On the subject of Boomer idealism, one thing that's definitely true is how a great many Boomers have cashed in on the notion of "choice" in the marketplace. It's important to realize that those old dorm-room discussions of the '60s (and I was part of a lot of those) had two sides, one of which morphed into the bluezone, and the other into the redzone. On both sides, the "choice" rubric led to a decline in institutional trust and a rise in acceptance of personal wealth differentials.

What Boomers (with great help from the Silent and some help from Gen Xers) have done to expand the divergence of income and wealth in American society will be one of that generation's enduring legacies. Millennials will have to battle to overcome this, much as Boomers had to battle to overcome the gender-driven "glass ceiling" imposed by their parents.

It's also worth noting that Boomers have maintained a consistent view of war. They favor it, more than any other living generation. They have done so for every war of their lifetimes, including Vietnam. My first book (Chance and Circumstance) was about Boomers, the draft, and the war, and it was clear from the events of that time, and the available data, that Boomers despised Vietnam far more when they were personally at risk of being drafted (or having male classmates drafted) than afterwards. From the 1970s to now, surveys have confirmed that this is not a generation of "peace and love." If you want that kind of generation, in our own times, the Silent fit the definition far better than any others.

A generation is a huge and messy group, with millions of moving parts, so no doubt there are some important trends that don't fit our paradigm.

That said, let me deal with a few of the issues mentioned:

> the record support for gay rights (more accurately, the widespread youth support for civil union legislation and shows of "gay-straight" alliance solidarity. This, as we tried to point out in MR, is very much in keeping with what we see as the Millennial perspective. This generation would like to channel homosexual behavior into paths that reinforce rather than upset or undermine conventional middle-class norms. Boomers, back in the day, wanted to use the gay lifestyle as a battering ram against the ethos of bourgeois married life. Millennials, apparently, would like bring it within the ambit of bourgeois marriage. Like it or not, it's a very different goal.

> increase in pregnancies to unmarried teens: I will check this out. Overall, including both married and unmarried teens, teen birth rates are down 35-40 % since 1991 (late-wave Xers). Since teen abortion rates are also way down, the pregnancy rate is down even more sharply. As of 2003, the teen birth rate fell beneath its earlier all-time low (in 1948). I have not separated out the married-unmarried split. I doubt it's big enough to explain away this fall. But I will investigate.

> more hookups etc: According to the latest CDC "youth risk surveillance indicators" sex in high school is down by 15% between 1991 and 2005. Of sex that occurs, a much greater share is "protected." btw check out the CDC youth risk site. They give date over time on a great number of indicators, most all of them pointing in the direction of declining risk.

> stagnation of military enlistment rates: Fact is, over the last 3 years all branches of the military have been meeting all of their enlistment goals--and this in the midst of controversial shooting war. What do you want?

> GTA video franchise. What of it? I've played it. I know lots of teens who play it. They think it's a bit dopey and a bit funny. It's a game.

Dear Neil,

Originally Posted by Neil Howe

> How about Israel? We think it's on a cycle only slightly behind
> our own. Through Sharon, they had Hero leaders. With Olmert,
> they've got an Artist (child of 3 during the founding '48
> war)--and huge arguments over the perceived decline in purpose and
> solidarity now that the Heroes are gone. With the firestorm over
> the misfired Lebanon war, I'm surprised Olmert is still in office.
> Slightly younger firebrands like Netanyahu, who we might
> characterize as early Prophet, are waiting in the wings, ready to
> take over.

This is certainly true of Israel. Their last crisis war was the
genocidal war between Arabs and Jews that followed the partitioning
of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel, ending in 1949.
So they and the Palestinian territories and Jordan are 4 years behind
us. Egypt's last crisis war was the Revolution that ended in 1954.
Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon had crisis wars in the 1980s. Saudi
Arabia and Morocco had their last crisis wars in the 1920s, so
they're overdue -- I believe it was oil money that held off a crisis,
same for Russia and Mexico.

The situation in Israel is absolutely fascinating. The Israeli
government is completely paralyzed (as are many Prophet-led
governments today, including the U.S.). "Everyone" knows that if
Olmert's government fell, then the "right wing" Netanyahu would win
an election, and "Netanyahu-fear" is holding the government together
by a thread.

