Techticians: Born 1958 – 1971

Techticians values derive from a complex mix of social idealism and world-weary cynicism. Born into a world flush with scientific, social, economic, and personal potential, some of which did manifest in very positive ways during their value-formation period, the Technicians were ultimately subjected to a degradation of events. President John F. Kennedy invoked outer space as a metaphor for man’s unlimited potential for advancement. Unfortunately, advancement did not occur and the times instead declined in the forms of political assassinations, violent generational confrontations over moral attitudes, and the ethical calamities of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

While simultaneously disposed toward altruistic acts of service and a cautious, if not cynical, approach toward swallowing too much of anyone’s pitch, Technicians now seem to be marked by nothing so much as their pragmatism. They accept few absolutes—relying mainly on “the facts” and a rational process for stringing them together for the benefit of some greater, albeit conditional, good.
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills …” —John F. Kennedy