Hmm.
These are interesting posts.
Really, Generations are big fields and its a waste of time to argue over the grass.
We all know that the Boom begins somewhere in the early 1940s and peters out by 1960, and that the first signs of Gen xers starts in the early 60s, and then drizzles out by 1980.
When people talk about these generations, they usually are describing the middle archetypes....the 1950 cohort, the 1970 cohort.
I mean, I consider myself an Xer because I grew up with all xer friends, and spent my formative years watching Charlies Angels in the basement with my brother.
Several big events in the years 1984-86 in New York
(chernobyl, challenger, mets winning the world series, hurricane gloria)
kind of distinguish the generations to me.
whatever.

Linda, if you were born in 1968, where were you during the Arab oil embargo? Headed off to school in the dark - just like all the older kids. And if you were born in 1968, where you on that Sunday night in November 1986 when Nancy Reagan pre-empted "60 Minutes" and begged and begged kids to "Just Say No" to drugs? Already in college - and hence out of range of her message. (True, those born in '68 were high school seniors when the Challenger blew up, but let's face it - when you're halfway through your senior year in high school, the only things you're focusing on is who you want to take to the prom that spring - and what college you're going to go to next fall, so I doubt it hit them the same way it hit everyone younger). And lately I've seen several posts from '66-67-68 cohorts on the "Generation Jones" message board saying they don't feel like "Xers" and want into "Jones" instead. (And didn't Doug Coupland dedicate "Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture" to "the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s?")

For the record, I believe the Baby Busters (born 1958-68) are more analogous to S&H's "Atari wave" 13ers than Pontell's "Jonesers." (And not for nothing, but on Tuesday I just happened to walk by an arcade, and an original "Mr. Do!" machine was there. I simply couldn't resist sticking a quarter in the thing. My score was 188,000 and I was on the 14th board when I lost my last life. Brought back some awesome memories. Then I went into a nearby burger joint and Edwin Starr's "War" was playing on the jukebox. It didn't do a thing for me!)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anthony '58 on 2001-09-27 07:32 ]</font>

On 2001-09-27 04:47, Anthony '58 wrote:
True, those born in '68 were high school seniors when the Challenger blew up, but let's face it - when you're halfway through your senior year in high school, the only things you're focusing on is who you want to take to the prom that spring - and what college you're going to go to next fall, so I doubt it hit them the same way it hit everyone younger.

As usual, a Boomer trying to tell me what my life was like, and getting it horribly wrong.

The cold snap that caused frost to crack the O-ring on the rocket boosters chilled a low-pressure system that was drifting across the Appalachians the night before. It causing a rather significant snowstorm that shut down thousands of school districts from Maine to Georgia. Like so many kids on the east coast, I was all too happy to be sitting at home doing nothing much that morning, until I got a call from a friend who told me to turn on the TV. We sat on the phone for hours talking about how horrible it was.

Later that week, when Reagan said the crew, "...slipped the surly bonds of earth," I had to run into the bathroom to cry my head off. My mother heard what was happening, came inside over my objections, and hugged me before she burst into tears of her own.

I hated high school. I wasn't very popular, most of my classmates were mindless pond scum or vapid airheads, and I continually worried that college would be worse. Because of all the stupidity and obnoxious stuff featured and written into my yearbook, I thought constantly that I should just chuck the dumb thing and try to forget those four years ever happened.

But I never did - primarily because our yearbook that year was dedicated to the crew of the Challenger.

Try and get a clue before you post something like that again, Anthony.

Christopher, your post reminds me of how I felt when I turned on the TV when I got home from school on April 30, 1975, to see those Marine helicopters taking off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon just as the Viet Cong were storming the gates below. Disgust is what went through my head - total, absolute disgust! (And I was also wondering, who's next - Thailand? Burma? Maybe even America itself?) The following day our Silent history teacher went around the room and asked each of us how the scene affected us, and at least 90 per cent of us related feeling essentially the same way; by contrast, champagne corks were being popped on college campuses from coast to coast (and that same spring, a somewhat older Boomer - Kathleen Soliah, aka Sara Jane Olson - was busy planting bombs underneath cop cars in L.A.). This incident and the Challenger explosion share one very important, common characteristic: Both represented colossal failures on the part of America's leadership class - and there were plenty of other such events in between these two - like Three Mile Island, the Iran hostages and Times Beach, Missouri.

So even as I apologize for misreading your take on the Challenger disaster (and blizzards on Key West in July are more frequent than Boomers admitting they were wrong about anything!), the fact still remains that you were old enough to go to school during the Arab oil embargo and you were already out of high school when Nancy Reagan made her "Just Say No" pitch. So as Meat Loaf sang, two out of three ain't bad! And as for "mindless pond scum and vapid airheads" - that's exactly what my older brother (a '55 cohort) and all his friends thought me and all my friends were!

And as far as older people telling you how you felt - I (and others my age) could literally write a book on that subject! (And one of us - Doug Coupland - actually has, in effect). We've gone through life hearing late 1940s cohorts insist that every 10-year-old in the summer of 1969 was plotting to run away from home so we all could have been at Woodstock. Talk about someone getting something so horribly wrong!