Originally Posted by Neil Howe

> On Russia, we'll defend our position. The falling apart of the
> USSR in 1991 was not a 4T--a crisis followed by a civic
> regeneracy. Rather, it was a severe 3T disintegration... with
> nothing really to replace it right away. Putin, though perhaps
> more opportunistic than many of his peers, has plenty of
> ideologues as peer: including Vladimir Zhirinovsky and (the late)
> Alexander Lebed. We have a short memo on recent Russian
> generations--their location in history and their birth
> breakpoints--that we may want to share.

The concept of a "3T disintegration" is not one that I can recall
hearing before. Do you have some other examples?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Several years ago I read studies describing Boomers as a generation who preferred leisure to work. Yet events seem to have proven otherwise. Before I delve further into this, does it now seem as if the whole rhetoric of "peace and love" turned out to be a bunch of crap?

Now, back in the time of peace and love it was nearly universally predicted that the advent of the new technology then in its infancy would result in shorter workweeks and increased leisure. Yet we all know painfully well that it didn't work out that way. Why are we still the only advanced nation without a guaranteed vacation leave law, and why do we lag so far behind in this?

There is a petition on the internet to convince Congress to pass a law guaranteeing full-time workers a minimum of three weeks vacation annually, which will be like meeting the Europeans halfway. What do you feel the chances are of this passing, and when would it most likely happen?

Why do we tend to have weak and incompetent Presidents in a late 3T? Why do we end up with the likes of Pierce, Fillmore, Buchanan, Harding, and Coolidge?

Is it because we fear leadership that might ask much of ourselves? That in a 3T people have other concerns than shoring up the outer world? Or is it some inherent fault in late-wave Adaptive (although Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were late-wave Adaptives, they are generally respected far more than Wilson's first three successors)? Or is it that when we get someone who seems to have all the qualifications for greatness (Herbert Hoover) things spiral out of control?

I am one of the inveterate Bush-bashers... but would someone different as President (let us say Richard Lugar) not only have done better but been appreciated?

The corruption that I associate with some GOP figures (Rove, Abramoff, Cunningham, DeLay, Nye) is of course reversible.

Many posters have brought up the youth radicalism of the 30s (Robert Reed posted a good article around here somewhere entitled "When the Old Left was Young" on that subject). How does youth radicalism express itself differently in Prophet and Hero generations?

In a third turning, leaders tend to be weak in large part because people don't want to be led. By the time we reached the 1980s, both sides of the political spectrum agreed that government institutions were corrupt, incompetent, or both. Recall the fate of Hillary-care in the early 1990s, when she proposed a vast institutional solution to the health care problem.

In every third turning, the concept of "liberty" or individualism has been triumphant. Civic life is relatively weak. That's exactly the opposite of the prior first turning. Instead of being black-and-white, Pleasantville's colors become glaring. No one, no matter how competent, could re-steer such a society away from pursuing its various wants.

In key respects, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have been exactly what one might have expected from Boomers, in a third turning. The question now is what Boomers might produce, as leaders, in a fourth turning... or, perhaps with Barack Obama, whether other generations will deny them that chance.

The young radicals of the 1930s were very outer-driven, muscular, focused on fixing a few big things in the world that were keeping people poor and hungry and out of work.

The young radicals of the 1960s and '70s were very inner-driven, cerebral (or, at least, "anti" muscular), focused on fixing a great many small things in the world that were keeping people from experiencing life to its fullest.

Repeat from last night - what's happened to our country and what we thought were so basic to our system we never used to question it? Torture, Preemptive war. Abolishing our basic rights - and nobody notices or cares? Except the Left, which ties it all in with anti-war and refusal to fund their pet programs as it if were all of a piece. 4T stuff? Unprecedented? Or was I taught a bunch of caca de toro in school? Please?

One Silent, VERY deeply anguished, and not over fluff and trivial and cuswords!

