Here’s one of those things we hope you go out and do, because someone we trust told us to go do this and we’d like you to be along for the ride as well.
There’s a bigger story to this that we’ll tell later when we have the time to write it up, but last night we did a little freelance project for someone who, in the past, has been a very big Democrat donor and who is a Clinton loyalist to the core. Needless to say, we like her very much. She’s of the Lynn Forester de Rothschild mold of Democrat — who has no qualms saying she is no longer a member of the party, will no longer raise money for Democrats, and believes “the party left her”, so bastardizing everything it stood for in 2008-2009 that it’s unrecognizable today.
Whenever we do little projects for her, she invariably gives us a new reading list, and a stack of books from her impressive library to study. Library, as used here, is a fantastical oval room with rolling ladder along the shelves and more books than the private libraries they have on luxury cruise ships. And the woman has not only read all of these, but can cite them, verbatim, whenever she needs to.
Here’s the list:
Generations: The History of America’s Future
13th GEN: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?
The Fourth Turning
* All books are by William Strauss and Neil Howe
The woman who gave them to us says they all have to do with predictions made in 1983 or so about the ramifications of generational change in this country…the dynamics of The Greatest Generation dying out, the spoiled Baby Boomers overindulging, the 13th Generation (that’s us, in our 30s, also known as Gen X) not having a real clue what to do as we were latchkey kids ignored to a large part by the ME..ME…ME Boomers, and the Millennium Generation that’s rising up behind us now.
Apparently, the authors predicted a large Muslim attack on New York in 2000 or so…they predicted the devaluation of our currency…they predicted the Orwellian dominance of the media and its ability to foist someone like Dr. Utopia upon us.
This all sounds fascinating, and we can’t wait to start reading them.
Maybe you could find them cheap on Amazon or get them free from the library and join us too.
December 10, 2009 at 6:17 pm
I read The Fourth Turning (and still have it) about 10 years ago. The general premise is that there are 4 types of generations which reoccur cyclically throughout our history. Each of these generations has characteristics which are shaped by the generation which preceded it.
Every fourth generation there is a Fourth Turning, in which a crisis happens and the country steps through “a great gate of history” after which it is forever changed.
An example of this is the change that came over the United States after the Depression and the Second World War. Life in this country in all aspects was completely different in the early 1950′s from that of the early 1930′s.
I highly recommend this book. It will make you look at history and current events in a far different way from how you have before.
December 10, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Here’s a thing to ponder: imagine a generation who was neglected by parents who were too busy trying to earn a living. They grew up early and had to take responsibility before they were adults. They had to face a true crisis and support the country through both attacks on the nation and economic downturn.
Does this sound like you folks who are in your 30′s? Surprise! It’s the Greatest Generation, your great-grandparents!
December 10, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Am I misremembering? (See below.) Gonna read the books for sure now.
December 10, 2009 at 6:53 pm
No, you’re not misremembering. The confusion is that the kids in the service now are not Generation X. They are the Milleniums, a different group.
Generation X are the officers and older enlisted people, just like the group who lead the Greatest Generation. Patton and Eisenhower and Bradley weren’t the Greatest Generation, but Nomads, the generation who preceded it (the Generation X of their time).
December 10, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Thanks, MM.
December 10, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Miss Marple that also describes every adolescent generation of this nation from about 1607 until the baby boom, post WWII.
December 10, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Buttered, no, it does not describe every adolescent generation. There is a very big difference between the adolescents of the 1930′s and the 1960′s.
Kids who grew up in the 30′s were more prone to believe in government, civic duty, morality, etc.
1960′s era adoescents were more prone to rebellion against authority, free love, independence from authority.
I suggest reading the book. There really are differences, which is why there was such a generation gap between my group (Boomers) and my parents generation. And also why many Generation X people hold Boomers in contempt. It’s because we are so different in our thinking.
December 11, 2009 at 5:08 am
To take MM’s argument further, Buttered, there really wasn’t any kind of “adolescent” generation until fairly recently. Most people were children (children that were treated more like adults with adult like responsibilities)and then they were working adults, usually by 14 or so. There was no time to be a “rebellious teenager.” There wasn’t even the concept of “teenager.” Heck, considering the average life span, 20-25 would be middle-aged.
December 10, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I’ve read “Generations.” You’ll like it. The authors postulate that there are four repeating generations running through Anglo-American history. Those Milleniums? They’re a reboot of The Greatest Generation. They’re the bulk of our military now, and it looks like it will fall to them to save our bacon (again.)
I haven’t read “The Fourth Turning,” but will soon, as well giving “Generations” a re-read.
December 10, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I am a war baby born during WWII. Do not forget us even though we are a small generation.
