Sunday, January 15th, 2006
William Strauss & Neil Howe are probably the best known proponents of generational theory in the United States, if not the world. Their reputation began with the publication of their first book, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069, in 1991, fifteen years ago.
13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? came out in 1993. The Fourth Turning was first published in 1996. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation hit the bookshops in 2000.
Before teaming up with Howe, William Strauss co-wrote Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation, with Lawrence Baskir in 1978. Neil Howe wrote On Borrowed Time: How the Growth in Entitlement Spending Threatens America’s Future
in 1989 with Peter Peterson.
Arthur Scheslinger Jr, a historian and political activist, is credited by Strauss and Howe as pioneering the cycle approach to American History. His work on generational cycles appeared in essays before being published together in the 1986 book, The Cycles of American History, since reprinted in 1999.
Strauss and Howe use the generation theories developed by Jos� Ortega y Gasset and Juli�n Mar�as, Spanish philosophers who wrote on history as a system. Marias died only last month at the age of 91. See Ortega’s book of essays, History as a System. They credit Anthony Esler, author of The Human Venture, with keeping generational theory alive for twenty years.
Age Bracket Fallacy
Strauss and Howe cite Gail Sheehy’s 1976 book, Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, together with Daniel Levinson’s 1978 book, The Seasons of a Man’s Life“, as examples of a cohort-group biography - a ‘persuasive rendering of the collective personality of American men and women now in their fifties’ (read mid sixties in 2005). These authors, as Matilda Riley pointed out in an essay in Graubard’s 1978 book, Generations, were promoting the fallacy of age reification, in which one generation projects its life experience on to another. Gail Sheehy responded in 1996 by publishing New Passages, which took into account the impact of history on young adulthood in the 1990s.
Generations as Trains in Motion
Strauss and Howe attempt to follow each generation as a train in motion rather than as a station. This they do by tracing the development of cohorts from childhood through to death, marking the distinctive events which influence each group. They say that each generation has a different experience of the life cycle. For this reason the authors provide the biography of each generation from the Puritans through to the Millennials.
Social Moments
Strauss and Howe focus on the impact of social moments - critical events which could be secular crises or spiritual awakenings. A social moment is an era, typically lasting about a decade, when people perceive that historic events are radically altering their social environment. Secular crises are when society focuses on reordering the outer world of institutions and public behavior. Spiritual awakenings are when society focuses on changing the inner world of values and private behavior. During social moments dominant generations are entering rising adulthood and elderhood, while recessive generations are entering youth and midlife.
Four Generation Cycle
However, through their research into generations through history, they come to the conclusion that generations come in cycles. “Just as history produces generations, so too do generations produce history.” The authors label the four generational types Idealist, Reactive, Civic and Adaptive, always recurring in a fixed order. Strauss and Howe suggest that the passage of four generations completes a full generational cycle over four 22-year phases of life, roughly ninety years.
1. A dominant, inner-fixated IDEALIST generation grows up as increasingly indulged youths after a secular crisis. It comes of age inspiring a spiritual awakening, fragments into narcissistic rising adults, cultivates principle as moralistic midlifers, and emerges as visionary elders guiding the next secular crisis.
2. A recessive REACTIVE generation grows up as an underprotected and criticized youths during a spiritual awakening, matures into risk-taking alienated rising adults, mellows into pragmatic midlife leaders during a secular crisis, and maintains respect (but less influence) as reclusive elders.
3. A dominant, outer-fixated CIVIC generation grows up as increasingly protected youths after a spiritual awkaening, comes of age overcoming a secular crisis, unites into a heroic and achieving cadre of rising adults, sustains that image while building institutions as powerful midlifers, and emerges as busy elders attacked by the next spiritual awakening.
4. A recessive ADAPTIVE generation grows up as overprotected and suffocated youths during a secular crisis, matures into risk-averse, conformist adults, produces indecisive midlife arbitrator-leaders during a spiritual awakening, and maintains influence (but less respect) as sensitive elders.
