.360 specifically are staggering. Eighty -one percent 00:08:30.360 --> 00:08:33.399 of aged men in France and Germany served. Think 00:08:33.399 --> 00:08:36.080 about what that does to a society. Right, when 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.700 over four -fifths of an entire demographic of 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:40.620 young men is suddenly pulled from their homes 00:08:40.620 --> 00:08:43.700 and fed into trench warfare. It was a societal 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:46.379 mobilization unlike anything in human history. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:49.100 Britain operated a bit differently at first, 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:51.639 relying strictly on volunteers until conscription 00:08:51.639 --> 00:08:54.919 became necessary in 1916. But even with that 00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:57.460 delay... Five million British men served out 00:08:57.460 --> 00:09:00.559 of a total population of just 46 million. And 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:03.000 we have to look globally, too. The European powers 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:05.700 drafted millions of men from their colonial empires 00:09:05.700 --> 00:09:08.580 across India, Africa, and beyond. This wasn't 00:09:08.580 --> 00:09:12.080 just a European tragedy. It was a global extraction 00:09:12.080 --> 00:09:14.720 of youth. And the psychological dissonance they 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:16.860 experienced must have been completely shattering. 00:09:17.149 --> 00:09:19.309 Think about how they were raised. They were raised 00:09:19.309 --> 00:09:22.169 on strict Victorian ideals of honor, cavalry 00:09:22.169 --> 00:09:24.509 charges, and heroism. Right. They were taught 00:09:24.509 --> 00:09:27.169 that war was a noble path to redemption and a 00:09:27.169 --> 00:09:29.610 true test of a man's greatness. They marched 00:09:29.610 --> 00:09:33.190 off in pristine uniforms, expecting glory. And 00:09:33.190 --> 00:09:35.809 instead they were met with endless industrialized 00:09:35.809 --> 00:09:39.629 slaughter. poison gas, relentless artillery barrages, 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:42.389 machine guns, and the muddy, disease -ridden 00:09:42.389 --> 00:09:46.029 horror of the trenches. Years of agonizing pain 00:09:46.029 --> 00:09:48.509 that seemed to yield zero strategic progress. 00:09:49.350 --> 00:09:52.250 It completely shattered their foundational worldview, 00:09:52.950 --> 00:09:55.809 creating a profound generational disillusionment. 00:09:55.970 --> 00:09:58.149 And that disillusionment wasn't confined to the 00:09:58.149 --> 00:10:00.830 battlefields. The women of this cohort saw their 00:10:00.830 --> 00:10:03.929 realities forcibly and radically reshaped overnight. 00:10:04.570 --> 00:10:06.750 Absolutely. With the men gone, women were pushed 00:10:06.750 --> 00:10:09.129 into heavy industry to keep the war machine running. 00:10:09.570 --> 00:10:11.669 They were suddenly manufacturing high -explosive 00:10:11.669 --> 00:10:14.769 munitions, building ships, engaging in intense 00:10:14.769 --> 00:10:17.429 manual labor. While thousands of others volunteered 00:10:17.429 --> 00:10:20.450 as frontline nurses or managed massive refugee 00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:23.789 crises. But alongside that sudden necessary independence 00:10:23.789 --> 00:10:26.669 came an immense wave of tragedy. The sheer volume 00:10:26.669 --> 00:10:28.649 of war widows changed the democratic graphic 00:10:28.649 --> 00:10:31.590 makeup of entire nations. You had millions of 00:10:31.590 --> 00:10:33.830 women left to raise children entirely alone, 00:10:34.309 --> 00:10:36.490 heavily reliant on meager government pensions. 00:10:36.809 --> 00:10:38.350 And those pensions, according to the research, 00:10:38.450 --> 00:10:40.750 were essentially tools of state control. Yeah, 00:10:40.830 --> 00:10:43.610 that part is so dark. A widow's financial survival 00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:47.009 came with heavy moral strings attached. The authorities 00:10:47.009 --> 00:10:50.789 could literally revoke a woman's pension if she 00:10:50.789 --> 00:10:52.769 engaged in what the government deemed frowned 00:10:52.769 --> 00:10:55.809 upon behavior. Precisely. If they were seen with 00:10:55.809 --> 00:10:58.370 another man or if they remarried, their financial 00:10:58.370 --> 00:11:02.529 lifeline was cut. The grief, compounded by intense 00:11:02.529 --> 00:11:05.889 financial pressure, drove many into severe depression. 