Dear Bill,

Originally Posted by William Strauss

> The subject of humor offers a good illustration of the breaks
> between generations. At times, I hear Gen Xers complain that
> today's teenagers don't have much of a sense of humor, because
> they don't laugh quite as loudly at X-ish joke-making. That's a
> complaint one often hears from older people about new youth, that
> they don't get jokes. That's an area I know well, given my
> quarter-century with the Capitol Steps, and it's not as easy to
> make someone laugh at any jokes with a cultural frame of reference
> if that person is twenty or more years younger than you. In many
> ways, one generation's punch line is the next generation's setup
> line. One generation's irony is the next generation's wallpaper.
> Boomers enjoyed Stan Freberg, but never found him quite as funny
> as the Silent did. Likewise Gen Xers with vintage SNL, which many
> Boomers found the apex of humor. Now Millennials are watching
> Gen-X comics, from Jon Stewart to Adam Sandler to Sasha Cohen, and
> while those people have the attention of the young, they're not
> quite hitting the sweet spot of their collective sense of humor.
> What that is, we'll learn later.

Your discussion of the different senses of humor of the different
generations reminds me of a conundrum I was puzzling over last year,
and never really felt I had nailed down.

In her book Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
describes the impact of Bertolt Brecht's nihilistic play, <i>The
Three-Penny Opera,</i> on pre-Hitler Germany. She says that the mob,
the élite, and the bourgeoisie all thought it was great
entertainment, but for completely different reasons.

The conundrum has to do with how to map these three groups into
generational groups, since I believe that we're really talking about
generations, not classes.

What I get is this: Mob = heroes, élite = nomads, bourgeoisie =
prophets. But I'm far from certain.

This is a question that lies at the intersection of Marxism and
generational theory. Is it something you've looked at?

Here's the section from Origins of Totalitarianism that
describes what happened:

Originally Posted by Hannah Arendt

> This difference between the élite and the mob notwithstanding,
> there is no doubt that the élite was pleased whenever the
> underworld frightened respectable society into accepting it on
> equal footing. The members of the élite did not object at all to
> paying a price, the destruction of civilization, for the fun of
> seeing how those who had been excluded unjustly in the past forced
> their way into it. They were not particularly outraged at the
> monstrous forgeries in historiograhy of which all totalitarian
> regimes are guilty and which announce themselves clearly enough in
> totalitarian proppaganda. They had convinced themselves that
> traditional historiography was a forgery

> p. 333:

> in any case, since it had excluded the underprivileged and
> oppressed from the memory of mankind. Those who were rejected by
> their own time were usually forgotten by history, and insult added
> to injury had troubled al sensitive consciences ever since faith
> in a hereafter where the last would be the first disappeared.
> Injustices in the past as well as the present became intolerable
> when there was no longer any hope that th scales of justice
> eventually would be set right. Marx's great attempt to rewrite
> world history in terms of class struggles fascinated even those
> who did not believe in the correctness of his thesis, because of
> his original intention to find a device by which to force the
> destinies of those excluded from official history into the memory
> of posterity.

> The temporary alliance beween the élite and the mob rested largely
> on the genuine delight with which the former watched the latter
> destroy respectability. This could be achieved when the German
> steel barons were forced to deal with and to receive socially
> Hitler the housepainter and self-admitted former derelict, as it
> could be with the crude and vulgar forgeries perpetrated by the
> totalitarian movements in all fields of intellectual life inso far
> as they gather all the subterranean, nonrespectable elements of
> European history into one consisten picture. From this viewpoint
> it was rather gratifying to see that Bolshevism and Nazism began
> even to elinate those sources of their own deologies which had
> already won some recognition in accademic or other official
> quarters. not Marx's dialectical materialism, but the conspiracy
> of 300 families; not the pompous scientificality of Gobineau and
> Chamgerlain, but the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"; not
> clericalism in Latin countries, but the backstairs literature
> about the Jesuits and the Freemasons became the inspiration for
> the rewriters of history. The object of the most varied and
> variable constructions was always to reveal official history as a
> joke, to demonstrate a sphere of secret influences of which the
> visible, traceable, and known historical reality was only the
> outward facade erected explicitly to fool the people.