December 10, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Your generation is called the Artist. It is a small generation and not one who called attention to themselves (hence your “don’t forget about us” comment). You were born during a Crisis (WWII). All generations born during a Crisis share the same attributes. You are very similar to those people born during the Civil War.
December 10, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Depending on the time-lines used, the war babies were either the start of the Boomers or the end of The Silent Generation. The WWII baby cohort is unique, though. Look at the Beatles.
December 10, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Sounds interesting. Hopefully they’re on Kindle!
December 10, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I forgot about Kindle. My husband gave me one as a gift as an early Christmas present. I need to see if it is available, because it is something I would like to reference often.
December 10, 2009 at 7:23 pm
The only one currently available on Kindle is The Fourth Turning. Make sure to click on the “I’d like to read this on Kindle” link for the other two!
December 10, 2009 at 7:59 pm
was scanning through tv one day last week and made the mistake of stopping on Oprah’s show. continued to watch as hillary was coming on… Apparently Oprah has decided that women’s issues are top of her priority list. The show was about a book called “half the sky” and the hell that women are going though around the world. Lisa ling’s interview with hillary was for a total of about 3 mins. I was furious Oprah backed Obama who has never done anything anywhere for women. I would love love love to take out a full page add in a big newspaper and explain to Oprah why she backed the wrong candidate. Put a nice big picture of hillary with the speech she made in china as first lady and all of the other amazing things she has done throughout her career. I know you guys could probably come up with something amazing and much better then this but we could tie in the Blame Oprah theme……
December 10, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I’ve heard Strauss or Howe interviewed several times on late night radio-night owl-
they are always fascinating discussions. Been meaning to read Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069. May join you.
I am a GenXer 30 something as well, born in the 70′s. What I remember from their interviews is that GenXers are the Nomads.
Each generation is one of four archetypes.
As I recall, one of the authors noted that the Founding Fathers were also the same archetype as GenX.
By the way, you can get a used copy of Generations at Amazon for $4.34—
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0688119123/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
PS: I just got my mom to start reading your blog. She’s a member of the Silent Generation. I’m kind of glad our generation was raised by non boomers. GenX is a sandwich generation. Small in numbers,squashed between two huge generations, the Boomers and the Millenials. Believe me, our generation is here for an important purpose. Just wait.
December 11, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Interesting TheJane, I hope you read back to these comments again.
I’ve been thinking on something. It seems to me that right now our country is adrift from principles. We don’t seem to understand what a principle is, how it works, how to evaluate a principle or according to a principle, or even how to talk about it.
People raised lefty like me have a prejudicial closed-mind toward even listening to talk about principles, always reflexively coming up with exceptions to the rule, as we were taught, or finding some sort of unfairness in it.
But for myself, I’m a convert to respect and appreciation for principles as compasses guiding us through life. And I’m not just talking about religious and/or moral principles in our personal lives, but guiding principles for our national life as set forth by our founders.
I would like to see a fresh look, a fresh discussion of principles showing people the relevance of this way of thinking NOW. As I’ve read, the test of a Truth is that it must always be true across all times and situations, but that truths may need to be refreshed in the language and sensibility of the current times, so that people now can connect personally to the relevance of principles in their own lives and communities, and apply that understanding to the way they live in their lives and communities. And walk the walk – something the hillbuzz boys are fantastic role models about.
Circling back to your comment TheJane – maybe that is where we X-ers can come in. Our older siblings the boomers were all about adventure and experimentation. Maybe we can be about refreshing our understanding of principles and truths, as they say in eastern philopsophies – turning the wheel of dharma.
December 11, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Perries, sometimes I wonder if our generation is here to act as a bulwark against overwhelming gov’t excess and leftist or far right madness that endangers our nation’s national security or financial future.
We may serve as a brake to stop an ominous force that wishes to take us down a road we should never go. GenX may be the heavy fist of reason that hits the proverbial reset button to get us back on track with reason,logic,creativity and yes–skepticism– and a snarky sense of humor.
After all, according to Michelle Malkin(Another GenXer by the way) I believe it was a 30 something stay at home mom who realy got the first Tea Party going.
December 11, 2009 at 12:02 am
I F’ing HATE the Boomers, and I’m pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-happy plant (pot), a-religious, etc. BUT I have a F’ing clue, and a brain. Oh, Happy Almost Hanukkah.
December 11, 2009 at 12:36 am
I have to say growing up, I also had a visceral loathing for the Boomers. They were quite nasty towards our generation. I think they were jealous that they were no longer the center of the universe once our generation started zapping the attention away from them. My typical stereotype Boomer for some reason is Bryant Gumbel who was quite vocal about how terrible our generation was back in the 90′s or some a**hole boss with a ponytail. I still don’t realy like that generation but I’ve mellowed on them a bit.
