Talk:Generations (book)

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I don't know the editting procedure on Wikipedia and don't have the time to learn right now, so i would like it if someone else were able to fix my asterisks at the bottom of the page.

Done. MediaWiki interperts asterisks as bullet points. To stop it from interperting them, you have to mark them up like this: <nowiki>Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki> crazyeddie 06:31, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Homeland Generation?

Have Strauss and Howe ever actually used this designation? The only place I've ever seen it was somebody suggesting the name on the FourthTurning.com forums, and in any case the term smacks of lending credence to the Bush Administration's post 9/11 policies or to the idea that 9/11 was the start of the Crisis. I'm changing this for now to the actual designation used by Strauss and Howe as "Homeland Generation" is an inherently POV term. Kaibabsquirrel 08:54, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think this article is a joke. The proper term for a generation should either be a set number of years or defining events (all American generations lack these characteristics). To answer your question, the proper terminology of the generation should be Z (as in X-Y-Z). I've been looking into some stats and I think a more probable definition of generations should be (though it does not make total contextual sense)
1925-1945 Silent
1946-1966 Baby boomers
1967-1987 Generation X
1988-2008 Generation Y
2009-2029 Generation Z

Jeff. 16:16, 14 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.121.173.213 (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not the article that's the joke, but the book. However, it is notable, so we need to describe it. DGG (talk) 04:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't recognize Homeland Generation as a term that S&H use. I believe that it is a POV term introduced by the author of the article.
Per the next comment, as a demographer, I do not consider EITHER the article OR the book a joke since I've tested the age ranges suggested by Strauss and Howe against actual attitudinal, interest, and transactional data (e.g. Internet Banking use). In fact, the age breaks that they suggest are almost identical to those that are generated when we run chi-squared tests of variance on the age variable when compared to a target behavior. If you read American Demographics on a regular basis when it was a standalone publication, then you would probably have been frustrated to find that there could be 3 or 4 very different and contradictory definitions of "generation" in the same issue (which prompted me to write a letter to the editor).
It seems that few people are disputing the older definitions of generation, but that they are hotly contesting the break points from near history (Silent through today). Strauss and Howe used a methodology that analyzed cultural experiences in childhood, youth, adulthood, and elderhood and correlated them with historical events to identify the break points between generations. When they first published the book in the early 90s, they admitted that the most difficult job was assigning a break point for the near in generations since the generational identities of the youngest generations haven't solidified adequately. I would argue against the break points advanced above because we do have a cataclysmic event (9/11/2001) which would impact young children very differently from those who witnessed the event firsthand as youths and lock step 20 year bands do not take into account very important differences between the experiences of each cohort. Instead, we need to ask whether someone born at this time at this age would be affected in the same way as someone much older or much younger.
I argued in AD as I do here that the "bump in the snake" definition of baby boom is not appropriate based on the cultural experiences of people in the latest wave of the above range 1946-1966. It is true that a person looking at the distribution of number of births would say - "Whoa! Look at all those babies!" but all of the reading I have done into that topic never correlated anything deep to the phenomenon other than the number goes up fast, then drops off. What was missing is the impact of Roe v. Wade and the legalization and the rollout and adoption of legal birth control pills -- revolutions that took a few years to percolate through the population. I have no problem whatsoever with the first two (Silent and Baby Boom) using S&H definitions, but would adjust Gen X, Y, and Z a bit as follows:
  • 1925 - 1942 Silent Generation (18 years)
  • 1943 - 1960 Baby Boom (18 years)
  • 1961 - 1978 Thirteenth Generation / aka Generation X (18 years) -- all adults on 9/11
  • 1979 - 1996 Millenials / aka Generation Y (18 years) - note the use of 9/11/2001 to define youth as the individuals aged 5 and 22 who experienced 9/11 first hand
  • 1997 through today for an as yet unnamed adaptive generation. When it does something, then we can name it, but Generation Z can do as well as any.
I hope this makes folks feel a little better about the article.

66.236.147.253 (talk) 23:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Regards, Lynne Mysliwiec

can you give references? They should be helpful in various places here. But this is about the book, not the theory, so we must in this article use generations as defined in the book; we can mention as criticism that the dates may not match an true historic or cultural reality. You may wish to commend, or amend with references to the disagreement, at the articles for Generations X, Y and Z--I'll be looking there. Speaking personally, and admittedly as an amateur, the part I find wildly speculative in their work is not the definition of generations, some of which seems reasonable enough, but their general theory of phases. As for the name of Gen Z, we need a name to have an article. Whatever people use most consistently is the name. Further comments hoped for. DGG (talk) 01:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge? Nah.

