Ok then. I’d argue that a Boomer born in 1946 and one born in 1964 do not even inhabit the same galaxy. Not even close.
You’re falling into the trap.
In fact, as Jonathon Pontell pointed out in 1999 when he coined the phrase ‘Generation Jones,’ people born in the 2nd half of the Boomer era (which he definded as 1954-1964) had a very different ‘coming of age’ experience than those born in the prior years. And that difference shapes their world view, and unsurprisingly, their economic status.
He turned out to be far more prescient than he likely expected. No need to set forth all the reasons, you can do your own research.
But there is one little nugget I will share.
The economic disparities between those born prior to 1954 and those born after are stark. 10% of Boomers hold 75% of the generation’s wealth. Not much different than the stats of the entire economic pie. But that wealth is not evenly distributed. Not even close. Well past a majority of that top 10% of Boomers holding the wealth were born prior to 1954. About half of Boomers have virtually nothing saved for retirement. We can argue the reasons for that. But you can’t change that reality.
It’s no surprise, although it seems to be for the Boomer Bashers who don’t bother to actually look, that the fastest growing homeless segment in the U.S. are those 55-70.
That’s 2nd half Boomers and early Gen X. You can’t save the west if you’re homeless.
Hmm. Maybe if Gen X would get off their high horse and look a bit past 1964, they might find some natural ally’s with a bit more gray hair, but who are still spry enough to engage in the battle.
The generation thing is just another trap anyway that ‘they’ want you to embrace. Like sex, race, gay, straight, trans, DEM, GOP and a host of other labels, it’s just another way to stoke the divide between people, thereby ensuring that the likeminded stay in their own little world and never find each other.
It’s pathetic really that you fell. I’m assuming it was an accident. Call me and we’ll have a beer.
Thanks for reading. The Bashers who write crap like that somehow can’t seem to grasp the fact that the trap they are in is no different than the racial trap.
A big part of the reason nothing gets accomplished.
I also like to run them through the history of outsourcing jobs when they try and blame the Boomers. When the first jobs were outsourced (and it was a sponsored US govt program) the oldest Boomer was in 4th grade and the youngest wouldn’t be born for 10 years.
And by the time outsourcing was already starting to creat job losses, the oldest Boomer was about 21 and the youngest was in 6th grade.
So yeah. Clearly all their fault.
It is amusing how the Silent Generation (who actually were the genesis of most of the policies we hate) always seem to get a pass.
"it is amusing how the Silent Generation (who actually were the genesis of most of the policies we hate) always seem to get a pass."
It's rather amusing how you decry people falling into the trap of generational differences being used as a wedge to divide us and then immediately fall into the trap yourself.
Yeah, I caught that too. MoodyP's position is that Boomers are awesome and we can talk about them till the end of time, but nobody else better ever talk about their own generations (and also, Boomers' parents were bad!). LOL
I still wouldn't have banned him if he hadn't gotten personally insulting.
In any case, anyone can use anything to do anything, but understanding generational differences is not inherently "driving a wedge". Everyone does a certain amount of that -- they also do it over football and music and everything else -- but in the real world, generations are formed by defining events, grow up in similar times and circumstances with one another, and necessarily feel a certain solidarity with one another and (inevitably) a desire to right what they see as the wrongs of their parents' generation.
That's literally the whole point of Strauss and Howe's theory: that not only is this true, but it repeats over time in a pretty predictable cycle, and that you can understand history and even predict future outcomes (in very broad strokes) based upon it. That's valuable. It's not the only valuable tool we have, but it's important, much as geopolitics is important for understanding the manner in which various countries and cultures are shaped by where they are: Germany has a very different outlook on the world than the United States, in no small part because it's wedged between other serious powers and has been for 1,000 years.
That doesn't mean that every German shares the exact same viewpoint. But it's useful. It helps us understand what has happened and what's likely or unlikely to come next.
As it happens, I do share a certain generational solidarity with the people I grew up with, who share certain defining experiences with me. And I am very aware that our Boomer parents are vacating positions of importance and we are in the process of filling them. That is an enormous responsibility, a natural and inevitable process, and requires reflection on how we should lead, necessarily in light of those who've gone before and the way in which they led.
We are not the first generation to do so, and we certainly aren't the last.
I'm sorry both of you, but people who grew up in the 80s have a very different view of the world than people who grew up in the 60s or 40s. We just do. Meanwhile, the differences between those of us a bit older and the Millennials and GenZers is vast and obvious. There are good reasons for this, well documented in books like Howe and Strauss's "Generations" and "The Fourth Turning Is Here".