December 11, 2009 at 1:26 am
No F’in’ way. The Boomers (I’m Gen-X, age 42) are the radical Muslims of America but w/o the guts to take themselves out with their prey. F em all. They, and those creatures out of an F.W. Murnau movie running Congress, have utterly wrecked this country. Gen-Xers do work hard, b/c we’re the ones getting trampled by the Boomers. Where’s the reset?
December 11, 2009 at 12:47 pm
The Boomers always talked ‘about’ the X-ers in our hearing, without actually talking to or with us. And the really message of every such discussion was how we X-ers compared so poorly to the excellence of the boomers. rofl! Though when I broadly say ‘boomers’ it is unfair, because really I am talking about the Media and the ‘chattering classes.’
Anyway, if I recall my reading from the website (linked to in my post below), the generational dynamics paradigm states that the interaction between the boomers and the X-ers is, due to our generational dynamic and not to anything unique about these particular current generations, nonproductive, toxic and not good for the nation as a whole. Like an unhappy marriage full of bitter bickering and recrimination. A humbling thought.
December 11, 2009 at 12:50 pm
TheJane your post made me realize that Office Space is a quintessential boomer/X-er interaction movie, between the main character and the boss he loathes.
December 11, 2009 at 12:11 am
A Hillbuzz Boys Bookclub! YaaaaaaaaaaaaaY!
Gonna try to find these…put ‘em on TOP of my ever growing pile!
Anyone else having a hard time putting up/out their Christmas decor? It is literally taking me daaaaays. ugh.
December 11, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I have not read these books (yet, & thanks for passing on the recommendations), but I do have a link to the Generational Dynamics website which is on the same topic:
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?s=wDfb5A&d=ww2010.home
The forum has interesting topics.
I came across this site last year and have found the generational paradigm really influencing the way I understand the boomers in the lead now, and me being a Gen-Xer sort of sucked into the boomers broad wake.
December 11, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I’ve been lurking on your site for several weeks now, and absolutely love it! I’m thrilled to see y’all recommending these books. I read them a couple of years ago and they’ve stayed with me, providing a bit of a sense of perspective as I observe the latest gut-churning goings-on.
I look at everything with the Gen-Xer kind of mind-set. I’m one of the earliest Gen-Xer’s, born in 1966, and am 43 years old.
My first thought on the whole “stop mammograms in the 40′s” thing was “yeah, well the Boomers got theirs for the most part so they got the benefit of early detection, but now that it’s Gen-X mostly coming up, they’re all “it’s unnecessary.”"
That’s my perspective of Boomers. In a nutshell… they are a bunch of locusts, denuding the entire landscape and leaving a bare husk of a country for the us. Then they blame us for resenting them.
Every social program will be expanded, sustained past breaking to benefit the Boomers. Include the 55 year olds in Medicare now, huh? They’ll also get their Social Security. They’ll get their well-checks and cancer treatments, while driving every private insurer out of business and leaving Gen-X to rationed health-care. We’ll get the pain pills and the offer (as in Oregon) from the government that says they’ll pay for us to off ourselves, but that’s about it.
Yeah. I’m bitter. You betcha.
Huh.
As a first comment, this doesn’t actually make me look all that good, does it? LOL I had no idea all of that was going to come up. I’m seriously debating deleting it, but I suppose I’ll just suck it up and stand by what I said. That’s what Gen-Xers do, after all.
December 13, 2009 at 12:39 am
I am enjoying all the comments here.
Generationally, I’m a Boomer. Mickey Mouse Club, Howdy Doody Time & Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids.
Though I did not think so then, I was blessed to grow up Italian, working-class and Catholic. This environment was steadying and strict. My parents, extended family and teachers were often harsh but deeply principled people. It took the edge off the Boomer thing since we working class kids were not raised to think too highly of ourselves or to expect much unless we worked for it.
The upper middle and upper class kids who started revolutions on their dads’ credit cards or dropped out, again on daddy’s dime, might as well have dropped in from Mars. They were strange, angry and hedonistic.
Don’t get me wrong, my sibs and I made a lot of prototypical Boomer mistakes. In fact, I had an interesting conversation with my Millenial daughter about this. She lived through my foray into a high pressure career and divorcing parents and a long time when I was way to preoccupied with myself. I credit my upbringing with the fact that I was able to right that at all.
Her views on motherhood, raising kids and family dinnertime are decidedly traditional. Being a mother, she says, will be her job. The most important job she can do. If she has to work outside the home, that will just be work. She will come home to her real job.
She also gave me an earful about numbnuts professors who cut off any point of view that disagree with their own. She tells me that there is a difference between urban millenials (no morals, only out for what themselves) and suburban millenials (family oriented). We live in NYC by the way. Oddly enough, it sounds in some ways like what I just said about differences among Boomers. I’d be interested to hear from others about her perceptions.