I don't think that the Generations article should be merged into the Strauss and Howe article. Both are somewhat lengthy already, and I think that the fuller description of Generations deserves to stand on its own and even be expanded. Jack Resiak 09:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please disambiguate Generations vs. Fourth Turning

Generations was a fairly rigorous book, complete with citations and discussion, where the authors first propose their concepts. Fourth Turning, in contrast, extrapolated from Generations across countries and millenia! Simultaneously, the authors removed discussion of anything they found contentious in the first book (namely how did they define the generations and why did they pick the dates that they did). Generations showed how data can be analyzed to come up with something called generational culture; Fourth Turning reads like a long, repetitive philosophical assertion on Life, The Universe, and Everything. Kitode 00:06, 1 May 2006 (UTC)kitode

[edit] Dispute tag

This information is presented as though it were absolute truth rather than theories developed by the authors. It needs to be made clear who they are, what context they are studying in, and that these are theories. Looking at how these ideas have been received would be useful and impact. Since this connects to the website of the two authors, it tends to read more as a homage to them rather than a true NPOV encyclopedic article. Development and expansion may help with this; right now its more a book review. Cyg-nifier 23:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I didn't realize that this was an article on a book until I saw the external links, thought it was an advertisement, and looked up to the title to check. There is absolutely no indication that this was based on a book; no differing views whatsoever. The only indication is that tag you put up, and even then, that's not enough. --76.188.148.173 23:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
the title is clear enough, as is the opening paragraph. It well describes the purely speculative nature of the material. If you want to se a non-neutral version presenting it as established fact, go back into the history of the article. DGG (talk) 04:02, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Homeland begins: 2001?

As the article states people born in a Hero Generation spend their young adult years during a crisis or war. So that means that that particular generation would end (stop being born) at the start of a war. The Millenial generation is a Hero one, so shouldn't it end on the most recent crisis (i.e the war on terrorism which began in 2001)? 72.75.108.54 22:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the general view is that 9/11 just marks the begining of the crisis period, like the great depression in the 30's, leading up to WWII. Until this future (or current) crisis is over the so called "Homeland" Generation will not start.

[edit] Why does this article exist?

If I publish a zany model of history, can I have a dozen articles dedicated to it? And if this book has sold a lot of copies or something, surely that doesn't justify such comprehensive and reverential treatment.

It's like an astrological hoax. Lord Loxley 00:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
If astrological books are popular enough and referred to, we include articles on them. We normally support their inclusion with reviews, and if anyone bothers to publish criticisms of them, we include that information. DGG (talk) 08:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I made the first response, not the query. Lord Loxley 14:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lost Generation doesn't belong merged here

I'm fine with merging the articles that are Strauss and Howe specific, but it should be noted that "The Lost Generation" predates Strauss and Howe, and is used to describe literary expatriates such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot. Strauss and Howe incorporated this name into their generation scheme. But it was actually coined by none other than Gertrude Stein. As such I'm going to go ahead and be bold and remove the merge suggestion. It would actually be a huge embarrassment if a literature scholar were to see we were considering merging the Lost Generation into a Strauss and Howe article. --JayHenry 04:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The Strauss and Howe posse more or less fouled up the Lost Generation. 99% of Americans refer to it in the sense JayHenry discusses. That's the meaning that should be preserved. Strauss and Howe's ideas about the 'Lost Gen' need to be kept to their own WP article. --Dylanfly 13:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge to BOOK