00:11:06.629 --> 00:11:08.990 Furthermore, the catastrophic loss of young men 00:11:08.990 --> 00:11:11.389 meant that millions of single women simply could 00:11:11.389 --> 00:11:14.120 not marry. The traditional Victorian path of 00:11:14.120 --> 00:11:16.779 finding a husband and keeping a home was no longer 00:11:16.779 --> 00:11:19.259 a mathematical possibility. This demographic 00:11:19.259 --> 00:11:22.039 reality essentially forced an acceleration of 00:11:22.039 --> 00:11:24.940 women seeking permanent careers and greater societal 00:11:24.940 --> 00:11:27.159 independence. And just as they're processing 00:11:27.159 --> 00:11:29.919 the end of this apocalyptic war, they get hit 00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:32.340 with a devastating double whammy. The Spanish 00:11:32.340 --> 00:11:35.159 Flu. The late 1910s brings the Spanish Flu pandemic. 00:11:35.580 --> 00:11:38.419 And the cruelest evolutionary twist of this specific 00:11:38.419 --> 00:11:41.519 virus was its target demographic. It didn't primarily 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:44.299 kill the elderly or the immunocompromised children? 00:11:44.740 --> 00:11:47.759 No. It triggered an overreaction in strong immune 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:50.620 systems, meaning it specifically targeted and 00:11:50.620 --> 00:11:53.659 killed otherwise healthy young adults. The exact 00:11:53.659 --> 00:11:56.440 same demographic that had miraculously survived 00:11:56.440 --> 00:11:58.659 the trenches was now suffocating in hospital 00:11:58.659 --> 00:12:00.440 beds. When you look at the sequence of events, 00:12:00.580 --> 00:12:03.570 it's almost unbelievable. You take a generation 00:12:03.570 --> 00:12:06.950 raised with strict conservative Victorian rules. 00:12:07.789 --> 00:12:11.269 You feed them into a mechanized global war that 00:12:11.269 --> 00:12:14.789 destroys their belief in human progress. You 00:12:14.789 --> 00:12:17.950 hit them with a deadly targeted pandemic. How 00:12:17.950 --> 00:12:20.529 does a collective psyche respond to that level 00:12:20.529 --> 00:12:23.769 of compounded unimaginable trauma? They rebel 00:12:23.769 --> 00:12:26.889 utterly and completely. That trauma response 00:12:26.889 --> 00:12:28.970 leads directly to the cultural explosion of the 00:12:28.970 --> 00:12:31.129 Roaring Twenties. They survived the unimaginable, 00:12:31.230 --> 00:12:33.269 so they collectively decided that the old rules, 00:12:33.690 --> 00:12:35.450 the rules of the generations that sent them to 00:12:35.450 --> 00:12:37.690 die simply didn't apply anymore. You see, this 00:12:37.690 --> 00:12:39.870 vividly embodied in the rise of the Flapper, 00:12:39.950 --> 00:12:42.769 this wasn't just a fashion trend. It was a visceral 00:12:42.769 --> 00:12:45.090 physical rebellion against the restrictive norms 00:12:45.090 --> 00:12:47.830 of their mothers and grandmothers. They violently 00:12:47.830 --> 00:12:49.929 rejected the Victorian silhouette. They chopped 00:12:49.929 --> 00:12:52.590 off their hair into short bobs. They wore significantly 00:12:52.590 --> 00:12:54.629 shorter dresses that allowed them to move and 00:12:54.629 --> 00:12:57.950 dance. They applied heavy, visible makeup, which 00:12:57.950 --> 00:13:00.350 just a decade prior had been strictly associated 00:13:00.350 --> 00:13:03.309 with sex work or the lower classes. They embraced 00:13:03.309 --> 00:13:05.789 a radical new code of behavior defined by reckless 00:13:05.789 --> 00:13:09.169 partying, public smoking, and overt sexuality. 00:13:09.289 --> 00:13:11.710 They were operating on pure existential dread 00:13:11.710 --> 00:13:14.330 disguised as a party. Exactly. The mentality 00:13:14.330 --> 00:13:17.720 was we could die tomorrow. We literally watched 00:13:17.720 --> 00:13:20.740 millions of our peers die yesterday, so we are 00:13:20.740 --> 00:13:22.820 going to wring every drop of life out of today. 00:13:23.340 --> 00:13:25.639 And this sentiment birthed some of the most enduring 00:13:25.639 --> 00:13:28.360 literature of the 20th century. You have the 00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:31.159 famous American expatriate writers congregating 00:13:31.159 --> 00:13:33.519 in Paris. You have Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, 00:13:33.679 --> 00:13:35.860 John Just Pasos. The central themes of their 00:13:35.860 --> 00:13:38.220 work perfectly capture the hollow core of this 00:13:38.220 --> 00:13:41.259 era. Their novels focus heavily on decadence 00:13:41.259 --> 00:13:43.480 and the incredibly frivolous, almost frantic 00:13:43.480 --> 00:13:45.759 lifestyle of the wealthy. But underneath the 00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:48.519 jazz and the endless flowing champagne, there 00:13:48.519 --> 00:13:52.279 is a profound aching emptiness. A recurring motif 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:55.639 is the total death of the American dream or the 00:13:55.639 --> 00:13:58.080 realization that traditional ideals of success 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:01.200 are entirely morally bankrupt. You see that so 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:04.179 crystal clear in Fitzgerald's great Gatsby. The 00:14:04.179 --> 00:14:06.980 narrator, Nick Carraway, gets swept up in these 00:14:06.980 --> 00:14:09.419 lavish, incredible parties. But by the end of 00:14:09.419 --> 00:14:12.120 the summer, the illusion completely shatters. 