I liked this summary a lot more. But I should have read it first before commenting on your other article. My comment there was perhaps better suited for this post. Though I'll admit that I enjoyed this one more as it suited my pessimistic outlook.
It also explained why GenXers have been better company than Millennials at times: they were the last punk generation, while my generation, as Howe says, is more "wholesome." I guess that's one way to put it: I would say they're only a step away from the infantilized people in Demolition Man who, in the future, listen to kids music as normal music, among other tame and PC things. My generation as people aren't snowflakes, except for the Woke PC ideologues. But the culture is a somewhat snowflakey culture that owes more to Disney than it should; that's the best way to put it. Perhaps it's healthier than a culture more comfortable with drugs in and of itself, but in practice it's more vanilla than vanilla ice cream and is not conducive to deep, meaningful art. Now I'm not so sure my generation will be able to produce good literature in the future, in between the groupthink of its collective nature and the vanilla culture that has little, if anything, to call original or even adult.
While some often say that GenXers are only different from Boomers in their pessimism, I think the Millennials have a psychological instinct to try too hard to please Boomer parents. This would in part explain the tendency to blame oneself for their failures, as well as the reality that my generation is the one who doesn't have houses, doesn't have their own families, things previous generations took for granted. The aversion to family is the sad part: there are those who believe they're too damaged to have a family. For this reason I would add dysfunction to the list. As sheltered as my generation were, they couldn't escape the same dysfunction GenX had to deal with. GenX and Millennials have this in common as well, but while I think GenX has a bit of optimism when it comes to personal rejuvenation my generation is happy and willing to excise themselves from the gene pool without giving it a second thought. This, coupled with what you said in the other article about systematic and organized planning, could be a recipe for a bureaucratic form of tyranny in the future. Especially as my generation likes socialism.
Poor Zoomers. Luckily for them, they are the most digitally fluent. In that sense they will be all right. They need to ditch the TikTok addiction though.
Your observations are perceptive, Felix. I think that by almost every social index that can be measured, Millennials are less dysfunctional than Boomers and Xers. And Zoomers are at least being groomed to exceed Millennials when it comes to good behavior and may well surpass them.
There is the tendency toward self-indulgence that can veer into self-destruction among all three generations born into affluence -- the Boomers, the Xers, and the Millennials. We'll see what happens with Zoomers. This is one reason the evangelical movement speaks so much in the language of the recovery movement.
Does the edginess of GenX culture make it superior to the more wholesome culture of Millennials? This is an interesting question. I've always asked, What's so great about being edgy or alienated, and my own tastes in cultural works veer away from darkness and cynicism and toward wholesomeness.
A lot of people say the keenly perceptive (and edgy) culture of the Jazz Generation made it superior to the culture of the World War II Generation that followed them. My own view is that Louis Armstrong produced better cultural works than anything the Big Band Generation came up with, but not necessarily because he was more edgy or more of an ice-cold realist. He was highly perceptive, though.
I think Sinclair Lewis from the Jazz Generation was a better novelist than any novelist of the Big Band Generation. But was Scott Fitzgerald? Debatable, in my view.
Overall, the perceptive, edgy Jazz left us more great cultural works than the vanilla group-thinking Big Band, and I think most cultural analysts would agree on that. And I think the pattern is repeating itself with GenX and Millennials.
I liked this summary a lot more. But I should have read it first before commenting on your other article. My comment there was perhaps better suited for this post. Though I'll admit that I enjoyed this one more as it suited my pessimistic outlook.
It also explained why GenXers have been better company than Millennials at times: they were the last punk generation, while my generation, as Howe says, is more "wholesome." I guess that's one way to put it: I would say they're only a step away from the infantilized people in Demolition Man who, in the future, listen to kids music as normal music, among other tame and PC things. My generation as people aren't snowflakes, except for the Woke PC ideologues. But the culture is a somewhat snowflakey culture that owes more to Disney than it should; that's the best way to put it. Perhaps it's healthier than a culture more comfortable with drugs in and of itself, but in practice it's more vanilla than vanilla ice cream and is not conducive to deep, meaningful art. Now I'm not so sure my generation will be able to produce good literature in the future, in between the groupthink of its collective nature and the vanilla culture that has little, if anything, to call original or even adult.
While some often say that GenXers are only different from Boomers in their pessimism, I think the Millennials have a psychological instinct to try too hard to please Boomer parents. This would in part explain the tendency to blame oneself for their failures, as well as the reality that my generation is the one who doesn't have houses, doesn't have their own families, things previous generations took for granted. The aversion to family is the sad part: there are those who believe they're too damaged to have a family. For this reason I would add dysfunction to the list. As sheltered as my generation were, they couldn't escape the same dysfunction GenX had to deal with. GenX and Millennials have this in common as well, but while I think GenX has a bit of optimism when it comes to personal rejuvenation my generation is happy and willing to excise themselves from the gene pool without giving it a second thought. This, coupled with what you said in the other article about systematic and organized planning, could be a recipe for a bureaucratic form of tyranny in the future. Especially as my generation likes socialism.
Poor Zoomers. Luckily for them, they are the most digitally fluent. In that sense they will be all right. They need to ditch the TikTok addiction though.
Your observations are perceptive, Felix. I think that by almost every social index that can be measured, Millennials are less dysfunctional than Boomers and Xers. And Zoomers are at least being groomed to exceed Millennials when it comes to good behavior and may well surpass them.
There is the tendency toward self-indulgence that can veer into self-destruction among all three generations born into affluence -- the Boomers, the Xers, and the Millennials. We'll see what happens with Zoomers. This is one reason the evangelical movement speaks so much in the language of the recovery movement.
Does the edginess of GenX culture make it superior to the more wholesome culture of Millennials? This is an interesting question. I've always asked, What's so great about being edgy or alienated, and my own tastes in cultural works veer away from darkness and cynicism and toward wholesomeness.
A lot of people say the keenly perceptive (and edgy) culture of the Jazz Generation made it superior to the culture of the World War II Generation that followed them. My own view is that Louis Armstrong produced better cultural works than anything the Big Band Generation came up with, but not necessarily because he was more edgy or more of an ice-cold realist. He was highly perceptive, though.
I think Sinclair Lewis from the Jazz Generation was a better novelist than any novelist of the Big Band Generation. But was Scott Fitzgerald? Debatable, in my view.
Overall, the perceptive, edgy Jazz left us more great cultural works than the vanilla group-thinking Big Band, and I think most cultural analysts would agree on that. And I think the pattern is repeating itself with GenX and Millennials.
Very astute. I'll reply this weekend.
Sounds like a great book.....
This is a great summary of Howe’s views.
Thanks Mike.
Thanks Mike, I look forward to reading The Fourth Turning is Here.
Enjoyed your take on this novel. Thanks for sharing it.