Stong yes for merging Gilded Generation and other Strauss and Howe pages into ONE article. Most of the pages are invented by Strauss and Howe and their fans, but some have independent standing (e.g. Beat Generation). --Dylanfly 13:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Very strong yes. these idiosyncratic terms are used by nobody else. The ones that do have independent standing are the ones they did not invent. pseudo-social-science if there ever was, and, in accordance with proportional weight, suitable for inclusion in WP only as a single idiosyncratic theory. If there are no objections in a week, the merge can proceed. If there are, the best course probably would be Afd. DGG (talk) 03:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I also support this merge. We should quickly verify that the other articles don't have legitimate use, in addition to their Strauss and Howe use. --JayHenry 03:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
    I'm trying to figure out how best to document that the generational theories of Strauss and Howe are pop-futurism and pseudoscience. It doesn't appear to have ever received serious scrutiny in an academic context . New York Times review by Michael Lind might be a start. --JayHenry 05:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
    Also found a journal entry from Human Resource Planning, the MBA-level journal (available in Nexis) of the Human Resource Planning Society (ISSN: 0199-8986). The article "The generation gap, more myth than reality," about generationalists in general, but including Strauss and Howe observes that, "Research by generational proponents is not published in academic journals, an indication to experts that the concept is a fad, lacking long-term value."
    • Anyway, it points the direction to some sources which I can't get to from home:
      • Alwin DF (2002). "Generations X, Y, and Z: Are They Changing America?" Contexts (Fall/Winter), 1(4): 42-51.
      • Bengtson VL (2003). "Letters to the Editor," Contexts (Winter), 2(1): 5.
      • Hughes ME & O'Rand AM (2005). "The Lives and Times of the Baby Boomers." In The American People, R Farley & J Haaga (eds), New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
      • Rotolo T & Wilson J. (2004). "What Happened to the 'Long Civic Generation'? Explaining Cohort Differences in Volunteerism," Social Forces (March), 82(3): 1091-1121.
      • Wellner AS (2000). "Generational Divide. Are Traditional Methods of Classifying a Generation Still Meaningful in a Diverse and ChangingNation?" American Demographics (October), 22(10): 52-58.
    Hopefully tracking these down will be a good start to putting the Strauss and Howe articles in the proper context: as popular theories but not academic ones. --JayHenry 05:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Nice work User:JayHenry! I've been at this for a month, and have heard almost no reply from defenders. I feel that their silence is pretty well damning. And I mean that from a WP procedural point of view: these people need to step up and defend having 30 pages of Strauss and Howe, but they just haven't done so, despite and onslaught of queries from people like me and DGG (among others). Folks, if you're out there, and you think Strauss and Howe deserve more than one article, speak up. Otherwise, we're going ahead with this merge. Cheers, --Dylanfly 15:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh--and I also think that Strauss and Howe itself should be merged. Looks like User:PDH is really on top of the first huge merge, but I'm sure s/he needs our help. --Dylanfly 15:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I find reading and summarizing the generations pages quite painful - since they go on and on, but say so little. So if someone else wants to do some, they should go for it. I'm not sure merging the authors page with the book page is the best idea though - but I'm not especially familiar with the topic, was the whole theory developed in one book or over time? Would it be best to merge both and move it to something like Strauss and Howe's American generations? --Peta 05:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with ya, Peta! How tedious to edit this goo. I think we can safely chop it up, drop a bit into it and then let the fans fix it later. I mean, where are they? They should be doing the work, but they're no where to be seen. I say, plonk in a sentence on each thing and let them add to it if they care enough. The whole thing is so awful. I'm happy to see this digested into one page, but ultimately I think one page is one page too many for this mediocre stuff. --Dylanfly 16:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to all of you for your work on this. I put the godawful "Generations" template (one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen on Wikipedia) up for TfD awhile ago and it was thankfully deleted. I'm also happy to see all of these offshoot generations articles getting merged into the main article. I actually liked what I read of Strauss and Howe's Fourth Turning book (kind of like how it's fun to read astrology stuff) but the amount of coverage it was receiving here was insane. In seems like the cleanup is largely done, but if not and anyone wants me to lend a hand merging material just drop me a line on my talk page.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Hey there, thanks for the note about the massive Generations (book) merge. Last tasks: merge Strauss and Howe and probably rename the whole thing. Silent generation is also of dubious worth, but we're keeping it for now. Anyway, if you have any insight into a merge of Strauss & Howe plus Generations (book), your help would be mucho, mucho appreciated! :) Cheers, --Dylanfly 11:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] silent generation

I think this term is used other than Strauss and Howe , and the article reflected it. As there was not in my opinion no consensus to merge on the talk page for this particular one, I am restoring it in place of the redirect.DGG (talk) 19:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. As per the Lost Generation above -- we shouldn't merge the articles that have meaning outside of Strauss and Howe. We should, however, make sure that Strauss and Howe is not a large piece of such articles. My sense is that we do have consensus to merge the articles which are Strauss and Howe specific, and not to merge articles with outside meaning. --JayHenry 19:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with JayHenry's characterization of the consensus, and am impressed with DGG's sense of integrity. My only objection is that not one defender of Silent Gen came forward. To me the Silent Gen is not in any way comparable to Lost Generation or Beat Generation or Gen X. I propose that it get junked too, unless it can be fortified soon. --Dylanfly 21:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
For the moment I'd hold off , as I think the other refs are enough to show the use. I want to look and see if there are more. DGG (talk) 04:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] G.I. Generation

I think there is a mistake with the entry for the G.I. Generation, due to it talking about the Civil War and robber barons... Phalanxia 20:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] redirect

this is an example of a bad re-direct. This is not a page on 'the new silent generation' as the sequential list of 'generation' terms suggests. It needs to say that it doesn't have an artical of its own and either show up with a red link, or no link at all. A link to this page could be described in parenthesis under or beside the term indicating that this guy is the only one who calls this generation by that name, or any name at all. But in general? This should not be a redirect.

