In 1991, historians William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book called Generations: The History of America’s Future, which is a fascinating look at generational patterns in American history. They claim that since the average American tends to live around eighty-eight years or less and that every twenty-two years or so, a person enters a new phase of being, then an individual human life can therefore be thought to consist of four parts: youth, rising adulthood, midlife and elderhood.
The authors further contend that American history can be conceptualized in precisely the same manner. That is, it can be more or less neatly divided into eras of approximately eight-eight years, each of which consists of four distinct phases that happen in a recurring order. Strauss and Howe refer to these as "turnings," but they can be thought of much like seasons, and the social climate during each of these seasons tends to affect people who are roughly the same age in very similar ways, which is precisely what defines them as a generation. Whatever it was, they all lived through it.
This would mean that Generation X is this cycle’s version of the Lost Generation, and it's probably not a coincidence that Millennials seem to have a lot in common with the G.I. Generation. According to the authors, the former two are Nomad generations, having not been afforded the stability that other generations take for granted, whereas the latter two are thought to be Civic generations because of their proclivity to come together for a commonly perceived good, particularly in times of distress.
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| Do they look lost to you? |
According to this four-part recurring pattern, it would seem that we have the most in common with our great grandparents, but since few of us ever have the chance learn from them directly, we tend to make the same mistakes repeatedly...
I don't know about you, but I'm starting to see a pattern in all of this.
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