00:14:12.379 --> 00:14:15.299 He looks around and realizes the absolute moral 00:14:15.299 --> 00:14:17.679 corruption and carelessness of the people around 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:21.299 him. It's all a glittering facade over a rotting 00:14:21.299 --> 00:14:23.600 core. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:26.559 this literary movement perfectly mirrored the 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:29.200 spirit of the war survivors. That initial quote 00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:32.360 from Gertrude Stein defining them as disoriented, 00:14:32.679 --> 00:14:35.580 wandering, directionless. That is exactly the 00:14:35.580 --> 00:14:37.679 psychological profile of the protagonists in 00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:39.919 1920s literature. They are wandering through 00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:42.740 a fractured post -war world desperately trying 00:14:42.740 --> 00:14:44.980 to find meaning where all the old systems of 00:14:44.980 --> 00:14:47.139 meaning have been obliterated. But a society 00:14:47.139 --> 00:14:50.080 running on pure adrenaline and credit can't sustain 00:14:50.080 --> 00:14:52.779 itself forever. Definitely not. The wild party 00:14:52.779 --> 00:14:55.259 of the 1920s came to a brutal screeching halt. 00:14:56.159 --> 00:14:59.360 In 1929, the stock market crashes, initiating 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.240 the Great Depression. So this generation, now 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:04.879 entering their midlife, suddenly faces a catastrophic 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:07.879 global economic collapse. The stability they 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:10.580 thought they had finally achieved just evaporates. 00:15:11.059 --> 00:15:13.879 Unemployment skyrockets, global economic output 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:16.580 collapses, and bread lines become a common sight. 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:19.960 And during this deeply unstable, desperate decade 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:24.179 of the 1930s, a new technology completely revolutionizes 00:15:24.179 --> 00:15:26.960 how information and culture are consumed. The 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:29.779 mass market radio. By the end of the 1930s, the 00:15:29.779 --> 00:15:32.539 vast majority of Western households had a radio 00:15:32.539 --> 00:15:34.799 in their living room. It was an incredible source 00:15:34.799 --> 00:15:37.320 of comfort, bringing daily soap operas, live 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:40.559 sports, and real -time news directly into the 00:15:40.559 --> 00:15:43.799 home. But dangerously. It also created a direct, 00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:46.919 intimate channel for autocratic regimes to broadcast 00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:49.659 political propaganda straight to a desperate, 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:52.240 economically ruined populace. And the geopolitical 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:54.399 shifts happening around them were truly seismic. 00:15:54.580 --> 00:15:56.500 Empires that had dominated for centuries were 00:15:56.500 --> 00:15:59.019 actively dissolving. The United States was cementing 00:15:59.019 --> 00:16:01.879 its rise as a global superpower. The Soviet Union 00:16:01.879 --> 00:16:03.700 had officially formed out of the bloody Russian 00:16:03.700 --> 00:16:07.039 Revolution, and fascism was taking deep, terrifying 00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:09.850 root in places like Germany and Italy. It's a 00:16:09.850 --> 00:16:13.149 bizarre historical reality that this single demographic 00:16:13.149 --> 00:16:16.269 cohort produced world -altering figures across 00:16:16.269 --> 00:16:19.049 the entire political spectrum. Yeah, the list 00:16:19.049 --> 00:16:21.350 is wild. You have leaders