Moreover, the Boomers certainly thought themselves a breed apart, better than all of us older or younger, vocally and rather unpleasantly, for decades...until they got old. Yeah, we noticed. The Millennial tendency to demonize the Boomers for everything is wrong and misplaced, but the Boomers made themselves easy targets for it through sheer attitude, long before the Millennials were born.
You can ignore the tools of historical analysis if you choose. You can ignore the obvious differences between very different groups of people if you choose. But they exist. I'm guessing in "MoodyP"'s case it's because he's a Boomer, based on the content of his comment. Since "She Speaks Truth" could not possibly be more than 20 or 25, I'll stack it up to tender youth and inexperience. :)
"Obvious differences between very different groups of people" ... like the person born on December 31, 1964 and the "very different" person born January 1, 1965? At least groups related to sex, race, and political persuasion are actually DIFFERENT. This is arbitrary, based on someone's concept of which years in history were pivot points. As I think I said before, that kind of perspective is best won from a significant historical distance, not from where the people who come up with these generational labels are working. I'll bet if you made up completely different generational groups broken down by different years, you could come up with all sorts of "obvious differences" between those groups too. And people would publish books about them, and they'd be just as irrelevant. But it's the tone your guest author had here, the condescending demonization of a vast swath of people based on the year they were born of all things -- it's nasty, divisive, and serves no one. If the West is to be saved, it will be people who think the same, not people who were all born at the same time.
I'm sorry you think that noticing the differences between people raised in the 80s and people in the 60, or the 40s, is "nasty". I think the differences between Madison's generation and Washington's were pretty acute, exceedingly well documented, and played out with dramatic effect in public life. But maybe that was anomalous.
I also note that our Boomer parents told us how special and unique they were for decades. Something tells me you might have noticed that too.
Maybe the Boomers were mistaken (since before I was born) and they're actually no different from the group Tom Brokaw dubbed "the Greatest Generation". I assume you see no differences between those two groups either, but you are certainly a distinct minority if so. It's all a bit like pretending there are no differences between southerners and yankees, or between French and English. It's kind of silly: a too-broad use of the idea that we should judge people "by the content of their character, not the color of their skin", a principle that is absolutely correct so far as it goes, but which does not address the obvious: that there are different cultures; that those are the collection of the preferences, viewpoints, and shared history of their members; and that reality affects outcomes. This does nothing to lessen King's point, but King's point was limited to the individual. He did not pretend that cultures don't exist.
How this is controversial I cannot imagine. Do you think yourself to be identical in all these respects to a 90 year old man from Afghanistan? That would just be silly. And the differences are deserving of study and application. You and MoodyP may be the only people on Earth who believe that Boomer culture did NOT change America, and Boomers have long assured us that they changed it for the better. Were they all delusional? Or was there actually something unique about them?
In any case, I really do expect better from you than to pretend that what we're talking about is the difference between people born a year apart. That is disingenuous to the point of obfuscation.
I think you would benefit from (and actually enjoy) Neil Howe's "The Fourth Turning Is Here". Neil, by the way, is a Boomer. (You do acknowledge the existence of Boomers, correct? They certainly acknowledged their own existence rather loudly for the last 60 years).
Hmmm. I do see a lot of anti-boomer rhetoric these days, but can't say as I recall seeing any pro-boomer rhetoric. Calling oneself unique and special sounds like a character issue, not a generational problem. I would gently point out that it is actually disingenuous to frame my comment as you did. Of course I did not claim that "noticing the differences between people" raised 40 years apart is "nasty." What IS nasty, as I said, was your guest author's tone and condescending demonization of boomers, which he keeps up throughout the article. And when you draw bright lines between groups of people as your author did, he deserves the criticism about the difference between people born a year apart. HE is the one who is drawing those lines, not me, in all fairness.
Covid and lockdowns will definitely impact the generation of children who are coming in as adults into the workforce. There are differences in how generations form their world views.
Exactly. Kids who grew up and/or came of age under Reagan are meaningfully different from kids who did the same things under Lyndon Johnson. Those aren't even the same worlds. The poor COVID kids got an especially raw deal, and the kids born shortly after 9/11 got a very different upbringing from the kids born 20 years earlier.
Which brings us to the core point. Every generation broadly shares a certain experience, normally proceeding from some defining event. Additionally, every generation chafes at the way its parents did things, and wants to strike out on its own. As a result, each generation has a broadly shared parenting style, which results in a particular kind of next generation, which then collectively rebels against that in whole or in part. And so it continues.
And since there can only be so many parenting styles (broadly speaking), most easily described as an oscillation between extremely hands-off parenting (which my generation received) and extremely hands-on (our modern "helicopter parents"), this cycle historically plays out with exactly four variations, which follow one after the next like clockwork, and which result in reasonably predictable eras based on which group is at what age at each time.