In the final analysis, where generations begin and end is not perfectly rigid; our history and society would be numbingly predictable - and monumentally boring - if this were in fact the case. Suffice it to say that I am not so naive as to think, for example, that everyone born on December 31, 1957 has grown up to think and feel one way and that everybody born on January 1, 1958 has grown up to think and feel a totally different way. But a majority of the people born in those entire respective years could have - and a vast majority is not even necessary; for example, it is generally accepted that Bush Senior easily beat Michael Dukakis in the 1988 Presidential election - if it was not a "landslide," then it was very close to it. Yet Bush only won the popular vote by 54 to 45 per cent! The same goes for the collective temperaments of various birth cohorts.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anthony '58 on 2001-09-28 04:57 ]</font>

Whats going on in your minds?
You continue to get hung up on this whole Woodstock era thing and equating it with a generation.
Perhaps you have bought into this generation gap thing more than the people in it have.
Theres plenty of Rock Wave Boomers that look completely down on punk wave Boomers.
My Woodstock era parents thought of the late wave as totally odd and foreign.
By late wave I mean 1952 to 1960 Boomers.
But when I look at the 1958 cohorts that are famous, like Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson...i think of how narcissistic they all are. Michael has been particularly philanthropic, with his aims to help and feed the children.
When I think of what is at the hearts of so many GenX musicians it is self loathing.
Boomers celebrate themselves, and Xers I know tend to think that life is a waste.
This isnt everybody....I cant speak for everybody, and Im sure I just offended the 68ers and 58ers.
I mean who am I but just a dumb 22 year old kid?
But If I had to pick out the differences between the generations, I would pose them as celebration of self, versus self loathing.
For Millies, i think they have a very different definition of self and who they are.
Xers were taught to be introspective and feel good as children.
The whole culture was about feeling that yourself was special. Cartoons and childrens shows stressed this. Develop yourself.
In the Third Turning as we came of age, I think alot of us turned inward, found alot of emptiness inward and outward, and strived to feel anything fresh and real, as it all felt boring old and rehashed.
Thats why my 71 brother jumps out of planes and bungee jumps. Because he wants to feel alive.

No Justin, you are not just a dumb, 22-year-old kid - far from it.

But there has to be an explanation as to why a certain segment of the population is so adamant about separating itself from the Woodstock crowd yet would look like fools if they claimed they were in the "same generation" as people around your age. If so many of us weren't seeking such an explanation, no one would have ever heard of Jonathan Pontell (not, of course, that I agree with him 100 per cent) and Doug Coupland wouldn't have written a book dedicated to "the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s." If there wasn't the demand, there wouldn't be the supply!

And does this group of people "celebrate" themselves? Hardly. The truth is that we are the fattest, dumbest bunch of people ever to call themselves American - and if everything that "happens" during our lifetimes seems to hit us at right angles instead of head-on, maybe that's our collective punishment for being who and what we are!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anthony '58 on 2001-09-28 07:46 ]</font>

Actually, I know where Anthony is coming from. I always thought there was a big difference between the Boomers born in the 1940's and those born in the 1950's. The 1940's Boomers were much more laid back. The 1950's Boomers, as a group, were the biggest bunch of tight asses you could meet. (JMHO)

What is the big deal about Woodstock? Those who were there can pound their chests all they like about it's "message" of peace, love and all that junk instead of seeing it the way I and many of my friends saw it. It was nothing but an excuse to party and not enlist. The Woodstock wave proved themselves to be the biggest hypocrites when the Vietnam War ended. What happened to peace, love and equality? Why no marches to save the inner cities?

The second wave of Boomers can pretend all they like about being different than the Woodstock Boomers, but I don't see it. They exhibited the same self-righteous, selfish, partying, hypocritical attitudes as their big brothers and sisters. Both waves did what they wanted regardless of everyone else while hiding behind "visions" whenever they could.

>>Anthony58:
>>Linda, if you were born in 1968, where were you during the Arab oil embargo? Headed off to school in the dark - just like all the older kids. And if you were born in 1968, where you on that Sunday night in November 1986 when Nancy Reagan pre-empted "60 Minutes" and begged and begged kids to "Just Say No" to drugs? Already in college - and hence out of range of her message.>>

So what. I had to catch the bus around 6:30am when I was younger. It was dark. Gee, I guess that makes me a Buster. And what about the "Just Say No" thing? Big deal. I've seen you harp on Nancy Reagan's goofy message over and over again. Why?

On 2001-09-24 03:04, Justin'79 wrote:
I know its dumb, but in high school we went through a "school spirit crisis"
no one would go to the games. No one would go to the pep rallies. people that wore school oriented clothing were seen as losers.
It was actually a dialogue in the papers and community. Then they closed campus because the community got sick of ugly Xers smoking in frot of the school. (this was the year I entered high school)
Then in the midst of this crisis, the 81 and 82 cohorts entered the high school, and like breath of fresh air or a bunch of carebears, the clubs began to fill up, the pep rallies began to be packed, and people were proud of their high school.
It was really bizarre.
So theres a tremendous difference between the 1981 cohorts and 79 cohorts.
1980 is like point zero.
Theres an 82 cohort at my college.
shes involved in activism and has always been involved in community service.
I knew her older brother (another 79 cohort) and asked if hes involved.
No hes not.
Why isnt he involved alison?
"because jeffs a dumb ass justin"
Jeffs not a dumb ass...hes just in a different generation with a different mindset.
These boundaries arent sealed in stone but they can definitely be felt.
When I went to college, we were known as the class that sent the most kids to the emergency room the first week with alcohol poisoning.
When the 81 kids entered the community service orgs were busting, and the student government was alive again, after an impeachment trial, and an election where late wave Xers actually had "bringing coke to campus" as part of their platform.
Can I also add that The class of 99 kids make me feel really old.
Like a washed up human.
They send me scrambling for my Xer friends from the past, so we can watch cartoons and relax.