like Harry S. Truman 00:16:21.350 --> 00:16:23.870 and Dwight D. Eisenhower. But from this exact 00:16:23.870 --> 00:16:26.929 same generation, you also get Adolf Hitler, Benito 00:16:26.929 --> 00:16:30.149 Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Winston Churchill, and 00:16:30.149 --> 00:16:32.649 Mahatma Gandhi. The historical consensus points 00:16:32.649 --> 00:16:35.330 to the heavy lingering resentment over the World 00:16:35.330 --> 00:16:38.049 War One peace settlements as the primary fuel 00:16:38.049 --> 00:16:41.009 that allowed totalitarian dictatorships to successfully 00:16:41.009 --> 00:16:43.990 exploit economic anxiety and take root in the 00:16:43.990 --> 00:16:46.490 1930s. Which is reporting what the sources say 00:16:46.490 --> 00:16:49.250 here impartially conveying how that resentment 00:16:49.250 --> 00:16:51.830 fed into those fascist movements. It's purely 00:16:51.830 --> 00:16:54.129 historical analysis of cause and effect. Right. 00:16:54.129 --> 00:16:56.669 It was a powder keg built on the unresolved trauma 00:16:56.669 --> 00:16:58.850 of the First World War and the desperation of 00:16:58.850 --> 00:17:02.309 the Depression. leads to a truly bitter devastating 00:17:02.309 --> 00:17:05.250 irony for the lost generation. This was the cohort 00:17:05.250 --> 00:17:07.529 that bled in the trenches for the war to end 00:17:07.529 --> 00:17:10.150 all wars. They suffered through unimaginable 00:17:10.150 --> 00:17:12.309 horrors specifically so that such a conflict 00:17:12.309 --> 00:17:15.309 would never happen again. And yet in their midlife. 00:17:15.519 --> 00:17:19.519 As World War II erupts in 1939, they find themselves 00:17:19.519 --> 00:17:22.380 standing on train platforms, having to watch 00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:25.619 their own sons march off to a second, even more 00:17:25.619 --> 00:17:28.359 destructive, global battlefield. The psychological 00:17:28.359 --> 00:17:31.019 burden of that is almost impossible to fathom, 00:17:31.220 --> 00:17:33.660 knowing exactly what your child is about to endure. 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:37.680 The artillery, the fear, the death. Because you 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:39.819 still carry the physical and mental scars from 00:17:39.819 --> 00:17:42.579 just 20 years prior. Exactly. And while their 00:17:42.579 --> 00:17:44.980 sons were on the front lines, the lost generation 00:17:44.910 --> 00:17:48.490 participation in World War II was largely relegated 00:17:48.490 --> 00:17:50.930 to civil defense and maintaining the home front. 00:17:51.410 --> 00:17:53.329 Older men who had fought in the first war were 00:17:53.329 --> 00:17:55.470 heavily recruited to defend their local towns. 00:17:55.650 --> 00:17:58.029 In Germany, older men who weren't already in 00:17:58.029 --> 00:18:00.390 the regular military were obliged to join the 00:18:00.390 --> 00:18:02.829 Volkssturm. Which was essentially a last -ditch 00:18:02.829 --> 00:18:06.049 people's militia mobilized in the final desperate 00:18:06.049 --> 00:18:08.630 months of the war. Right. And in Britain, they 00:18:08.630 --> 00:18:11.069 volunteered for the Home Guard. They became the 00:18:11.069 --> 00:18:13.170 final line of resistance, scanning the skies 00:18:13.170 --> 00:18:15.170 for bombers and preparing to defend their streets 00:18:15.170 --> 00:18:17.549 while the younger generation fought abroad. After 00:18:17.549 --> 00:18:21.250 enduring all of that, the strict Victorian childhoods, 00:18:21.670 --> 00:18:25.170 the industrialized slaughter of WWI, the frantic 00:18:25.170 --> 00:18:27.789 rebellion of the 20s, the crushing poverty of 00:18:27.789 --> 00:18:29.750 the Great Depression, and then the heartbreak 00:18:29.750 --> 00:18:33.250 of World War II, this generation finally reaches 00:18:33.250 --> 00:18:36.609 their twilight years. In the West, the survivors 00:18:36.609 --> 00:18:40.170 largely hit retirement age in the 1950s and 1960s. 00:18:40.250 --> 00:18:42.509 And what's incredibly poignant to me is that 00:18:42.509 --> 00:18:45.410 even then, several decades in another World War 00:18:45.410 --> 00:18:48.230 later, their World War I service was still viewed 00:18:48.230 --> 00:18:51.430 as the absolute, immutable, defining moment of 00:18:51.430 --> 00:18:53.430 their lives. Yeah, you see it in the records. 