These trends are fascinating as they play out over time, and we can trace them with a pretty high degree of detail back to the Wars of the Roses in England in the 1400s.
It’s all so tedious. And no amount of actual logic can categorize tens of millions of people, because of the year they were born, and put them in the same box.
So Rod Here’s my question. Twins. One born @11:59 on 31 December 1964. The 2nd born @ 12:01 on 01 January 1965.
In your world, does the first twin go through life with the awful Boomer label? While the 2nd twin gets a pass and gets to claim Gen X status?
If that hypothetical doesn’t demonstrate the idiocy of the blanket categorization then maybe you’re beyond help. Maybe not.
I’ll wait.
PS it’s no more disingenuous to talk about people born a year apart, or two minutes apart, than it is to talk about people born 18 years apart. Which is what you are doing by lumping them all in the same box.
Jonathon Pontell had it more correct 27 years ago than your guest author
Well, your example is disingenuous, which is why you're using it: a fallacious reductio ad absurdum.
You are not interacting with any of the points made: you are simply REacting, obviously in anger. And you can be angry if you want. But it's getting a bit "tedious" in the middle of my day.
When you have something to add that's more intellectually helpful than "you're a stupidhead", feel free to return.
I think you got the years wrong? Like you were trying to reinforce my op. Jan 1 1946 vs Dec 31 1964. 18 year difference. Not even in the same galaxy.
We should also note the idiocy of the year choices. If this was actually a generational yardstick each generation would have te same number of years. But they don’t. And there is a reason for that. And it’s not a good one.
That's not actually true. As Strauss and Howe develop, each generation is bounded by certain formative events, and they aren't always identical. The Roman term for the complete cycle was "saeculum" or "natural century", and that process can contract or expand between roughly 80 and 100 years depending.
So for instance, in Howe's estimation (with which I concur), the correct years for the Baby Boom are not the Census Bureau's rough guess of 1946-1964, but rather the period from the return of the first GIs in 1943 to the end of their reproductive cycle in about 1961. Obviously there is always some overlap between generations at the margins, but that's immaterial to the broader framework.
Probably for marketing reasons, beginning with Generation X these numbers got truncated to 15 years, for my generation as well as for the Millennials and GenZ: big brands make a lot of money from marketing to a rising generation, after all, so that made sense to them (they've also invented this new "Generation Jones" concept, so I guess we're headed toward "generations" of 10 years at this rate).
But this is not academically sound. GenX follows the Baby Boom and so correctly begins in 1962, heavily shaped by the parenting of people affected by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination, and then developed through Woodstock, the King and RFK assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, and Carter. By the time most of us became teenagers we were in the Age of Reagan, but had lived through enough of the debacle of the 1970s to genuinely sigh relief.
The Millennials follow the giant breakpoint of 1980, and continue until roughly 9/11. The first place the Census Bureau's arbritrary boundaries begins to really fray is with GenZ, usually demarcated 1996-2012. That's just nonsense. The shared cultural experience of GenZ relates to the shock of 9/11, a significant bright line between how they and their predecessors' parents viewed the world. The logical outer boundary for them is COVID, which also gives them almost exactly 20 years.
Historically, there is a significant affinity between each generation and its grandparents' generation. A bit of a cultural echo effect. And of course, literally every generation wants to do things differently than its parents.
It just occurred to me: all this talk of generations, "Boomer this" and "Gen X that" sounds a lot like arguing about astrology: all based on when each of us was born.
The truth is all of us are exactly the same in one way: we're all made in the image of God. And if you think about it a while, we were all made exactly at the time, and with the abilities and attitudes that God wanted us to have. Therefore it is incumbent on each of us to know God and to accept his son Jesus as Savior so we can have the direction of the Holy Spirit to help us accomplish what he wants us to do.
Getting caught up in discussions about which generation is better, and which is worse wastes good time that could be spent on making sure our limited time on this earth is handled wisely.
In my experience, each of us absorbs ideas and attitudes not only from our culture, but more so from our family: our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. So I am a blend of four generations: the three before me and my own. Maybe I'm some kind of dinosaur, but many times I feel more in tune with those older generations than my own, and especially with the following generations, although I try to keep my children and grandchildren informed of what came before them.
Let's just spend each coming day trying to do what's best for us, our church, our community, our state, our nation and the world, as we are led by God.
This is not a discussion of which generation is better, but of which unique attributes the various generations have and, in the current case, what a particular generation's rise to power means for the next 20 years.
We had that discussion for every other generation, but I suppose it's typical that we wouldn't want to have it for GenX. We have always been the latchkey children, after all.
And we have always been the group that had to live up to unrealistic expectations. Granted, some small part of that was of our own making. But ask any man in my generation about affirmative action, or getting drafted and sent to Vietnam and being booed on return home. (I got to miss that part by having a steel pin put in my knee at 14.)