> To this aversion of the intellectual élite for official
> historiography, to its conviction that history, which was a
> forgery anyway, might as well be the playground of crackpots, must
> be added the terrible, demoralizing fascination in the possibility
> that gigantic lie and monstrous falsehoods can eventually be
> established as unquestioned facts, that man may be free to change
> his own past at will, and that the difference beween truth and
> false hood may cease to be objective and become a mere matter of
> power and cliverness, of pressure and infinite repetition. Not
> Stalin's and Hitler's skill in the art of lying but the fact that
> they were able to organize the masses into a collective unit to
> back up their lies with impressive magnificence, exerted the
> fascination. Simple forgeries from the viewpoint of scholarship
> appeared to receive the sanction of history itself when the whole
> marching reality of the movements stood behind them and pretended
> to draw from them the necessary inspiration for action.

> p. 334

> The attraction which the totalitarian movements exert on the
> élite, so long as and wherever they have not seized power, has
> been perplexing because the patently vulgar and artibrary,
> positive doctrines of totalitarianism are more conspicuous to the
> outsider and mere observer than the general mood which pervades
> the pretotalitarian atmosphere. Thee doctrines were so much at
> variance with generally accepted intellectual, cultural, and moral
> standards that one could conlude that only an inherent,
> fundamental shortcoming of character in the intellectual, <i>"la
> trahison des clercs"</i> (J. Benda), or a perverse self-hatred of
> the spirit, accounted for the delight with which the élite
> accepted the "ideas" of the mob. What the spokesmen of humanism
> and liberalism usually overlook, in their bitter disappointment
> and their unfamiliarity with the more general experiences of the
> time, is that an atmosphere in which all tranditional values and
> propositions had evaporated (after the nineteenth-century
> ideologies had refuted each other and exhausted their vital
> appeal) in a sense made it easier to accept patently absurd
> propositions than the old truths which had become pious
> banalities, precisely because nobody could be expected to take
> the absurdities seriously. Vulgarity with its cynical dismissal
> of respected standards and accepted theories carried with it a
> frank admission of the worst and a disregard for all pretenses
> which were easily mistaken for courage and a new style of life.
> In the growing prevalence of mob attitudes and convictions --
> which were actually the attitudes and convictions of the
> bourgeoisie cleansed of hypocrisy -- those who traditionally hated
> the bourgeoisie and had voluntarily left respectable society saw
> only the lack of hypocrisy and respectablity, not the content
> itself. [59]

> Since the bourgeoisie claimed to be the guardian of Western
> traditions and confounded all moral issues by parading publicly
> virtues which it not only did not possess in private and business
> life, but actually held in contempt, it seem revolutionary to
> admit cruelty, disregard of human values, and general amorality,
> because this at least destroyed the duplicity of which the
> existing society seemed to rest. What a temptation to flaunt
> extreme attitudes in the hypocritical twilight of double moral
> standards, to wear publicly the mask of cruelty if everybody was
> patently inconsiderate and pretended to be gentle, to parade
> wickedness in a world, not of wickedness, but of meanness! The
> intellectual élite of the twenties who knew little of the earlier
> conections betgween mob and bour.. was certain that the old game
> of <i>épater le bourgeois</i> could be played to perfection if
> one started to shock society with an ironically exaggerated
> picture of its own behavior.

> [Footnote 59] The following passage by Rohm is typical of the
> feeling of almost the whole younger generation and not only of an
> élite: "Hypocrisy and Pharisaism rule. They are the most
> conspicuous characteristics of society today.... Nothing could be
> more lying than the so-called morals of society." These boys
> "don't find their way in the philistine world of bourgeois double
> morals and don't know any longer how to distinguish betwen truth
> and error" (<i>Die Geschichte eines Hochverraeters</i>, pp. 267
> and 269)....

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Fall from being the laid-back "feeling groovy" generation, Boomers now in midlife are now more likely that other generations to work long hours, define themselves more by their profession, feel more comfortable at work than with their families, and to describe themselves as "workaholic." Boomers have become a judgmental "work-ethic" generation in the eyes of younger Americans. Xers, by contrast, think of themselves as more oriented to the "market ethic"--which is very different. If you follow the work ethic, you always do you best and you hardest; you strive for perfection; you do more than you're asked. If you follow the market ethic, you do as much as you're paid to do; you respond to market signals; you're quick to shift from one task to another depending on how badly the task needs doing. Severe Boomer fads like Six Sigma and Fifth Discipline and Total Quality (and over-the-top Boomer books like "From Good to Great") cause many Xers to groan and roll their eyes.