My school went through the same thing, but earlier. My class had 3 dances called off during our HS years because nobody bought tickets. The class of 1993 and 1994 were broke and in debt(!). Our school held proms for the previous classes at rented halls, but our Senior Prom was in the gym because our class had no money. School color days? What are those? LOL!

The class of 1994 was banned from attending assemblies because only 15 out of a class of about 350 handed in the required (for the first time) fundraising money. In the spring, they were being threatened with no Senior Prom because only a small fraction of the class attented the JR. dance. Instead they just left school early, and blew off the dance.

The class of 1995 and 1996 were very different. They organized car washes and pep rallies. The class of 1996 was working towards money for some kind of senior class trip when I graduated. The class of 1995 had a petition and created an Enviromental Club with their class teacher. They were very different from the classes that I started HS with. They were much more outgoing, peppy and club oriented. But they weren't as bad as the 1986 Millies I have seen.

Be happy to answer some of your questions, Jessie. First off, the "Just Say No" campaign was important because it represented a change in adult attitudes regarding teen drug use - not an effective change, mind you, but a change nonetheless. After the endless battles adults faced from teen Boomers over drug usage, the "powers that be" hit on the idea that Boomers were doing drugs merely to get attention, and to get under older people's skin. So around the mid-70s or so, they decided that maybe if they ignored young people's drug use, the problem would simply go away. What they neglected to realize, however, was that by then a new batch of kids were filling up the prime drug-consuming age bracket, and that they were getting high for a completely different set of reasons - with the new bunch it was simply an "if it feels good, do it" ethos, rather than any desire to thumb their noses at some amorphous "Establishment." And worse yet, this new crowd was coming up with new, "creative" and far more hazardous ways to get stoned than Boomers ever dreamed of: For example, around 1980 or so, hospital emergency rooms in California began seeing these strange overdose cases among white, middle-class or higher, college-age youth - the drugs being ingested were codeine in combination with a non-barbiturate sedative called glutethimide, marketed principally under the brand name Doriden; the use of this drug combination then spread rapidly to the rest of the country (allegedly the "high" from it very closely resembles that of heroin, at a fraction of the cost). The nicknames used by the kids themselves for it included "loads," "hits," and "Doors and Fours" (this last because Empirin or Tylenol #4 With Codeine - the strongest dosage - was typically the other pill taken along with the Doriden). This overdose combination proved especially difficult to treat, and deaths from it were quite common. Also, the abuse of prescription tranquilizers like diazepam (Valium), scarcely a blip on the screen during the Boomer drug-abusing years, suddenly reached pandemic proportions (and virtually always in combination with large amounts of alcohol and dubbed a "Super Cocktail" by Busters). So after about a decade's worth of this, elders figured a new approach - any new approach, was called for. Enter Nancy Reagan and "Just Say No" (thereby using a G.I. spokesperson to peddle what was so obviously a Silent concept). Thus three different strategies were employed to deal with the drug habits of three different groups of youth - three different generations, as it were.

As for the Arab oil embargo, the policies that were implemented in response to it show exactly where the ruling adults' priorities were as to who should sacrifice the most. Sure, adults were burdened with some minor inconveniences - being forced to drive a little slower on the highways, only being able to buy gas on odd-numbered days of the month if their license plates ended in an odd number etc. But the era's children got the roughest deal of all, being forced to head off to school in the dark, even in the most unsafe cities (in crime-infested Detroit, the school day began at 8:30 AM; the first week after year-round Daylight Saving Time was imposed in January 1974, sunrise in Detroit was at 9:01 AM).

Another hazard the children of this decade were subjected to was forced busing: When this began in the late '60s (while Boomers were still in school), white parents fought tooth and nail to try and stop it, even moving to the suburbs if necessary ("white flight"); however, by the time the mid-70s rolled around, parental resistance to busing essentially evaporated (see Boston after 1975) and Buster schoolkids were left to fend for themselves, often with disastrous results: Crimes like chain-snatching became the norm at most urban high schools, many of which eventually installed metal detectors. Full-scale race riots at high schools were not infrequent either - and I speak from personal experience here; having lived on Staten Island throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, two public high schools in particular (Susan Wagner and New Dorp) were the scene of almost constant turmoil during this period (around 1975 or so the island's school-district lines were "gerrymandered" so that black kids from the projects could be sent to the above two high schools, instead of to Curtis and Port Richmond high schools, which were much nearer to their homes).

And as far as "hiding behind visions" goes - I wonder what "visions" were gripping us while we were spending our college days hazing each other (and occasionally killing each other) at frat houses and hanging out at shopping malls instead of taking over administration buildings, burning the American flag, bombing science labs, calling police officers "pigs" and all those other "groovy" things!

By any chance to you like mystery novels? One of my favorites (which I read at the age of 13!) is Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" (also released under the title "Ten Little Indians"). In it, ten people are invited to a remote island for a "vacation," but it turns out to be a lot more than that, since after they get there they start getting murdered - one at a time, until no one is left alive on the island - hence the title (you are then invited to figure out who did it - and of course it's not so obvious!). But in addition to being victims, each of the ten guests is also a "murderer" - through some past action (or omission) they had all been responsible for someone else's death, though not in such a manner as to subject them to any legal action. (Examples: One of the characters was a wealthy spinster who fired her servant after discovering that she was pregnant [and not married]; the fired servant then threw herself off a seaside cliff and drowned. Another character was an alcoholic surgeon who operated on a patient while under the influence and the patient died). The killer - who turned out to be a retired judge (and posing as one of the "guests") - murdered them all to "punish" them for their "crimes."