To those of you Xers, I apologize on behalf of all Boomers. I have often said myself that my generation was a disaster. Sorry guys. At least you didn’t have to sit in the lunchroom with us.
December 13, 2009 at 1:00 pm
DianeNYC: As an X-er, it does do my heart good to remember that there are boomers out there who really aren’t completely self-centered locusts. It’s good to be reminded of that now and again, as the cultural generalizations (via movies, entertainment, historical accounts, etc) seem to really focus on the “oh, we boomers are so awesome and are fixing the world!” version of the generation.
I agree with you that it is mostly a class phenomenon. Those upper class, and upper middle class boomers that you spoke of, are the ones that went into media, education, and politics.
All I can think when I see them giving themselves major props for being so awesome, is “Oh, for God’s sake, Grow UP!”
We Xers tend to be fairly cynical, coming up behind these whack jobs. We’ve been the ones actually having to deal with the reality left behind with the destruction of the family as we watched our friends (if we were lucky and not going through it ourselves) lose everything they had once counted on when their parents went full-bore into “self-actualization”.
We had catch phrases, as all generations do, but ours were usually distinctly unhopeful, at least with the early Xers.
“Reality bites”
“Get over it”
and others in that vein.
We early Xers still are fairly cynical. Reagan showed us that America actually still had something to offer us, and he had a realistic, workable plan for bringing America back. A lot of us will never forget that. He gave us some real, actual hope. I won’t let anyone diss him in my hearing, much like the Hillbuzz guys with Hillary. I get that feeling.
But I’d be willing to bet money that “Yes, we can!” made most of us roll our eyes and choke on our choler. I knew it was meaningless. I knew that because I’d known people like him in school… the weird early Xer who was so brainwashed by his hippy-parents as to wish he was one of them. The one who never could figure out that it was all a scam, and who was hearbroken that he was born too late.
(Aside: The New Pornographers have a song called “The Bleeding Heart Show” in which they chant “We have arrived, too late, too late for the bleeding heart show.” The song is a complete hippy throwback, really, but is in a way cynical so that I find myself wondering if they’re really wishing they’d been a part of it, or if they’re mocking it. I don’t know much about the band, but the song is pretty nifty. So either way, it works for me… I relate on a cynical level, but feel sorry for them if they genuinely wish they’d been around for that time.)
I don’t know if anyone surveyed the last election generationally, but looking at the boomer media and the millenial generation (my son is one, born in 1990), I have a vague sense that most Obama voters were members of those two generations. No proof, no cite… just looking around me locally, at who Obama’s fans were. (Fortunately, my son has inherited a bit of my cynicsm and didn’t get caught up in all the hype. He strictly avoided talking politics with anyone at his university though.)
Anyway… I started this note to say “thank you” for feeling the way you do. I didn’t mean to create another long post. One thing just led to another, as things generally do. LOL Sorry for the length.
December 13, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Cathy,
Thanks for the post. Please don’t apologize for the length, I found your comments interesting and was even hoping for more.
Re: your observations on Obama’s consituency, you may be on to something. I remember reading somewhere (don’t remember where) during the election that there was a disconnect between the young-young (those under 29) and the thirty-somethings, likely due to the fact that the thirty-somethings are actually out there earning paychecks, paying bills and paying back student loans.
Who knows where the Millenials end up. My daughter says she detests Sarah Palin but everything else out of her outdoorswoman (she rides and is a jungle savvy archaeology student), family-values mouth could come right out of Sarah’s — “You betcha.”
I was liberal when I was young. What suprises me at my age, is how my family’s values ultimately won out. I would now describe myself as moderately conservative. Sometimes I think I only add the moderately because I have to survive in NYC.
Re: the Millenials. Winston Churchill once said: “If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative at thirty, you have no brain.”
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours.
Diane
December 14, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Diane,
Thank you for the kind reply. I have hope too that the Millenials will come around. Once they see that all that “Yes, We Can!…” actually is followed by “… tax you to death, and force you to do what we want!” I don’t think there are a lot of young people in this country who truly have that strong a desire to be used and taken for granted by their government.
I think the sentiment behind Winston Churchill’s statement is a lot of why we early Xers got such a bad rap. We were cynical Alex P. Keaton types, often in reaction to the fluffy silliness of our hippy-dippy parents. The Prep look was really hot there for a while in the early 80′s. LOL Drove our parents nuts. But all generations will rebel, eh? LOL
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too.
Cathy :-)
December 14, 2009 at 9:21 pm
And God Bless Us — Everyone!
See ya round the posts, Cath.
Diane