There is no commonality of opinion on the delineation of generations. Some say than Generation Y began in 1979, others 1982, still others use the vague term "the mid-seventies" (thanks, wikipedia). Many, though, choose 1978 (see USA Today, Huffington Post, Facebook, etc). I was born in January of 1978, which puts me in at the forefront of my own amorphous cadre.
Generation X is widely considered the "MTV Generation," those who were raised by cable television. Generation Z, for lack of a better term, began in the early 90's and is just wrapping up now. These are those younger than myself (and you, most likely) that thrive via social networking and are just now coming of age. Gen Z lives in Friedman's flat world. They see a limitless future before them. They leap before they look. Gen X was angry. They raged against the machine. I watched in 1999 as they burned down the "peace wall" at Woodstock. For the most part, they have settled comfortably into suburban adulthood, comfortable in the security that a professional life affords them. That leaves me. And my fellows. In "Generation Why?"
American culture is sometimes describe as a living organism. The growing pains of out nations are thereby described in comparison to an individual person. For the sake of this discussion, I shall apply this anthropomorphism as follow --
The modern America was born in the wake of World War II and the dawn of the nuclear age. The portion of the 1940's that followed the conclusion of the war can be considered Gestation. As new expectations were defined, the world rebuilt and America with it. The Greatest Generation came home to renew the workforce and boom their babies. The nation was as young.
The '50's immortalized in program's like Leave It To Beaver, was an innocent Childhood. The decade was socially conservative to the bone. The country behaved itself and there was always the strong parental hand of total nuclear annihilation hanging overhead.
The sixties almost go without saying. They were all about Rebellion, very much like the behavior of a teen becoming a legal adult.
That adult took the 1970's to Party. Regardless of whether college is involved or not, the early 20's of most people involve a perpetual free-for-all. The lingering sense of immortality from youth is paired with a profound sense of freedom and autonomy. The drug fueled Studio 54 orgy of the pre-AIDS culture is an apt parallel.
Gordon Gecko succinctly clarified the '80's philosophy when he uttered, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies and cuts through to the essence of the evolutionary spirit." I cannot improve on that description. The decade is analogous to the sensation of getting that first, big professional check. It embodies The Prime Earning Years.
The nineties were very much about the same Generation X considered above. This is the time when we realized that the world does not necessarily keep its promises. The world is not fair. Someone else gets the girl, the promotion, the last doll off of the Christmas shelf. We recognized the banal, frustrating nature of adult life and it really pissed us off. We were Disenfranchised.
I'll try to be objective here as I am not a fan of the 21st century's first ten years. Fed by GW Bush and reality television, the 2000's were defined by anti-intellectual nihilism. We gave up. Adulthood sucked, but there was nothing to be done. Lop on a healthy schmear of post 9/11 paranoia and we can understand that we have not yet fully escaped the Fear and Futility of a lost decade.
This decade, the 2010's should belong to my generation. The issue is that we don't know what to do with it. We made a strong statement by electing an thoughtful and well-spoken intellectual to the presidency, but that has provided the return that we imagined. We have watched our brothers lose focus and surrender to the gears of a system that is so broken that it cannot be remodeled, it must be rebuilt. We are threatened by financial insecurity, a behemoth in the East and a hefty dose of existential angst. The present must be lived by the bard's words: "To Thine Own Self Be True." This age must not be adherent to any umbrella of normality. These colors must bleed across all lines and boundaries. Neither conservatism, nor hedonism, nor the temptation of disregard can bind us as we look forward. This is the time for us all to recognize our path and walk it tall, proud.
As a generation, we ask "why?" Why effort to such an end? Why risk the distaste of failure when the recognition of success is so unlikely? I have an answer for you, for me. We do this because it is what we are here to do. This is our time. We are talent without scope, creation beyond imagination. We are the last hope of a stubborn race. Let our names, let our deeds ring down through the centuries because we were the next to change the world. We are a force of will and a force of nature. Let us surpass expectation, let our greatness unfurl in the gale, let us tower as titans in the heavens and give our world a new archetype of radiance and grace.
Cheers.
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