The "Woodstock" cohort of Boomers are just like the characters in this novel - in that they are responsible for the deaths of between 2 and 3 million Southeast Asians throughout the second half of the 1970s. Not physically responsible, of course, but morally responsible: Had they kept their mouths shut and done their duty in Vietnam - as every other previous generation had done in time of war, including their fellow "Prophet" Missionaries - approximately 1.5 million Cambodians would not have been annihilated by Pol Pot (and remember that the demonstration at Kent State was in response to Nixon's expansion of the war into Cambodia), and anywhere from half a million to one million South Vietnamese and Laotians slaughtered by the Communists at the same time would still be alive as well (the movie "The Killing Fields" left me sick and disgusted when I saw it). These Boomers thus carry a tremendous burden of guilt for their effeminate, cowardly, and seditious behavior - guilt they are now attempting to assuage by waving the same American flag they once desecrated and sending tail-end 13ers and first-wave Millennials to be killed in Afghanistan and God only knows where else.

Those born in the same year as I was were in the sixth grade when Nixon went into Cambodia, and were still not yet out of high school when South Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia) fell. We had nothing to do with it, and we deeply resent anybody claiming that we did.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anthony '58 on 2001-09-29 07:18 ]</font>

On 2001-09-22 20:08, wesvolk wrote:
If the events of the winter of 1981 stand out for others as it did for me, then perhaps that 3T has run its 20 year course, and we might have to re-consider that Millennial birth year-- I still lean to 1980, but that creates difficulty doesn't it? I'd love to hear if any of these other creative minds can help to sort these thoughts-- especially some of you who experienced the 1979-1981 period at roughly the same point in our lives as I did-- Vince? Marc? Peter? Anthony? Kevin? Jenny? You're some of the ones who I recall being born in those late Eisenhower years, too.

Hmmm...1981? I was in college during that time, 1978-83. The Disco Craze petered out during the 1979-80 school year, but otherwise the social mood on campus was pretty much the same in '82 and '83 as it was in '79. I would say that the change to 3T came just after i graduated from college-- the first year of the Unravelling was probably 1985.

I don't think the election of Reagan in '80 began to Unravell the society-- to the contrary, it seemed to stir the pot of Awakening passion among both those who supported and who loathed Reagan. On that day in February 1981 when the President was shot, the outdoor television in the Quad was showing the news as it unfolded. As i watched, someone walked up to me and asked "what is going on?" When I explained that Mr. Reagan had been shot, he broke into a near-maniacal grin and asked "Is he dead???!!!" I thought the guy was going to dance a jig-- not exactly an Unravelling Xer-style "whatever".

However, after Reagan was reinaugurated in January '85, things were alot different, as it seemed to confirm that the "conservative wave sweeping the country" was not going to go away. Conservatives patted themselves on the back-- then moved on. Liberals licked their wounds, lamenting The End Of The World As They Knew It-- but also got over it and moved on in fairly short order. But in moving on, all of us -- both on the left and on the right-- had the feeling that everything that could be done politically already had, and it was all downhill from here. By the time Challenger exploded one year later, there was definitely a different mood in the air, a sense that all was wrong, nothing worked in America, and that society was coming apart at the seams.

So again, the last year of the Awakening was 1984. The first year of the Urnravelling was 85. The Millies probably started being born in 1981-- since Challenger, and seeing it exploded on TV while at school, was likely the defining event separating Xers from Millies. (The last cohort to experience this was born in 1980).

On 2001-09-29 01:43, Anthony '58 wrote:
Those born in the same year as I was were in the sixth grade when Nixon went into Cambodia, and were still not yet out of high school when South Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia) fell. We had nothing to do with it, and we deeply resent anybody claiming that we did.

Yup, you're a Boomer alright.

First off, let me say I don't buy all this "Joneser" crap. Maybe for some generations the dividing line between one and the next isn't so clean and tidy, so some cohorts carry some traits and reactions more common to another generation. But if you buy into S&H at all, there are outside these grey areas distinct generations that exist to propel the cycle, and these break down (usually, Civil War-type saeculae as the exception) into four generational archetypes. If your perspectives don't line up precisely with the generation as a whole with regard to any specific event, the fact remains that you experienced the event nonetheless. All Boomers either experienced Woodstock first hand, wished they had, or had to deal with (i.e. experience) the expectations and reactions of older generations.

In short, get over it. You're still moralizing, but in your case you're just fixated on something secondary to the actual event. S&H Generational Theory is all about reactions, and you seem to be reacting just as I'd expect. If you were really from another generation (as 13ers are), it wouldn't bother you and you'd blow it off as meaningless. Instead, you get up on your soapbox and plead with us not to associate you with your own generation by whining about that just the same way they whined about "Give Peace A Chance". As a 13er, I don't care who was responsible for genocide half a world away when I was still in diapers - I care about having to listen to whiners here at home, now.

This conversation is so very 3T.

Somebody on this site (I forget who) said something a long time ago I will never forget. It was something about the last thing Boomers would have to rebel against was against their own generation. It may have been said tongue in cheek, but I think it's rather fitting here, don't you?

I do happen to buy into Jones theory, but I think it straddles rather than replaces S&H four archetypal generations. In any case, it really doesn't matter that much and it *is* a very 3T discussion. Which is one of the reasons I haven't been contributing as much to this thread lately (though I still read everything on it.)

On 2001-09-29 11:24, Susan Brombacher wrote:
Somebody on this site (I forget who) said something a long time ago I will never forget. It was something about the last thing Boomers would have to rebel against was against their own generation. It may have been said tongue in cheek, but I think it's rather fitting here, don't you?