Back in the 1970s, Americans and Europeans worked about the same number of hours per year. Today, working-age Americans work roughly 50 percent more hours per year on average than working-age Europeans. Some of this is due to earlier retirement provisions and more lenient disability rules. Most of it is due (according to the research of economists) to steadily rising tax rates in Europe, especially payroll tax rates. Quite simply it no longer pays a typical European to work long hours. In absolute numbers, the gap is much more due to European Boomers working less than U.S. Boomers working more. Europeans, unfortunately, will have to face the music in a couple of decades when their aging societies are hit by pay-as-you-go retirement costs that they have no chance of being able to afford.

Originally Posted by William Strauss

Per the 1961 boundary, and the personalities born in the early '60s, the ones cited above (Coulter, Hannity, Beck, O'Donnell) bear a Gen-X stamp. Individuality is not just the credo of Boomers. What's new, for Gen Xers, is the level to which they are taking infotainment in civic life, along with their cutting style of humor. If Coulter considers something a joke, then it's a joke, and whoever doesn't "get it" has a problem, not her (in her mind). In Washington, D.C., the sidewalks are said to be full of Gen X talking-head wannabes who would like nothing more than to be the next Coulter or Hannity, or at least to get on the various shout shows, say or do something provocative, and hope for the best. That was the route taken by Joe Scarborough (another proto-Xer). Oh yes, 1961 is the first year for Gen Xers, and the famous media people born that year only accentuate that point.

The subject of humor offers a good illustration of the breaks between generations. At times, I hear Gen Xers complain that today's teenagers don't have much of a sense of humor, because they don't laugh quite as loudly at X-ish joke-making. That's a complaint one often hears from older people about new youth, that they don't get jokes. That's an area I know well, given my quarter-century with the Capitol Steps, and it's not as easy to make someone laugh at any jokes with a cultural frame of reference if that person is twenty or more years younger than you. In many ways, one generation's punch line is the next generation's setup line. One generation's irony is the next generation's wallpaper. Boomers enjoyed Stan Freberg, but never found him quite as funny as the Silent did. Likewise Gen Xers with vintage SNL, which many Boomers found the apex of humor. Now Millennials are watching Gen-X comics, from Jon Stewart to Adam Sandler to Sasha Cohen, and while those people have the attention of the young, they're not quite hitting the sweet spot of their collective sense of humor. What that is, we'll learn later.

Speaking of comedy...

the Silent were the masters. Allowing for a handful of GI outliers (Don Adams, Don Knotts, Leslie Nielsen, Rodney Daingerfield) -- I notice Johnny Carson, Andy Griffith, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Dick Van Dyke, Alan King, Jerry Lewis, Tim Conway, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Denver, Phil Newhart, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, and Richard Pryor. Maybe Barbra Streisand, in a way. Comedy isn't easy, and when the timing goes, then the best that one can do is to crack jokes -- and not very well.

Some are dead; some wisely no longer do comedy; and the rest seem not to do it well. (I saw a televised routine by Bill Cosby recently -- and it was awful!) They well served us by keeping us from getting too full of ourselves. Boom and X figures may be reasonably good at physical comedy and may have some good material -- but they just aren't as good as the Silent and late-wave GIs at keeping an audience from getting too full of themselves.

Somehow I think that this comedy will be the greatest legacy of the Silent in culture. I think that some of us already miss it.

Who are the most millennialized celebrities today?

#1) I wonder if the authors anticipate a general mobilization (ie draft) if the situation in the mideast deteriorates further (becomes a kind of Bosnia writ-large).

#2) I wonder if the authors think Hillary Clinton or Rudolph Giuliani is more likely to be elected president next year.

#3) Tomorrow I will be seeing "the Transformers" with both my millenial and xer co-workers. While there is no word yet as to whether iPHONEs will be present I wonder if the Transformers was more of an xer geek or more of a millenial geek phenomenon.