I in no way mean to cast aspersions on any generation. I just think looking at generations is sort of like measuring the worth of a forest without looking at the individual trees.
We are all meant to contribute something to the advancement of our world and we should all be about it to the best of our own abilities. And that happens best when directed by God through his Holy Spirit.
As I have written extensively elsewhere, failing to look at generations is an enormous mistake, because each generation has unique characteristics that shape it, including the times in which it comes of age and the parenting styles of those before it. This results in reasonably predictable results as each generation eventually takes primary power in civilization.
Boomers like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had little in common in terms of policy, but far more in common than one might think due to the commonality of their age group, one which Marco Rubio and Elon Musk do not in any respect share.
So now that the Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas are gone or at least receding, should we not consider the same things about the rising generation that we spent decades going on endlessly about regarding their parents? Or should we just ignore that there are any differences at all and be surprised when that turns out to be false?
Ok, look at generations, but look at ALL the generations. As a Boomer, I'm more than a little tired of being blamed for things we had little or nothing to do with. Why hasn't there been much said about the group before us, the so-called Silent Generation? Our older brothers, cousins and uncles who were too young for WWII, and too old or in college for Korea. And while in college, many of them were taught by communists. Those were the instigators and leaders of the riots and conflicts in the late 60s and 70s, but that all gets put on the Boomers, who were mostly followers.
And, how do you deal with the anomalies in each generation? Like Donald Trump, one of the early Boomers. One part of his success is his ability to work with members of each generation to accomplish his goals.
So sure, look at all generations to get an overall picture, but don't fail to take into account the overlap that's bound to occur.
1. Be sure to buy my new book when it comes out so you can get that fuller look.
2. The author didn’t want to write a 6,000 word essay talking about everyone everywhere. He wanted to talk about what he wanted to talk about.
3. And I say this with utmost respect, but if you’re really going to complain about your generation’s treatment, perhaps you should remember when your group made us the first latchkey children and even refused to give our generation a real name. You called us Generation X which meant “aimless pointless slackers.” You might have forgotten that.
Then we invented half of Silicon Valley.
You guys are great. But the number of books and articles you guys wrote about how great your generation is literally fill libraries. So we love you, but we’re not super impressed when you’re upset every time someone (very rarely) writes about us.
In any case, it’s the Millennials who openly hate you, not us. It’s a little amazing to watch.
<SIGH> Gen Jones here. This has been a frustrating thread to read. But I can't resist throwing in my "2 cents," albeit I will repeat some of the points made by Mr. Martin.
Think of bell curves and averages. There is some validity to categorizations of "generations" - but such is not an absolute.
We are shaped by the culture and world events around us during our formative years - in "Gen Jones" case, coming of age in the malaise era of the 1970's, rather than the booming and optimistic 1950's, or (at least initially) the booming and optimistic 1960's. I was old enough to WATCH the 1960's beginning and then "revolution" on TV (and 1950's reruns); and then high school / college smack-dab in the malaise era.
But ALSO we are all a product of not just the region we grew up in (I was in the Northeast rather than what I now consider the culturally superior South). We are ALSO a product of our individual "homes" - e.g., a nuclear family rooted in faith, or a secular and/or single parent home. Knowing an extended family (grandparents, cousins, etc.) or not.
Demographers (and to some extent, exploitive marketers ... but I repeat myself) tend to lump "generations" based on the average, or top of bell-curve. That is not inherently invalid, but as to any particular individual it is also sound to recognize that while they may share some (or many) generational characteristics, a "generation" is not a cookie-cutter application.
There are a lot of useful and important lessons to be learned from the exercise. But your points are valid across any grouping of people. Republicans generally believe certain things and are clearly distinct from Democrats, but they argue with each other all the time. Black culture in America (broadly and in microcultures) is a very real thing, but it doesn't describe all black people, and it is radically different from any culture in Africa. Southerners are different from the rest of the country, but also frequently very different from each other.
Even so, in the aggregate, these are real things that help us understand the world, and also real things that bind people together in interesting and distinct groups. People form a lot of fascinating attachments and then stick together, not for all purposes but for enough to matter and be worthy of study.
Generation X. We are unique in that we were the first generation to really understand and get the new technologies. We raised ourselves and are fiercely independent. We also are adaptable as we have survived all the great transitions. We have remembrance for WW2 veterans, understand Vietnam was a mistake but are deeply patriotic.
Generation X asks tough questions we dont blindly buy the government or media line. You better have good answers for us or we will tell you to eff off.
Ok then. I’d argue that a Boomer born in 1946 and one born in 1964 do not even inhabit the same galaxy. Not even close.
You’re falling into the trap.