I like it, in fact I've said similar things, so it might be me you're remembering, but seeing you put it that way inspires some new thoughts.

Perhaps what we see at the end of one generation and the start of the next is a case where society has so evolved to fit the young generation that it's youngest members have no choice but to reject their generation, based on their own generational character.

The last Prophets rebel against rebellion

The last Nomads stop caring about apathy

The last Heroes struggle for leisure

The last Artists have to rein in moderation...


Old Toby
Least Known Dog on the Net

That's really interesting!

On 2001-09-29 18:05, Old Toby wrote:

I like it, in fact I've said similar things, so it might be me you're remembering, but seeing you put it that way inspires some new thoughts.

Perhaps what we see at the end of one generation and the start of the next is a case where society has so evolved to fit the young generation that it's youngest members have no choice but to reject their generation, based on their own generational character.

The last Prophets rebel against rebellion

The last Nomads stop caring about apathy

The last Heroes struggle for leisure

The last Artists have to rein in moderation...


Old Toby
Least Known Dog on the Net

Food for thought, might develop into something interesting.

1979-1981: Let's begin with Three Mile Island (the source of endelss jokes, my favorite being: "What's black and white and glows in the dark? A nun at Three Mile Island!") and move on to the now-forgotten "Columbus Day Crash" on October 8, 1979, when the Dow Jones had its biggest one-day loss of all time (though in percentage terms it was nowhere near the biggest) and there was also an all-time record trading volume on that day: 81 million shares (now they do that in the first ten minutes!). This event was linked to an attempt on the part of Nelson Bunker Hunt (who I knew from the New York racetracks, which I attended regularly back then - he was a prominent horse owner) to corner the silver market (the price of silver went from $50.00 an ounce to $12.75 in one day a bit later in the month). Other things that stand out around this time were disco fading and new wave rising, seeing a Pac-Man machine for the first time (resulting in a lengthy and quite expensive addiction for me!), then the hostages were taken by Iran. About two months later some dude was hawking "@#$& Iran" buttons in the Staten Island ferry terminal - and I bought one for $2; the stares I was getting from mostly older ferry passengers were eerie but interesting. Lake Placid and the hockey team stand out - the chants of "U.S.A." were the biggest outpouring of patriotism (from young people, anyway) I could ever recall in my life up to that point! (However, the hockey team's win was overshadowed by the fact that the U.S. finished third in the overall medal standings - behind East Germany as well as Russia). Then there was Carter's abortive attempt to rescue the hostages, which ended with that plane crashing in the desert - oh well, just the latest American failure, whatever! After that there was the decision to boycott the Moscow (Summer) Olympics, which I totally supported - even buying the "official poster" of the boycott, which featured a Russian weightlifter with his pants half down and his back turned and underneath the legend: "Let The Russians Play With Themselves!" (Carter set a "deadline" for the Soviets to be out of Afghanistan, threatening the boycott in reponse if they didn't get out by then; the date just happened to be Ash Wednesday). For me anyway, the 1980 election campaign was marked by an almost total lack of suspense or tension; on election night itself, half an hour into the news coverage the map began lighting up, signalling the Reagan rout was on. Finally there was the perfect symmetry of his inauguration day: At the very same time Carter's plane disappeared into the skies over the Capitol, another plane was touching down at a military base in Germany - carrying on it the newly-freed hostages from Iran. It definitely dawned on me at that moment that a certain chapter was closing on this day - didn't know then that it had a name, and that name was "Awakening" (John Hinckley's ridiculous assassination attempt on Reagan at the end of March 1981 can be dismissed as a post-Awakening incident, considering Hinckley's "motive").

As for the 13th/Millennial boundary ramifications of all this stuff - it's not necessarily relevant, especially if we now do go to war, since a lot of late- and even mid-70s cohorts will be on the front lines. Another thing to keep in mind: S&H use 1822 as the first Gilded birth year - and also use the same year for the start of that saeculum's Awakening, so a similar situation with 13th/Millennial would not be unprecedented.

_________________
Lyrics to live by:
"Oh well, whatever, never mind"
(Kurt Cobain [1967-1994], "Smells Like Teen Spirit")

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anthony '58 on 2001-09-30 04:50 ]</font>

On 2001-09-29 10:06, Chris '68 wrote

Yup, you're a Boomer alright.

First off, let me say I don't buy all this "Joneser" crap. Maybe for some generations the dividing line between one and the next isn't so clean and tidy, so some cohorts carry some traits and reactions more common to another generation. But if you buy into S&H at all, there are outside these grey areas distinct generations that exist to propel the cycle, and these break down (usually, Civil War-type saeculae as the exception) into four generational archetypes. If your perspectives don't line up precisely with the generation as a whole with regard to any specific event, the fact remains that you experienced the event nonetheless. All Boomers either experienced Woodstock first hand, wished they had, or had to deal with (i.e. experience) the expectations and reactions of older generations.

In short, get over it. You're still moralizing, but in your case you're just fixated on something secondary to the actual event. S&H Generational Theory is all about reactions, and you seem to be reacting just as I'd expect. If you were really from another generation (as 13ers are), it wouldn't bother you and you'd blow it off as meaningless. Instead, you get up on your soapbox and plead with us not to associate you with your own generation by whining about that just the same way they whined about "Give Peace A Chance". As a 13er, I don't care who was responsible for genocide half a world away when I was still in diapers - I care about having to listen to whiners here at home, now.

This conversation is so very 3T.