A lot of readers are posting on current events. No one can deny that we live in edgy times, yet little if anything seems to be getting done. Increasingly, I'm geting the sense that we may be in the calm before the storm. This is sort of what I was refering to in my earlier post where I mentioned the 2008 election. Simply put, I don't see how next year can be a 'normal' election. There's just too much abnormal stuff going on around it.
While there's no way that anyone can predict the outcome of next year's election, do you precieve that there will be a notable movement towards pragmatism? That would seem to be logical as the two groups that are becoming a larger share of the electorate are the X'ers and the millies.

Do you feel that the passage of a vacation leave law like the one I earlier described will have a change of passage in the 4T?

What about legislation that would limit the enormous power of large corporations? There is significant anti-corporate sentiment here on this forum, but it seems as if it hasn't gone mainstream as yet. The McDonald'sization of culture was mentioned here last night. In the book "Fast Food Nation" the author mentioned that excessive corporate power should be challenged this century just as excessive totalitarian state power was challenged in the last.

Are many of the same people that chafe at the though of excessive government control OK with excessive corporate control?

Could you have predicted the Boomers agressive and abrupt shift from hedonism to workaholism back in the free love days?

John, I recall you saying earlier that the bourgeois were Nomads and the Elite were Prophets. I think you posted a colored graph of this some time ago.

Mr. Howe, did you find GTA to be fun?

Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> John, I recall you saying earlier that the bourgeois were Nomads
> and the Elite were Prophets. I think you posted a colored graph of
> this some time ago.

I remember that, but it later didn't make sense, and later I decided
it made more sense this way. What do you think?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

John Xenakis raised again the question of parallels between generations in Russia and the U.S., and the extent to which we think they define similar lifecycles. No doubt the Russian Boomers--we call them "Pioneer" Generation--are more damaged than U.S. Boomers. But the same can certainly to be said for China's Red Guard Generation. In birth years, we define the Pioneers as born somewhat later than U.S. Boomers.

Let me copy in here a quick overview of this generation from the memo I mentioned earlier:

Pioner (Pioneer) Generation, born c. 1946-1967; today aged 38 to 59. Notable members: Vladimir Putin (b. 1952); Vladimir Zhirinovsky (b. 1946); Yegor Gaidar (b. 1956), author of Russia’s “Shock Therapy” economic program; Mikhail Khodorkovsky (b.1963), CEO of Yukos Oil.

Closest U.S. parallel: Boomer Generation.

When the new children born after World War II arrived at school dressed in “Young Pioneer” uniforms, they embodied every Russian’s high hopes for the future. They grew up during an era of social unity, of strong patriotism, and, by the late 50s and early 60s, of cultural relaxation and greater openness to the West. This relatively sunny childhood suddenly ended around the time of Brezhnev’s violent suppression of Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring. Subsequently, say many Pioner, their life story was marked by disillusionment, growing pessimism, and an inward withdrawal of trust in the system. The alienation was especially intense for late-wave Pioner, who came of age with the disastrous Afghanistan war and the Chernobyl catastrophe.

From first to last cohort, at every age, this generation has experienced rising rates of crime and accident death, rapidly rising rates of drug use and alcoholism, and (partly as a consequence) an unprecedented rise in mortality. Today’s midlife Russian males are not, on average, living as long as their war-veteran fathers in the 1950s. As young parents, late-wave Pioner triggered the growing epidemic of child abandonment in the late 1980s—along with the sudden decline in childbearing after 1990. If the Tayat were a cautious generation of sporadic dissent, the Pioner are a damaged generation of widespread fatalism. Of all generations, the Pioner are least likely to agree that they are happier than their parents at the same age.

The most capable and best connected Pioners were catapulted into influential political positions at a surprisingly early age. After waiting so long to take the reins of leadership from the Voina, the pivotal figures of the Tayat (Gorbachev and Yeltsin) did not hesitate to pass those reins on to the young Pioner. From the “Shock Therapy” cadre who “privatized” the economy in the early 1990s to Lebed, Zhirinovsky, and Putin, Pioner leaders tend to be decisive, even ruthless, and often eager to make a total break with Soviet past. Unlike the Tayat, they often don’t look hard for compromises and harbor few nostalgic yearnings to reconstruct the Communist system.

This generation has produced many of the first successful “Biznismeni” (businessmen), and later, the billionaire oligarchs of Yeltin’s robber-baron politics. They were new Russia’s first successful entrepreneurs in Gorbachev’s transitional “Komsomol economy” (average birthyear, 1951)—and, along with the generation following them, the earners of illegal or “hidden” income who today rank among the wealthiest members of Russian society.

