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New and improved archives. The articles collected at Generation Watch and at the LifeCourse Associates Media Center are now searchable, in the new Media Center Archives. Users can search the content of articles stored at LifeCourse.com, and the titles of external articles that get listed at Generation Watch. Users can choose to include or exclude the links known to no longer be valid (this happens to most of the links - but some old ones are still good.) Visit the archives. Posted by Steve Barrera at 3:18 PM
Silent and invisible. There are four articles this month about the Silent generation, not one of which recognizes its own subject. The Christian Science Monitor discusses their workforce participation, much greater than that of the G.I.'s who came before them. The Washington Times finds them visiting the doctor often, the Charleston Daily Mail (W.Va.) notices they're not running off to Florida when retiring, and the Boston Globe notes the new style in funerals. But every one of these articles imagines it is describing a baby boomer-led trend, that being the second-oldest generation commonly known. With the oldest Boomers being 60, the current crop of sixty-somethings and seventy-somethings are someone else. So, who is this invisible generation? As described here, they are the Depression-era children born between 1925 and 1942, who grew up to become an adaptive, Artist generation. Having replaced the G.I. generation in old age, they now bring new trends to that age bracket, such as continuing to work and live in their home communities instead of retreating to a seniors-only "Sun City." Posted by Steve Barrera at 5:24 PM
Boomer bashing. Mark O'Brien urges his cohorts not to end up like their grumpy parents when they get old - as if! Meanwhile, Radley Balko warns Gen-Xers of the threat posed to them by the Boomers running the country. Posted by Steve Barrera at 7:02 PM
Democracy in action. In California, as described by Jonathan Alter and Karen Breslau for Newsweek. Will Arnold Schwarzenegger unite socially liberal Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats in his bid for the governorship, and redefine the California Republican party? Will the Golden State combine Third Turning celebrity circus theatricals with Fourth Turning political realignment? Only in America! Posted by Steve Barrera at 9:47 PM
Communication Styles. Scott Wickstein notes in his blog that bloggers are much easier to read than academic writers, whose style is criticized by Robert Fulford at National Post. The difference is that bloggers are by and large Gen-Xers, who like to get to the point, while the professors are Silents, who like to find every nuance of a situation. But I agree that the academic writing is hard, sometimes impossible, to understand. Posted by Steve Barrera at 3:06 PM Edits. I've gone through the blog and edited some posts. Some links were broken because of the domain name change. I also added proper attributions to (most of) the links, and added links where they were obviously appropriate but strangely lacking...it's neat how a blog can be so handily revised... Posted by Steve Barrera at 2:42 PM
Food for thought. From Chapter 1 of The Fourth Turning, describing the Crisis era: Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire. Yet this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth. Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes – and a resolute new consensus about what to do. The very survival of the nation will be at stake. Posted by Steve Barrera at 2:11 PM |
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| Lost | 104+ |
| G.I. | 80-104 |
| Silent | 62-80 |
| Boomer | 44-62 |
| Gen-X | 23-44 |
| Millennial | ?-23 |
| Homeland | ? |
| High | 1946-1964 |
| Awakening | 1964-1984 |
| Unraveling | 1984-? |
| Crisis | ?- |
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Where noted, background information on generations theory is copyright 1996 Broadway Books. All other content on this web site is copyright 2002-2005 Generation Watch and Steve Barrera. All rights reserved. |