Blue Sky Dream
by David Beers
List Price: $23.95
Pages: Format:
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 015600531X
Publisher: Bantam Books
"Sputnik was my lucky star," writes David Beers, a telegraphic way of
saying that for his family, and for millions like them, the Cold War space
race assured a comfortable existence in a sunny subdivision, with all
the neatly trimmed lawns surrounding modern tract houses and a shiny new
patriotic mythology created to sustain the new, technocratic middle class
at the dawn of the 1960s. His father built space weapons in secret for
Lockheed. His mother constructed Catholicism in a brand new home. His
school and church and television set all assured that he belonged to a
chosen people, a "blue sky tribe" showing the rest of America the way
to the future.
This is a highly personal
remembrance of a rather ordinary family; one that today seems not to have
heralded the future, but to have lived within an artificial bubble that
has burst.
This is also a communal
memoir, a weaving in of the people (from Wernher von Braun to June
Lockhart to Steve Wozniak) and events (from Sputnik to Vietnam to Star
Wars) that bind the tribe's imagination.
One strand running throughout
Blue Sky Dream follows the rise of aerospace as it surpasses the
auto industry in employment, becomes an icon of national prestige, founders
on the moral crisis of Vietnam, and bleeds millions of disillusioned workers
in the layoffs of the 1990s. Another thread follows the rooting of the
Church in suburbia, a Catholicism that embraced the space-age optimism
of the 1960s and now asks faith of a generation that prefers a stance
of jaded irony.
Blows to faith suffered by
the blue sky tribe are a steadily recurring theme in this memoir: faith
in the benevolent corporation; faith in government-led technology; faith
in an ever-expanding middle class. Sometimes, as the author recounts,
the blows have been all too real. On a hot summer night at the height
of the Vietnam war, pent-up tensions overflow and the tract home backyard
becomes the scene of an unexpected nasty beating. Like a zoom lens, the
author shifts between the intimacy of family life and the broader social
forces at work on that family, tracking his story through to present day.
Anyone with a connection to American suburbia during the Cold War will
find here something of their own story, as well.
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1. "A Memoir of America's Fall from Grace." Do you take the book's subtitle at face value or as an ironic statement? Can it be said that America was a nation in a state of "grace" at the dawn of the Cold War? Why or why not?
2. Contrast the visions of President Eisenhower and Wernher von Braun with respect to the government's role in science and technology. Which seems best suited to today?
3. What is meant by the phrase "command economy?" What were some of the similarities and differences between the command economies of the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War?
4. Did the Cold War make America richer or poorer? (Feel free to define "richer" and "poorer" in your own terms.)
5. What role, according to the author, did the paintings of Chesley Bonestell play in the formation of the imagination of the blue sky tribe? Can you think of other instances, throughout history and today, when art placed itself in service to grand projects of the state?
6. Given that most aerospace work was greatly subsidized by the government during the Cold War, what is owed the laid off aerospace worker today? Is his or her predicament significantly different from other victims of corporate layoffs in the 1990s?
7. What aspects of the "blue sky suburb" served to suppress or promote a feminist consciousness among women like the author's mother? She poured most of her energy, outside the home, into religious activities. Are religion and feminism necessarily antagonistic to one another?
8. The stay-at-home mother is a fading reality in America. In the case of the author's family, what were some of the positives and negatives created by having mother at home full time? Compare this family arrangement with your own.
9. Social observers at mid-century saw in American culture an increasing faith in scientific rationalism and individualism. They predicted that the United States would become an ever-more-secular nation. Have their predictions come true? Offer evidence.
10. What role did the military play in the development of the personal computer? Do you think such a commercially successful machine could have been developed as quickly (or at all) without Pentagon support? Can you think of other everyday technologies that were brought into existence by military support playing a key role in their development?
11. Systems engineering, as honed by aerospace, has proved itself capable of tackling hugely complex technological problems. What is the underlying philosophy of systems engineering? Can systems engineering be used effectively to provide solutions to social problems as well? Why or why not?
12. "Blue sky children," those who grew up in communities like the author's, are approaching middle age now. What advantages do they enjoy in today's world? What disadvantages?
13. President Kennedy is quoted: "We choose to go to the moon...because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills." Do you think large government projects can do such a thing in American society? Why or why not?
14. Compare the author's young adulthood with his father's. How much of the difference, do you think, is due to personality, and how much is due to the changes in society?
15. The author portrays his childhood swim team as a method for preparing children for corporate life. Given your best guess at how the world of work is evolving, what would be the best way to train today's children for that world?
16. Wernher von Braun is described by the author as a morally conflicted, if brilliant, salesman. Can you think of similar public visionaries today?
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