Chris, have you ever been to Staten Island (also known as New York City's "forgotten borough"?) Well take it from someone who lived there from birth to the age of 33: The place is on "Reverse Generational Daylight Saving Time:" All the Silents there look and act like GIs (and most think they are, to boot!); its Boomers come off just like Silents (my older brother's tales about his peer group at the Catholic high school he attended [we went to different schools] fascinated me - the picture he painted would have more consistent with the Class of '53 than the Class of '73, from which he actually graduated), and the island's 13ers - even last-wavers - could pass for Boomers anywhere else (when I went back there for the Y2K celebration, I was in a pizzeria and these two workers there, who couldn't have been more than 25 - were singing along to oldies played on WCBS-FM - the nation's most-listened-to station of that genre - and singing along to every song verbatim as if it was the 1,000th time they had heard it!). Stylistic preferences aside, Staten Island is extremely conservative, both politically and culturally (think of Utah magically transplanted to the East Coast) - they're just behind the times in every respect (and my father was a neo-Nazi [who literally equated "hippie" types with Lucifer himself] when I was growing up, if that rounds out the picture). So any "Boomer" features you observe in my posts shouldn't be surprising; if you begin noticing any Silent traits, then I'll start to worry (come to think of it, I don't feel that it's a sign of weakness to admit it when you've made a mistake ...)

And by your standards, Doug Coupland is also a Boomer! The whole point of Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture was to deny that people his age were Boomers, no matter what the USA Today types keep saying. And there are constant derogatory references in the book to "Bleeding Ponytails" and "sellouts from the sixties" - and as a result, most reviewers lambasted Coupland as a "whiner!" (In addition, the tone of many of the neo-logisms - like "Boomer envy" and "Bradyism" - strongly suggest that he was gearing his overall message to older "Xers" but not younger ones). And don't think that I spend every waking moment of my life obsessing on how "evil" the "real" Boomers are - but if someone asks me why I go against the "conventional wisdom" and don't consider myself part of their generation, I do have to offer an explanation, now don't I? Nor do I "hate" all Boomers. Far from it: In my book, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are totally awesome - and if Jesse Ventura were to run for President in 2004 I'd vote for him in a New York minute!

Since the myth of the Baby Boom ending in 1964 is so ingrained in our culture, we could all just go along with it and not even care - but for some strange reason some of us won't do this. And not for nothing, but Boomers enjoy a much more favorable collective reputation in our society - if only by default - than the next generation (however it is labeled) does. So if any series of cohorts - 1961-64, 1958-64 or even (in Jonathan Pontell's case) 1954-65 - chooses to deny a Boomer identity, they are in effect exhibiting "counter-narcissism" (how did Coupland miss this one?) - accepting a less-esteemed social position because they feel that it's correct to do so from a purely factual standpoint.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anthony '58 on 2001-09-30 06:09 ]</font>

Re: Staten Island

Oh, please. My dad is from Staten Island, his father grew up on Staten Island, one of his brothers still lives in Staten Island, the other one lived there well into his thirties and married a Staten Islander (they now live in Connecticut).

It's not in a generational time warp, my grandfather (b. some time in the 1910s, not sure when) was a classic GI, volunteered for the war even though he was too old to be drafted (at that point in time, at least), they made him a rifle instructer.

My dad ('48) rebelled against his Republican upbringing and became a hippy living on a commune, before settling down to being a hard-core liberal. His brothers are typical Boomers in their own way.

Oh yeah, I went to High School with some people from Staten Island, too. By your
reconing, they should have been young Prophets, instead they were typical late-wave Xers, just conservative ones.

Staten Island is a conservative place, at least by the standards of New York City (although this may be changing, Staten Island went narrowly for Gore in the last election IIRC), but this doesn't mean it's running on a different cycle, it just means that it manifests the cycle in different ways than society at large.


Old Toby

Chris..i am so happy to be around older Xers sometimes, just because I enjoy their "Dont give a..." attitude and I really miss it, since my College Campus is now officially millennial.
I dont buy the Jones thing either.
But I understand bleedover cuspers.
I think thats what Craig 84 is talking about.
Theres bleeding over.
But when I ran into two 82 guys and their 84 friend, I didnt see them as peers...I saw them as kids.
It is very hard for me to see anyone thats entered their teens post 1994 as anything other than a kid.
Their lifes blueprint is completely different than mine.
Mine started with a 70s ish childhood, and extremely 80s pre adolescence and adolsecence (vandalizing construction sites, trying to skateboard, knowing the movie Lost Boys by heart, and early 90s teenagedom (grunge band), followe by my late teens being spent in the abyss of 1995 96...two years which completely sucked, and then one day turning on the channel and seeing the Spice Girls and realizing that the new generation had arrived.
At work, I put the old "alternative" music into the regular "rock-pop" stacks.
And then I put up t-shirts for South Park, Dawsons Creek, Felicity, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Hanson. Make no mistake about it...there was a new generation rising.
So that was my experience.
Its difficult for me to see Millennials any other way. They are very positive, and it looks like they dont have as many behavioral problems.
There are definitely less freaky people around and that makes me sad.
There are less people I can relate to.

On 2001-09-30 01:16, Anthony '58 wrote:
Chris, have you ever been to Staten Island (also known as New York City's "forgotten borough"?)

Don't let my physical location fool you. My father likes to tell people he's from the Midwest - 54th Street and 11th Avenue. (If you don't understand that, you're probably from the Midwest.) I was born in Cross County Hospital in Yonkers, but our house was on West 240th Street in the Bronx. When I was little I played on the swings in Van Courtland Park (pre-Son of Sam). We moved to Jersey when I was 4, but came back almost weekly through the 80's to visit relatives. If the people on Staten Island think they're lost, they should take the ferry into Manhattan and turn around. We all know where it is.