In fact, as Jonathon Pontell pointed out in 1999 when he coined the phrase ‘Generation Jones,’ people born in the 2nd half of the Boomer era (which he definded as 1954-1964) had a very different ‘coming of age’ experience than those born in the prior years. And that difference shapes their world view, and unsurprisingly, their economic status.
He turned out to be far more prescient than he likely expected. No need to set forth all the reasons, you can do your own research.
But there is one little nugget I will share.
The economic disparities between those born prior to 1954 and those born after are stark. 10% of Boomers hold 75% of the generation’s wealth. Not much different than the stats of the entire economic pie. But that wealth is not evenly distributed. Not even close. Well past a majority of that top 10% of Boomers holding the wealth were born prior to 1954. About half of Boomers have virtually nothing saved for retirement. We can argue the reasons for that. But you can’t change that reality.
It’s no surprise, although it seems to be for the Boomer Bashers who don’t bother to actually look, that the fastest growing homeless segment in the U.S. are those 55-70.
That’s 2nd half Boomers and early Gen X. You can’t save the west if you’re homeless.
Hmm. Maybe if Gen X would get off their high horse and look a bit past 1964, they might find some natural ally’s with a bit more gray hair, but who are still spry enough to engage in the battle.
The generation thing is just another trap anyway that ‘they’ want you to embrace. Like sex, race, gay, straight, trans, DEM, GOP and a host of other labels, it’s just another way to stoke the divide between people, thereby ensuring that the likeminded stay in their own little world and never find each other.
It’s pathetic really that you fell. I’m assuming it was an accident. Call me and we’ll have a beer.
I couldn’t agree more. Obsession with these nebulous categories, and the subsequent snotty attitudes… adds zero value.
Thanks for reading. The Bashers who write crap like that somehow can’t seem to grasp the fact that the trap they are in is no different than the racial trap.
A big part of the reason nothing gets accomplished.
I also like to run them through the history of outsourcing jobs when they try and blame the Boomers. When the first jobs were outsourced (and it was a sponsored US govt program) the oldest Boomer was in 4th grade and the youngest wouldn’t be born for 10 years.
And by the time outsourcing was already starting to creat job losses, the oldest Boomer was about 21 and the youngest was in 6th grade.
So yeah. Clearly all their fault.
It is amusing how the Silent Generation (who actually were the genesis of most of the policies we hate) always seem to get a pass.
"it is amusing how the Silent Generation (who actually were the genesis of most of the policies we hate) always seem to get a pass."
It's rather amusing how you decry people falling into the trap of generational differences being used as a wedge to divide us and then immediately fall into the trap yourself.
Yeah, I caught that too. MoodyP's position is that Boomers are awesome and we can talk about them till the end of time, but nobody else better ever talk about their own generations (and also, Boomers' parents were bad!). LOL
I still wouldn't have banned him if he hadn't gotten personally insulting.
In any case, anyone can use anything to do anything, but understanding generational differences is not inherently "driving a wedge". Everyone does a certain amount of that -- they also do it over football and music and everything else -- but in the real world, generations are formed by defining events, grow up in similar times and circumstances with one another, and necessarily feel a certain solidarity with one another and (inevitably) a desire to right what they see as the wrongs of their parents' generation.
That's literally the whole point of Strauss and Howe's theory: that not only is this true, but it repeats over time in a pretty predictable cycle, and that you can understand history and even predict future outcomes (in very broad strokes) based upon it. That's valuable. It's not the only valuable tool we have, but it's important, much as geopolitics is important for understanding the manner in which various countries and cultures are shaped by where they are: Germany has a very different outlook on the world than the United States, in no small part because it's wedged between other serious powers and has been for 1,000 years.
That doesn't mean that every German shares the exact same viewpoint. But it's useful. It helps us understand what has happened and what's likely or unlikely to come next.
As it happens, I do share a certain generational solidarity with the people I grew up with, who share certain defining experiences with me. And I am very aware that our Boomer parents are vacating positions of importance and we are in the process of filling them. That is an enormous responsibility, a natural and inevitable process, and requires reflection on how we should lead, necessarily in light of those who've gone before and the way in which they led.
We are not the first generation to do so, and we certainly aren't the last.
I'm sorry both of you, but people who grew up in the 80s have a very different view of the world than people who grew up in the 60s or 40s. We just do. Meanwhile, the differences between those of us a bit older and the Millennials and GenZers is vast and obvious. There are good reasons for this, well documented in books like Howe and Strauss's "Generations" and "The Fourth Turning Is Here".
Moreover, the Boomers certainly thought themselves a breed apart, better than all of us older or younger, vocally and rather unpleasantly, for decades...until they got old. Yeah, we noticed. The Millennial tendency to demonize the Boomers for everything is wrong and misplaced, but the Boomers made themselves easy targets for it through sheer attitude, long before the Millennials were born.