For most Pioner, however, the reforms ushered in a long decade of economic decline, market crashes, workforce obsolescence, official corruption, and deteriorating public health that has hit their own ranks especially hard. Although wealthier than their elders, most of today’s midlife wage earners are not leading the careers for which they were trained, nor have they attained the financial security they expected. Resentful of a society that rewards luck and privilege over honest hard work, many are as disillusioned with reform (and with their own peers as leaders) as they were with the old system. According to a 2001 Carnegie Endowment survey, only 18 percent of 40-49-year-olds want the current political system or a Western-style democracy—versus 38 percent of Russians under 30.

For the last twenty years, this generation has lamented the “low moral values” and cynicism of the younger Generation Edge. More recently, their elite has come to regard itself wistfully as the last generation of broadly educated and high-minded nomenklatura. This elite is today the driving force behind creating a more protected, kid-friendly environment for Russian children in the late 1990s and 2000s. They introduced new Komsomol-like youth groups (such as “Marching Together”), Soviet-style military training for teenagers, and policies to improve education and social services for children of all school ages.

I'll admit that I miss vintage Silent humor also, but it was funnier in the context of its own times. Tom Lehrer, the original Mad Magazine, Shelley Berman, even the cartoons of the first few years of Playboy,... all those were very fresh forms of humor, when they came out, and they had quite a bit of influence on '40s cohort Boomers.

About a decade ago, I spent a little time with Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer (separately), and each volunteered the point that they were disappointed in what became of humor through the 1990s. For many vintage Silent, whether comedians or their audiences, it's very hard to find anything funny in today's comedy clubs, or in films or TV programs that bill themselves as humorous. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Silent sense of humor was superior to the Boomers' or Gen Xers', only that the context has changed for each. Telling jokes in the 1950s served a different societal purpose than the same act does now.

As for civil liberties, I can also understand the Silent lament over what has transpired there, much of it at the hands of two of their own (Rumsfeld and Cheney). Throughout their lives, the Silent have shown more adherence to civil liberties than other generations born in the 20th Century.

Millennials are more willing to trade liberty for security than older people. That's a tendency of this generation that could have chilling consequences down the road, and it concerns me far more than flipflops, cellphones and iPods. That's a key reason why arts education is so important for today's young people. They need not only to become scientists and engineers and public officials and police, but also poets and playwrights and novelists and songwriters. In time, digital-mobile technologies will be in their hands, to use for positive or negative purposes. Up to now, much of what they have done to use them for civic purpose has been laudable,... but one can imagine them crossing a line, someday, to where their civic purpose becomes overbearing, even dangerous. Let's hope that the two generations born after them can keep them in check.

Dear Neil,

Originally Posted by Neil Howe

> Back in the 1970s, Americans and Europeans worked about the same
> number of hours per year. Today, working-age Americans work
> roughly 50 percent more hours per year on average than working-age
> Europeans. Some of this is due to earlier retirement provisions
> and more lenient disability rules. Most of it is due (according to
> the research of economists) to steadily rising tax rates in
> Europe, especially payroll tax rates. Quite simply it no longer
> pays a typical European to work long hours. In absolute numbers,
> the gap is much more due to European Boomers working less than
> U.S. Boomers working more. Europeans, unfortunately, will have to
> face the music in a couple of decades when their aging societies
> are hit by pay-as-you-go retirement costs that they have no chance
> of being able to afford.

In the mid-1970s I spent some time in Germany on business. I recall
one evening the local representative driving me around. He pointed to
a bunch of office buildings and said, "Do you see that none of the
lights are on?"

I did.

He said, "It's illegal for anyone to work overtime. If any office
lights were on, then the police would come to the door."

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Great replies gentlemen! The segment on Obama's upbringing was especially satisfying, as was the piece on Gen Xers involved in today's political media. And I will certainly look back to Generations with regards to the final birth years for the Lost Generation.

A few more questions,

What impact, if any, will the Virginia Tech Shootings have on the legacy of Millenials? Is this merely the terrible consequence of having certain disillusioned Millenials being excluded from a strict "peer society"? Will the security measures taken in response to the event, be remembered as society trying to protect this generation in its college-phase, much like Columbine was during its high-school phase.