On 2001-09-30 01:16, Anthony '58 wrote:
So any "Boomer" features you observe in my posts shouldn't be surprising.

Yah, being a Boomer, it's not so unusual you'd sound like one.

On 2001-09-30 01:16, Anthony '58 wrote:
And by your standards, Doug Coupland is also a Boomer!

Well, you've got a bit of a point, but only barely. Read on...

On 2001-09-30 01:16, Anthony '58 wrote:
The whole point of Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture was to deny that people his age were Boomers, no matter what the USA Today types keep saying. And there are constant derogatory references in the book to "Bleeding Ponytails" and "sellouts from the sixties" - and as a result, most reviewers lambasted Coupland as a "whiner!"

Coupland fits within S&H's time frame for 13ers, and he caught the imagination of the public in defining who and what we are. Remember: first-wave and last-wave cohorts sometimes exhibit traits of the nearest alternate generation. From what I know of him, Coupland may very well be a late-Boomer-like whiner as I describe it, though he apparently tries to deny that he's any sort of a spokesman for the generation (which is a very un-Boomer-like attitude). It should be noted that, being a mid-generation cohort, I never read his stuff since I know what I am, and I resist the GenX label wherever possible. Besides, I hate people telling me what I already know and can't change from personal experience so I probably wouldn't appreciate his stuff anyway.

On 2001-09-30 01:16, Anthony '58 wrote:
And don't think that I spend every waking moment of my life obsessing on how "evil" the "real" Boomers are...

Oh, it never crossed my mind. Never.

On 2001-09-30 01:16, Anthony '58 wrote:
Since the myth of the Baby Boom ending in 1964 is so ingrained in our culture, we could all just go along with it and not even care - but for some strange reason some of us won't do this.

That dull thunking sound you hear is my head being pounded on the desk. Someone please tell me he's being sarcastic or satirical.

On 2001-09-30 01:16, Anthony '58 wrote:
And not for nothing, but Boomers enjoy a much more favorable collective reputation in our society - if only by default - than the next generation (however it is labeled) does. So if any series of cohorts - 1961-64, 1958-64 or even (in Jonathan Pontell's case) 1954-65 - chooses to deny a Boomer identity, they are in effect exhibiting "counter-narcissism" - (how did Coupland miss this one?)

Is it completely lost on you that a "counter-revolutionary" is usually cut from the same philosophical mold as that which he opposes, but he just takes up a contrary position? The true opposite to a revolutionary is to simply be apathetic. So while some Boomers (especially late-wavers like yourself) try to swim against the current, real 13ers get out of the water and walk upriver.

_________________
Christopher O'Conor
aka "Opusaug"
proud 13er, '68 cohort


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chris '68 on 2001-09-30 12:53 ]</font>

I think Chris is right, Anthony. You're too..um, ADAMANT to qualify as a 13er, even if you have a point otherwise. You CARE too much. If you really want people to think of you as an Xer (not that they will), then you can't try to drive your point home all the time. Follow the advice given in your own signature, "Oh well, whatever, nevermind." I was born the same year as you, and don't go around INSISTING I'm not a Boomer as much as you do.

So looked at that way, you are defeating your own cause. You protesteth too much :smile:

As I've seen with many last wavers like ourselves, we could go one way or the other. For cuspers, other factors can make all the difference in how the scales wind up balancing out: whether our parents were divorced or not, whether they are Silents or GIs, whether we have younger or older siblings, and whether we grew up in New York or Podunk, Iowa. (For what it's worth, I am the child of divorced Silents, spent my childhood in NJ and my teenage years in the Big Apple, and have both older and younger half-siblings). Not that that necessarily makes me more of an Xer than a Boomer, but you know what I'm getting at!

I am also well-acquainted with many Staten Islanders (I used to live in metro NY/NJ), and even was seriously involved with one once, and I don't find them to be any different than people from New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, or, well, Podunk, Iowa. They are not caught in some generational timewarp. They may seem so compared to people from Manhattan, but I would say the Staten Islanders represent the norm more than Manhattaners do.

_________________
Insanity is the only sane way to cope with an insane world.--RD LANGE

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Susan Brombacher on 2001-09-30 14:30 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Susan Brombacher on 2001-09-30 14:34 ]</font>

Some interesting posts here the last few days.

First, I do "buy into the Jones thing". There is truly no doubt in my mind that people born between the mid-to-late 50s and the mid-to-late 60s are part of a wholly seperate generation, one that is as much its own generation as Boomers and Xers. I realize that is not a popular concept among those here that feel Gen Jones threatens S & H; I feel though that S & H can be adapted to accomodate Gen Jones- I don't think the two theories are mutually exclusive. While there is much I don't agree with Anthony about, I do agree with his comment that there is significance to the fact that so many Jonesers have taken up this "cause". Your head may be thunking against your desk, Chris, but do you really dismiss as irrelevant the degree to which so many thousands of Jonesers around the country are actively "spreading the word" of Generation Jones? It is an impressive grass roots movement, and while it has been helped by celebrities speaking out about their identification with Gen Jones, and by a media that has given so much coverage to Gen Jones already, it appears to me to be more bubble-up than trickle-down. There is a genuine strong enthusiasm among Jonesers to finally be collectively factored into the national debate. And it is not a new concept; it has been obvious to many of us for a long time that we'd been mislabeled when we got lumped in with Baby Boomers. The fact that most people in this age group identify not with Boomers or X'ers, but rather with this generation in-between speaks volumes.


