Day: 13 September 2017
The generation game
It’s tempting to try to understand social change in terms of generations – and it is a temptation widely succumbed to. Millennials are pitted against baby boomers, generation X is succeeded by generation Y, lost generations are found again, and stereotypes abound. This article and an earlier more detailed one are an attempt to challenge that framing. A part of that is recognising that people criticise younger generations for the same faults which their elders once ascribed to them; the more interesting part is challenging the idea that there are shared experiences which are best understood in terms of generations. That’s not to say of course that there are no social and economic changes to which governments and others need to respond. But it is a useful reminder that focusing on differences between generations tends to obscure differences within them (and differences which aren’t generational at all).