You can ignore the tools of historical analysis if you choose. You can ignore the obvious differences between very different groups of people if you choose. But they exist. I'm guessing in "MoodyP"'s case it's because he's a Boomer, based on the content of his comment. Since "She Speaks Truth" could not possibly be more than 20 or 25, I'll stack it up to tender youth and inexperience. :)
"Obvious differences between very different groups of people" ... like the person born on December 31, 1964 and the "very different" person born January 1, 1965? At least groups related to sex, race, and political persuasion are actually DIFFERENT. This is arbitrary, based on someone's concept of which years in history were pivot points. As I think I said before, that kind of perspective is best won from a significant historical distance, not from where the people who come up with these generational labels are working. I'll bet if you made up completely different generational groups broken down by different years, you could come up with all sorts of "obvious differences" between those groups too. And people would publish books about them, and they'd be just as irrelevant. But it's the tone your guest author had here, the condescending demonization of a vast swath of people based on the year they were born of all things -- it's nasty, divisive, and serves no one. If the West is to be saved, it will be people who think the same, not people who were all born at the same time.
I'm sorry you think that noticing the differences between people raised in the 80s and people in the 60, or the 40s, is "nasty". I think the differences between Madison's generation and Washington's were pretty acute, exceedingly well documented, and played out with dramatic effect in public life. But maybe that was anomalous.
I also note that our Boomer parents told us how special and unique they were for decades. Something tells me you might have noticed that too.
Maybe the Boomers were mistaken (since before I was born) and they're actually no different from the group Tom Brokaw dubbed "the Greatest Generation". I assume you see no differences between those two groups either, but you are certainly a distinct minority if so. It's all a bit like pretending there are no differences between southerners and yankees, or between French and English. It's kind of silly: a too-broad use of the idea that we should judge people "by the content of their character, not the color of their skin", a principle that is absolutely correct so far as it goes, but which does not address the obvious: that there are different cultures; that those are the collection of the preferences, viewpoints, and shared history of their members; and that reality affects outcomes. This does nothing to lessen King's point, but King's point was limited to the individual. He did not pretend that cultures don't exist.
How this is controversial I cannot imagine. Do you think yourself to be identical in all these respects to a 90 year old man from Afghanistan? That would just be silly. And the differences are deserving of study and application. You and MoodyP may be the only people on Earth who believe that Boomer culture did NOT change America, and Boomers have long assured us that they changed it for the better. Were they all delusional? Or was there actually something unique about them?
In any case, I really do expect better from you than to pretend that what we're talking about is the difference between people born a year apart. That is disingenuous to the point of obfuscation.
I think you would benefit from (and actually enjoy) Neil Howe's "The Fourth Turning Is Here". Neil, by the way, is a Boomer. (You do acknowledge the existence of Boomers, correct? They certainly acknowledged their own existence rather loudly for the last 60 years).
Hmmm. I do see a lot of anti-boomer rhetoric these days, but can't say as I recall seeing any pro-boomer rhetoric. Calling oneself unique and special sounds like a character issue, not a generational problem. I would gently point out that it is actually disingenuous to frame my comment as you did. Of course I did not claim that "noticing the differences between people" raised 40 years apart is "nasty." What IS nasty, as I said, was your guest author's tone and condescending demonization of boomers, which he keeps up throughout the article. And when you draw bright lines between groups of people as your author did, he deserves the criticism about the difference between people born a year apart. HE is the one who is drawing those lines, not me, in all fairness.
Covid and lockdowns will definitely impact the generation of children who are coming in as adults into the workforce. There are differences in how generations form their world views.
Exactly. Kids who grew up and/or came of age under Reagan are meaningfully different from kids who did the same things under Lyndon Johnson. Those aren't even the same worlds. The poor COVID kids got an especially raw deal, and the kids born shortly after 9/11 got a very different upbringing from the kids born 20 years earlier.
Which brings us to the core point. Every generation broadly shares a certain experience, normally proceeding from some defining event. Additionally, every generation chafes at the way its parents did things, and wants to strike out on its own. As a result, each generation has a broadly shared parenting style, which results in a particular kind of next generation, which then collectively rebels against that in whole or in part. And so it continues.
And since there can only be so many parenting styles (broadly speaking), most easily described as an oscillation between extremely hands-off parenting (which my generation received) and extremely hands-on (our modern "helicopter parents"), this cycle historically plays out with exactly four variations, which follow one after the next like clockwork, and which result in reasonably predictable eras based on which group is at what age at each time.
These trends are fascinating as they play out over time, and we can trace them with a pretty high degree of detail back to the Wars of the Roses in England in the 1400s.