Anthony does not speak for Jonesers, he speaks for himself, and many of his views are extreme or fringe. His views, though, do not change the fact of Gen Jones' existence. And it is silly IMO to say he must be a Boomer because he cares so much. Only Boomers are passionate? And if he exhibits one quality not typically associated with his generation, that negates all other qualities? Generational identity is far from that simplistic.


Anthony, it appears to me that you create some of this "wrath" in the way you approach this issue. I, for one, applaud your enthusiasm, but think you might be more effective if you tried in a different way. First, forget this obviously unworkable "Baby Buster" name for us. You've tried and tried to enlist support for this moniker, yet obviously you are not finding any "takers". Even though you may not personally like the name "Generation Jones", it is the only name for our generation that has ever developed a national following in all these years, and if we are to completely seperate ourselves from the Boomers and X'ers in the public mind, it will be unified behind one name. Second, stop overstating points because it undermines your credibility. The way you make your points about Staten Island, Joneser reactions to Vietnam, etc. weaken your case. And don't give isolated facts so much weight. Your arguments for stretching Gen Jones to '68 are pretty lame, as one example. Kids walking to school in the dark, and Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" are two variables that wouldn't make my top 100 list of relevant variables. And you, as well as Chris, misunderstand Douglas Coupland. He has repeatedly said that his book Generation X was about a mindset, not a specific age group, and the reference in the front cover to the generation born in the 50s and 60s was added by his publisher, much to his chagrin, and despite his protest.

On 2001-09-30 14:13, Susan Brombacher wrote:
I think Chris is right, Anthony. You're too..um, ADAMANT to qualify as a 13er, even if you have a point otherwise. You CARE too much. If you really want people to think of you as an Xer (not that they will), then you can't try to drive your point home all the time. Follow the advice given in your own signature, "Oh well, whatever, nevermind." I was born the same year as you, and don't go around INSISTING I'm not a Boomer as much as you do.

So looked at that way, you are defeating your own cause. You protesteth too much :smile:

Exactly. Thanks Susan, for stating my point better than I was able to myself.

On 2001-09-30 19:21, Linda Toran wrote:
And you, as well as Chris, misunderstand Douglas Coupland. He has repeatedly said that his book Generation X was about a mindset, not a specific age group, and the reference in the front cover to the generation born in the 50s and 60s was added by his publisher, much to his chagrin, and despite his protest.

Thanks, Linda. In as much as I was trying to encapsulate the works of an author I've never read, I stand corrected.

'nuff said. :smile:

_________________
Christopher O'Conor
aka "Opusaug"
proud 13er, '68 cohort

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chris '68 on 2001-09-30 19:43 ]</font>

You're welcome, Chris.

I also buy into the Jones thing and agree with Linda that it does not negate or replace S&H's four archetypal generations. Think of the archetypal generations as the bottom layer of a cake. Cusp-generations like Jonesers (or Busters, if you insist), Gen-Y, and even the Beat Generation (which included a few first wave Boomers) overlay the cake--sort of like icing. Cusp generations are not generations in S&H's sense of the word, but important and valid cohort groups that contain traits of both adjacent generations (and often a few of their own). They consist of individuals that can't be easily classifed into the standard S&H generations, but are actually both. Obviously, a person born on Dec. 31, 1960 is not necessarily going to be any more of a Boomer (or less like an Xer) than someone born on Jan. 1, 1961. It's a continuum. Like I said in my other post, if you're a cusper, which "side" of the generational fence you are on is much more dependent on outside factors like generation of your parents, age of siblings, georgraphical location, etc. than it is for "core" members of a generation, whose birthdate alone determines what they are.

I agree with Linda, Anthony. You have a valid cause, but are going about it all wrong. Forget the Buster moniker already. I also would not include '67 and '68 cohorts. They seem very Xer to me. Maybe '66 as the upper limit, but that's it. I do agree with you, however, that Pontell starts his Jones generation too early.

_________________
Insanity is the only sane way to cope with an insane world.--RD LANGE

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Susan Brombacher on 2001-09-30 20:24 ]</font>

There used to be a sign in a place we'd hang out in my high school that said "The opposite of love is not hate, its apathy"
So maybe the last nomads were rebelling against not caring. That was when the ages of the people in the high school were roughly 1977-1980.
I always thought of my small cohort group (those born between 1976 and 1980ish) as sort of like the way the late silents were to the Boomers.
I always had a strong feeling that we would be like the Dennis Hoppers, or Peter Fondas of the next generation, refugees from our own generations apathy and malaise...riding away from it all on our motorcycles.
But it seems like its a pretty nomadic tendency to want to ride away from it all.
My friend whos an 80 cohort said we would be like the Beats of the next generation.
I havent got a clue.

I have some ideas for thinking about this Third Turning thing.
I would say that 1983-84 can be delineated for the following reasons.
---------
Technological...the rise of personal computers, fax machines, answering machines, widespread installment of cable, VCRs,
Social...drop in divorce, abortion, charges of child abuse in day cares, AIDS, Run DMCs first album is released

You know what.
Just go rent Boogie Nights.
That pretty much shows you what happened. Everybody got so burned out the 80s happened.
It took until about 1983 for that whole Miami Vice thing to kick in, but it kicked in.
I always wondered how it happened, how we got from 1977 to 1983. I entered into the world kind of later in the film Boogie Nights...Id say when they try to rob that guy and they keep playing Jessies Girl in the background.
Yeah I dropped on the scene around that time.
There used to be this guy at the end of my street that had one of those fully functional babe lairs, complete with native american interior decorating, corvette, well groomed mustache, and hi fidelity sound system.
Now if thats not Awakening, then I dont know what is.