00:18:53.869 --> 00:18:55.369 When their retirement notices were published 00:18:55.369 --> 00:18:57.690 or their obituaries were printed in local papers, 00:18:58.289 --> 00:19:00.230 their service in the trenches of the First World 00:19:00.230 --> 00:19:02.569 War was almost always the most prominently featured 00:19:02.569 --> 00:19:05.240 detail. When we look at their longevity, the 00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:07.319 average life expectancy in the developed world 00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:09.240 during their retirement years hovered around 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:12.319 70 years old. But some remarkably resilient members 00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:15.400 of this cohort lived astonishingly long, surviving 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:18.059 deep into the 21st century. It's hard to believe. 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:22.000 A notable example is Nabi Tajima of Japan. She 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.319 was the last known surviving person verified 00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:26.380 to have been born in the 19th century, making 00:19:26.380 --> 00:19:28.900 her the very last known living member of the 00:19:28.900 --> 00:19:31.259 lost generation. And she passed away in 2018, 00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:34.900 at the incredible age of 117. 2018, just think 00:19:34.900 --> 00:19:36.900 about the arc of a life that begins with horse 00:19:36.900 --> 00:19:39.799 -drawn carriages and reading by gaslight, and 00:19:39.799 --> 00:19:42.519 ends in the era of smartphones, global internet, 00:19:42.740 --> 00:19:45.480 and artificial intelligence. What does this all 00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:48.279 mean for you listening today? Why should you 00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:50.720 care about the lost generation beyond viewing 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:53.380 them as characters in history textbook? It's 00:19:53.380 --> 00:19:55.900 a great question. I think it's because this specific 00:19:55.900 --> 00:19:59.079 cohort absorbed more collective shockwaves than 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:01.299 almost any other group in modern human history. 00:20:01.630 --> 00:20:03.950 They were the bridge. They really were. They 00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:06.349 took the hits of rapid industrialization, they 00:20:06.349 --> 00:20:08.670 processed the collective trauma of modern warfare, 00:20:09.130 --> 00:20:10.829 and through their radical art, their shifting 00:20:10.829 --> 00:20:13.150 politics, and their sheer stubborn survival, 00:20:13.730 --> 00:20:15.890 they completely forged the modern world we live 00:20:15.890 --> 00:20:18.269 in today. This raises an important question, 00:20:18.430 --> 00:20:20.069 something for you to mull over after we wrap 00:20:20.069 --> 00:20:23.079 up today. The origin of their name and the way 00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:25.559 they are often discussed focuses heavily on their 00:20:25.559 --> 00:20:28.720 disoriented wandering post -war spirit. Right. 00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:32.279 The very label lost generation implies a tragedy, 00:20:32.519 --> 00:20:35.079 a group of people who simply fell off the designated 00:20:35.079 --> 00:20:39.470 path. But what if being lost isn't a tragic endpoint 00:20:39.470 --> 00:20:41.950 at all? That's interesting. What if violently 00:20:41.950 --> 00:20:45.130 losing the rigid conservative map of the 19th 00:20:45.130 --> 00:20:48.190 century was the absolute prerequisite for discovering 00:20:48.190 --> 00:20:50.250 everything that came next? Like they had to lose 00:20:50.250 --> 00:20:52.890 it to find the new one. Exactly. Without having 00:20:52.890 --> 00:20:55.269 their worldview shattered, perhaps we don't get 00:20:55.269 --> 00:20:57.369 the revolutionary breakthroughs in modern art. 00:20:57.690 --> 00:21:00.210 The massive leaps in women's independence or 00:21:00.210 --> 00:21:03.150 the completely new global structures that defined 00:21:03.150 --> 00:21:06.630 the 20th century. Yeah. when an entire generation 00:21:06.630 --> 00:21:09.269 feels completely lost, they are actually just 00:21:09.269 --> 00:21:12.289 taking the very first terrifying steps toward 00:21:12.289 --> 00:21:14.930 drawing a brand new map for the rest of us. A 00:21:14.930 --> 00:21:18.470 brand new map forged from the ashes. I absolutely 00:21:18.470 --> 00:21:20.730 love that perspective. Thank you so much for 00:21:20.730 --> 00:21:22.650 joining us on this deep dive into the resilient, 00:21:22.869 --> 00:21:25.390 chaotic, and profoundly impactful lives of the 00:21:25.390 --> 00:21:27.750 lost generation. Keep questioning the maps you've 00:21:27.750 --> 00:21:29.509 been handed, keep exploring the history that 00:21:29.509 --> 00:21:31.230 shapes you, and we will catch you on the next 00:21:31.230 --> 00:21:31.730 deep dive.