It’s all so tedious. And no amount of actual logic can categorize tens of millions of people, because of the year they were born, and put them in the same box.
So Rod Here’s my question. Twins. One born @11:59 on 31 December 1964. The 2nd born @ 12:01 on 01 January 1965.
In your world, does the first twin go through life with the awful Boomer label? While the 2nd twin gets a pass and gets to claim Gen X status?
If that hypothetical doesn’t demonstrate the idiocy of the blanket categorization then maybe you’re beyond help. Maybe not.
I’ll wait.
PS it’s no more disingenuous to talk about people born a year apart, or two minutes apart, than it is to talk about people born 18 years apart. Which is what you are doing by lumping them all in the same box.
Jonathon Pontell had it more correct 27 years ago than your guest author
Well, your example is disingenuous, which is why you're using it: a fallacious reductio ad absurdum.
You are not interacting with any of the points made: you are simply REacting, obviously in anger. And you can be angry if you want. But it's getting a bit "tedious" in the middle of my day.
When you have something to add that's more intellectually helpful than "you're a stupidhead", feel free to return.
I think you got the years wrong? Like you were trying to reinforce my op. Jan 1 1946 vs Dec 31 1964. 18 year difference. Not even in the same galaxy.
We should also note the idiocy of the year choices. If this was actually a generational yardstick each generation would have te same number of years. But they don’t. And there is a reason for that. And it’s not a good one.
That's not actually true. As Strauss and Howe develop, each generation is bounded by certain formative events, and they aren't always identical. The Roman term for the complete cycle was "saeculum" or "natural century", and that process can contract or expand between roughly 80 and 100 years depending.
So for instance, in Howe's estimation (with which I concur), the correct years for the Baby Boom are not the Census Bureau's rough guess of 1946-1964, but rather the period from the return of the first GIs in 1943 to the end of their reproductive cycle in about 1961. Obviously there is always some overlap between generations at the margins, but that's immaterial to the broader framework.
Probably for marketing reasons, beginning with Generation X these numbers got truncated to 15 years, for my generation as well as for the Millennials and GenZ: big brands make a lot of money from marketing to a rising generation, after all, so that made sense to them (they've also invented this new "Generation Jones" concept, so I guess we're headed toward "generations" of 10 years at this rate).
But this is not academically sound. GenX follows the Baby Boom and so correctly begins in 1962, heavily shaped by the parenting of people affected by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination, and then developed through Woodstock, the King and RFK assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, and Carter. By the time most of us became teenagers we were in the Age of Reagan, but had lived through enough of the debacle of the 1970s to genuinely sigh relief.
The Millennials follow the giant breakpoint of 1980, and continue until roughly 9/11. The first place the Census Bureau's arbritrary boundaries begins to really fray is with GenZ, usually demarcated 1996-2012. That's just nonsense. The shared cultural experience of GenZ relates to the shock of 9/11, a significant bright line between how they and their predecessors' parents viewed the world. The logical outer boundary for them is COVID, which also gives them almost exactly 20 years.
Awesome!
Millennials are NeoBoomers
Historically, there is a significant affinity between each generation and its grandparents' generation. A bit of a cultural echo effect. And of course, literally every generation wants to do things differently than its parents.
I agree however the typical millennial is unaware they are just like the boomers.
It just occurred to me: all this talk of generations, "Boomer this" and "Gen X that" sounds a lot like arguing about astrology: all based on when each of us was born.
The truth is all of us are exactly the same in one way: we're all made in the image of God. And if you think about it a while, we were all made exactly at the time, and with the abilities and attitudes that God wanted us to have. Therefore it is incumbent on each of us to know God and to accept his son Jesus as Savior so we can have the direction of the Holy Spirit to help us accomplish what he wants us to do.
Getting caught up in discussions about which generation is better, and which is worse wastes good time that could be spent on making sure our limited time on this earth is handled wisely.
In my experience, each of us absorbs ideas and attitudes not only from our culture, but more so from our family: our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. So I am a blend of four generations: the three before me and my own. Maybe I'm some kind of dinosaur, but many times I feel more in tune with those older generations than my own, and especially with the following generations, although I try to keep my children and grandchildren informed of what came before them.
Let's just spend each coming day trying to do what's best for us, our church, our community, our state, our nation and the world, as we are led by God.
This is not a discussion of which generation is better, but of which unique attributes the various generations have and, in the current case, what a particular generation's rise to power means for the next 20 years.
We had that discussion for every other generation, but I suppose it's typical that we wouldn't want to have it for GenX. We have always been the latchkey children, after all.
