While most of my “meandering” tends toward the philosophical and theological, I’m in a more sociological place today (my sub-discipline is sociology of religion after all).
If you haven’t heard it already, we’re in an election year in the good, old US of A, and that situation invariably leads to talk about demographics, age groups, and generations. In particular, there are many comments flying around about Baby Boomers vs. Millennials.
Before going any further, I feel that it is my constitutional duty to assign theme songs to the generations, and the only logical way to do that is through songs by Queen 🙂. So, here goes —
Baby Boomers (born 1945-64): “I Want It All”
Millennials (born 1983-2000): “I Want to Break Free”
Also, in case anyone has forgotten, there is a generation between these two, so for us Gen X-ers (born 1965-1982): “Bicycle Race”
I’ve always found generational studies to be fascinating, probably in part because my family tends to skip or fall between generations. For instance, my parents were born at the end of the WWII generation, so they share some traits in common with that generation and a few characteristics with the Baby Boomers that came later. Similarly, my brother and I were born near the end of Generation X. We share some traits with older X-ers and some with the Millennials.
More broadly speaking though, for my doctoral work, I did a lot of study of generations, and I noticed a very distinct shift in the concept of “generation.” Currently, your “generation” refers to the group of people who are born near to the same year as you are — your peers. These cohorts can then be tracked by all sorts of markers — such as shared experiences, historical events, trends, etc. Such a way of looking at generations is great for marketing or for studying group reactions to major historical or political happenings, but does it also lead to fragmentation and artificially created opposition?
Before the Baby Boomers, generational studies focused on older and younger generations within families, communities, and nations with an underlying assumption that what was held in common — a legacy so to speak — was greater than differences. Now, focus has shifted to difference — we’re told again and again how like our peers we are and how unlike the previous generation. Such a perspective leads to the normalization of generational rebellion. Through this point of view, the Baby Boomers of the ‘60s were not reacting in a special way to particular circumstances — at least not entirely. They were playing out a generational script.
By focusing on generational difference are we creating opponents simply to have somebody to “fight”…or for businesses to “commercialize”…or for politicians to campaign for?
Something to think about…