How do you feel about online dating services? Will this have a significant effect on Millenial sexual behavior? IMO, Millenial and GI sexual behavior do share some striking similiarities with the GIs. In our youth, we have already pioneered a peer-society that manifests itself in networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook. As we become rising adults, we can expect to see the spread of online dating services in the coming decades. These trends are akin to the "Mate & Date" practices of GIs during their bright sunny college days. I predict we will see a return to rigid dating practices. My millle brother (b. 1982) is working on this cool website where your friends review portfolios, administer online tests, and essentially select companions for you - akin to the "rating and dating" of 1930s fraternities and sororities). We can expect that these customs will only become more institutionalized once the New Silents enter their youth. I also expect that the next generation of prophets will see Millenial sexuality as insipid, un-romantic, and bland, and will launch a new wave of sexual euphoria (possibly after Millenial Scientists invent cures that eliminate the threat of AIDs/Herpes, and other STDs)

With regards to the Counciousness Revolution, do you feel that Reagan and Goldwater were essentially active advocates of the Awakening, rather than the The Establishment they are often made out to be? The reason I ask is because we had a prior discussion in another thread. I argued that it would be wrong to say that Conservatives were against the Awakening, because they were part of the Awakening themselves. It just so happened that they were against certain elements of the Awakening. Regardless of their stance on social issues, both Conservatives and Progressive-minded liberals shared one common goal: they sought to overthrow the Civic Regime established during the prior 4T. Just take a look at this debate clip during the 1968 Democratic Convention. William F. Buckley (the Conservative editor who founded the National Review) goes as far as to quote a poem performed by Beantniks, to argue against "big government." and "state intervention." The Conservatives and "New Left" activists were both, in effect, shouting "down with the system!". Yes, the Conservatives rejected the counterculture, but they were more determined to displace the New Deal Consensus with their own values, by dismantling the Welfare State, reducing taxes, and removing government regulations (their agenda later included imposing a Faith-based values). When Reagan said "Government was the problem", the government he was referring to was the one constructed during the New Deal.What's your opinion on this matter?

Gentlemen,

I appreciate your thoughtful explanations as to why you regard 1961 as the lead Xer year. With regard to humor, Hannity's and Coulter's seem pretty strongly Boomer to me, and discernably different from Beck's ('64), despite the fact that they are largely in political agreement. But I'll leave it at that. Nevertheless, the humor angle is a very sharp insight on Mr. Strauss' part.

Mr. Howe explained Obama's Xer status in terms of his having no living memory of the High. Excellent point. But what if the 1T/2T boundary is set too early as well? At least one poster has pointed out here that, although you regard the assassination of JFK as the 2T catalyst, you date the beginning of the 2T to 1964, not 1963. Well, if you accept a little bit of lag time, might you accept a little more?

More than one person (older than I) has argued here that the 2T did not really begin until perhaps 1966. I of course have no living memory of this time, but it does seem to me as if things did finally go crazy about 1966, and not before. Prior to that time, the Beatles and the Stones (and pretty much all other acts) were still rather "clean" and 1Tish in terms of looks and music. Haircuts and drugs and everything else did not really "take off" until about 1966, did they? Yes, there were protests in 1964, but there had been protests of sorts earlier in the '60s, and even in the '50s. So is it possible that the 1T persisted through 1965 to 1966? You lived through it; I didn't. You tell me.

Of course, if there is room to question the dating of the 1T/2T boundary, then there is room to question the Boom/X boundary. If the 2T did not really begin until 1966, then a few more early '60s cohorts have living memories of the High.


Mustang '66

To Mr. Reed:

Yes, GRA was fun--one of life's guilty pleasures. I guess it's the inner Xer in me struggling to find himself. To be sure I am often offended by the pop culture, but at the same time I'm often entertained and moved by it--though not always in the intended direction. Above all, the pop culture is alive in ways the classroom often is not. I used to teach English lit, and I sometimes think that if I were teaching it today I would use eminem to show students how meter works. Yes, by all means showcase the real classics, but also show younger people how it connects to their lives.