~Akako 16:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I came to this page (following the link from Generation Y) looking for information on the "New Silent Generation". This page is pretty much useless for that purpose. A stub that links here or even a no-article red link would be more useful. 70.108.41.89 22:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments-- S&H never said much about it, but I added the information available from the previous version of that page into footnote 3 of the table. DGG (talk) 07:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
which, btw, doesn't particularly help. This kinda needs to be a stub, with perhaps a link to this artical.

~ Akako66.41.42.83 14:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is notable enough for a stub--in general, all of their "generations" are not, and articles on most of them have ben consistently deleted. The article originally there didn't actually have anything substantial to say--you can see it in the page history, at [1]DGG (talk) 01:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Arias Levhita (talk) 17:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I had made a stub again instead of the redirect.. maybe without proper discussion soo feel free to edit that, but... the thing is that when you go to the New Silent Generation or Generation Y you expect an article about that or at least a whole section dedicated to that subject in the redirected page, not like in this case that get the reader lost because you can't find the term "Generation Y" anywhere.
You know Wikipedia is not only about reciting facts, it's also about guiding the reader into the correct information, in case the least I expect if i'm being redirected is something like: X term (also know as Y Term) is a blah blah blah.
At least that way I know that the term I was looking isn't the best way to call the thing.
If you can not provide sources other than the book, the redirect will be reinstituted. It is useful;--it tells you that the term is meaningless outside of the scheme of this particular book. anything more is excessive weight. Perhaps instead you might want to redirect it to generation Y, and add a paragraph there to try and differentiate it. At least that's a term used outside of S&H. DGG (talk) 04:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crisis

Isn't it arguable that world events (from the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Iraq to Global warming and such) could constitute this era's "crisis?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.244.83.88 (talk) 02:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It is arguable - so arguable that Strauss and Howe themselves weren't particularly certain of it as of July 2007. You can find their comments on Fourthturning.com, which has many discussions on this very topic. Since it can't be factually ascertained, though, it's probably not well suited for Wikipedia. At least not yet....Patrickbowman (talk) 19:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Silent Generation and Generation Z

Both articles redirect to this article, but nowhere does it mention either of the two terms. As I usually do when I am redirected to an article that I cannot find a clear connection to, I try to find the terms in the article, but such is not the case here. So what is the "New Silent Generation", and what is "Generation Z"? Zchris87v 23:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

see footnote for NSG, a non-standard term used once or twice by H&S and apparently nobody else. Gen Z is another matter--it seems to have no clear meaning. . for a discussion of why there is no article there, see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Generation_ZDGG (talk) 04:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarifying

I changed the emphasis of the paragraphs to clarify the hypothetical nature of all this. DGG (talk) 04:13, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a good improvement, DGG. I'm actually wondering if it's necessary to leave the neutrality/factual accuracy tag on their much longer? By appropriately contextualizing the statements, and making clear that it's describing their theory as pop-history rather than something scholarly, I do think the statements in the article are factual now, though not the theories themselves. If it's not their yet I think we should ask what's needed to get the tag off the article. --JayHenry 04:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure either, but i any case I want to do a little more. There are continually cgoingto bechallenges from both sides--the academic types who will be horrified, and the peonaive people who have just discovered the book and are fascinated, so maybe we need something in to show we are aware of the problems., Do you by the way know on a good source for t he statment that t is not widely supported by historians? DGG (talk) 01:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Human Resource Planning (ISSN: 0199-8986) the journal of the Human Resource Planning Society, which I don't know much about, has an article "The generation gap, more myth than reality," about generationalists in general, but including Strauss and Howe. It observes that, "Research by generational proponents is not published in academic journals, an indication to experts that the concept is a fad, lacking long-term value." This is copied from above, I don't have the reference in front of me. --JayHenry 02:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] G.I. Generation description

There's no description for the G.I. Generation and there's no place to link an article to this generation (it just redirects you back to this article). Can someone please do something about this? 66.75.126.7 (talk) 04:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright infringement

I did a google search for the entire Progressive generation section and found that part of this page matches it exactly. Unless the author of that website (or of the book, if the Historymania site is run by the author) edited Wikipedia then this is blatant copyright infringement, and is definitely not fair use. SteveSims (talk) 08:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If you read the copyright notice at the bottom of that page you'll see that it says the content is licensed from Wikipedia. Thank you for being vigilant about copyright, but in this case, the site is just mirroring our content, which they are allowed to do. --JayHenry (talk) 08:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] overgeneralisations

I gather the material in the last column is intended as a summary of the book. I have removed it as lacking specific sources. Perhaps it would be clearer if either it were done as a short one or two sentence summary, or was written in prose. But it makes no sense as a table. DGG (talk) 07:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revise ?

Under the Millenial Saeculum, the New Silent Generation has 2009-2029 for the years born, but the description says "mid to late 1990s". Which is it? please revise. thxGizziiusa (talk) 00:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)