And we have always been the group that had to live up to unrealistic expectations. Granted, some small part of that was of our own making. But ask any man in my generation about affirmative action, or getting drafted and sent to Vietnam and being booed on return home. (I got to miss that part by having a steel pin put in my knee at 14.)
I in no way mean to cast aspersions on any generation. I just think looking at generations is sort of like measuring the worth of a forest without looking at the individual trees.
We are all meant to contribute something to the advancement of our world and we should all be about it to the best of our own abilities. And that happens best when directed by God through his Holy Spirit.
As I have written extensively elsewhere, failing to look at generations is an enormous mistake, because each generation has unique characteristics that shape it, including the times in which it comes of age and the parenting styles of those before it. This results in reasonably predictable results as each generation eventually takes primary power in civilization.
Boomers like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had little in common in terms of policy, but far more in common than one might think due to the commonality of their age group, one which Marco Rubio and Elon Musk do not in any respect share.
So now that the Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas are gone or at least receding, should we not consider the same things about the rising generation that we spent decades going on endlessly about regarding their parents? Or should we just ignore that there are any differences at all and be surprised when that turns out to be false?
Ok, look at generations, but look at ALL the generations. As a Boomer, I'm more than a little tired of being blamed for things we had little or nothing to do with. Why hasn't there been much said about the group before us, the so-called Silent Generation? Our older brothers, cousins and uncles who were too young for WWII, and too old or in college for Korea. And while in college, many of them were taught by communists. Those were the instigators and leaders of the riots and conflicts in the late 60s and 70s, but that all gets put on the Boomers, who were mostly followers.
And, how do you deal with the anomalies in each generation? Like Donald Trump, one of the early Boomers. One part of his success is his ability to work with members of each generation to accomplish his goals.
So sure, look at all generations to get an overall picture, but don't fail to take into account the overlap that's bound to occur.
1. Be sure to buy my new book when it comes out so you can get that fuller look.
2. The author didn’t want to write a 6,000 word essay talking about everyone everywhere. He wanted to talk about what he wanted to talk about.
3. And I say this with utmost respect, but if you’re really going to complain about your generation’s treatment, perhaps you should remember when your group made us the first latchkey children and even refused to give our generation a real name. You called us Generation X which meant “aimless pointless slackers.” You might have forgotten that.
Then we invented half of Silicon Valley.
You guys are great. But the number of books and articles you guys wrote about how great your generation is literally fill libraries. So we love you, but we’re not super impressed when you’re upset every time someone (very rarely) writes about us.
In any case, it’s the Millennials who openly hate you, not us. It’s a little amazing to watch.
<SIGH> Gen Jones here. This has been a frustrating thread to read. But I can't resist throwing in my "2 cents," albeit I will repeat some of the points made by Mr. Martin.
Think of bell curves and averages. There is some validity to categorizations of "generations" - but such is not an absolute.
We are shaped by the culture and world events around us during our formative years - in "Gen Jones" case, coming of age in the malaise era of the 1970's, rather than the booming and optimistic 1950's, or (at least initially) the booming and optimistic 1960's. I was old enough to WATCH the 1960's beginning and then "revolution" on TV (and 1950's reruns); and then high school / college smack-dab in the malaise era.
But ALSO we are all a product of not just the region we grew up in (I was in the Northeast rather than what I now consider the culturally superior South). We are ALSO a product of our individual "homes" - e.g., a nuclear family rooted in faith, or a secular and/or single parent home. Knowing an extended family (grandparents, cousins, etc.) or not.
Demographers (and to some extent, exploitive marketers ... but I repeat myself) tend to lump "generations" based on the average, or top of bell-curve. That is not inherently invalid, but as to any particular individual it is also sound to recognize that while they may share some (or many) generational characteristics, a "generation" is not a cookie-cutter application.
There are a lot of useful and important lessons to be learned from the exercise. But your points are valid across any grouping of people. Republicans generally believe certain things and are clearly distinct from Democrats, but they argue with each other all the time. Black culture in America (broadly and in microcultures) is a very real thing, but it doesn't describe all black people, and it is radically different from any culture in Africa. Southerners are different from the rest of the country, but also frequently very different from each other.
Even so, in the aggregate, these are real things that help us understand the world, and also real things that bind people together in interesting and distinct groups. People form a lot of fascinating attachments and then stick together, not for all purposes but for enough to matter and be worthy of study.
Generation X. We are unique in that we were the first generation to really understand and get the new technologies. We raised ourselves and are fiercely independent. We also are adaptable as we have survived all the great transitions. We have remembrance for WW2 veterans, understand Vietnam was a mistake but are deeply patriotic.
Generation X asks tough questions we dont blindly buy the government or media line. You better have good answers for us or we will tell you to eff off.
We also invented a lot of that technology and brought it to market, from PayPal to SpaceX to Palantir.