NEXT AVENUE - SPECIAL SECTION
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Let’s Climb Out of the Generation Trap By Ashton Applewhite
When The Who howled "talkin' 'bout my generation" in 1968, they were referencing a group of
to distinguish between age, period and cohort effects. This leads to unfair representations, like tarring Millennials as disloyal job-hoppers. But that's an age effect, not a generational effect; it's how people may behave when they enter the job market, no matter when they were born.
people born and alive at about the same time. That's what the word means to most of us: generations in a family and, more generally, age contemporaries at different stages of life. But we use it to mean lots of other things, too, and that's a habit we need to break. Belonging to a generation contributes to a sense of personal and collective identity and belonging to something larger than ourselves. It's attractive to social scientists, who look for demographic patterns, and useful to the media because it lends itself to storytelling. We use "generation" to describe not only who lived through what and with whom, but also the meaning and values we attach to those experiences — individually and collectively. But precisely because "generation" refers to so many different things, we use it too much and too carelessly. That's the problem. We may think we know what "generation" means, but the concept has no scientific basis. Generational durations and beginning and end dates vary. It's mathematically almost impossible
Why Viewing People By Their Generation Can Be Ageist
Generational framing sanctions and supports age segregation, which makes us more likely to accept age divides and inequities as "just the way things are" instead of questioning the grip of age-group groupthink on our policies and prospects. Most damagingly, "generation" is used to exaggerate what age cohorts have in common and how they differ, in order to encourage conflict and legitimize inequity. Generational framing pits old against young. Invented by right-wing strategists in the 1970s, the myth of intergenerational conflict holds that the interests of old and young are inherently opposed, there's not enough to go around and olders and youngers will soon be at each other's throats. The media promotes this notion because conflict sells. It's easier to point fingers than build bridges, and when times are tough, we look for scapegoats.
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