Strauss and Howe name the four generations reading their book in 1991 as:
GI - elders, born 1901 - 1924 (now age 81-104)
SILENT - midlifers, born 1925-1942 (now age 63-80)
BOOMER - rising adults, born 1943 - 1960 (now age 45-62)
13ER - youths, born 1961 - 1981 (now age 24 - 44)
They mark the passing of the previous generations:
MISSIONARY - born 1860 - 1882
LOST - born 1883 - 1900
They anticipate the emergence of a new generation:
MILLENNIALS - children, born 1982 - 2003 (now 3-23)
Strauss and Howe Online
These web sites provide a chance to engage with the authors.
Life Course Associates
Fourth Turning
Millennials Rising
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Thursday, January 12th, 2006
Bryan Turner and June Edmunds provide a thorough examination of the role of generations in the shaping of contemporary culture, intellectual traditions, social movements and national consciousness. In their 2002 book, Generations, Culture And Society, they consider the particular impact of the post-war early Baby Boomer generation on the UK, North America and Europe. Their sociological insight is made credible by their consideration of national perspective alongside the particularities of gender.
In their concluding chapter Turner and Edmunds explore the global responses to the collapse of the World Trade Center. Benjamin Barber in 1995 wrote that the world is organised around the dialectic of Jihad vs McWorld, between anti-global loyalties and the neutral cosmopolitanism of world trade. Turner and Edmunds take a more optimistic view, suggesting that the emerging generation is likely to be motivated to avoid the repetitions of such horrors.
Turner and Edmunds summarise the benefits of generational analysis:
1. Mounting evidence that the post-war generation, by virtue of its size and strategic position, has been particularly critical to social change in the twentieth century.
2. Post-war generation was important to the rise of modern consumerism which tends to be structured around generational markets - motivated by the creation of a youth movement that shapes contemporary fashion.
3. Demographic changes associated with the growth of an ageing population have created a range of pressing policy issues and increased potential for intergenerational conflict.
In their book Turner and Edmunds build on the sociological tools developed by Karl Mannheim by complementing them with the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.
Mannheim suggested that generational consciousness emerged through shared experience of a shared traumatic historical event. Maurice Halbwachs built on this theory in his book, On Collective Memory, by arguing that generational consciousness was sustained and reinforced through collective memories and rituals.
Pierre Bourdieu argued that inter-generational conflict brings about social transformation. The social success of emerging generations takes place through competition with existing generations in power. Bourdieu’s work is outlined in An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology.
Turner and Edmunds argue that the chronological understanding of generation will not bear much interesting fruit for sociologists. Date of birth may become irrelevant as members of a generational cohort express preferences for the values of another. What is more interesting, they argue, is the ways in which a generational cohort (born in same era) becomes a generation.
Edmunds and Turner distinguish between active and passive generations. A generation becomes a strategic acting generation by using available resources to innovate in the cultural, intellectual or political spheres. They suggest that active generations tend to be followed by passive generations that simply inherit the changes wrought by their predecessors. They point to the British experience of an active wartime generation, followed by a passive inter-war generation, followed by an active consumer generation which in turn was followed by a passive Generation X.
They argue that the globalization of culture, expressed in the passive media of television and developed in interactive web-based media, is the product of the 1960s generation.
Turner and Edmunds grapple with the ideas of Allan Bloom, who says in his 1988 book Closing of the American Mind, that unfettered democratization and extreme relativism in education have led to the ‘dumbing down’ of American society. The authors, while accepting some of Bloom’s points, argue that a new internationalism was created by the interconnectiions between different cultures expressed in the Baby Boom era. While traditional approaches to higher education have been spurned by many, the authors are able to tell the story of emerging generations of intellectual politicized women who had entered higher education en masse.
Turner and Edmunds say that their main concern in this book was to show that society is being shaped by generational location and shared generational experience rather than economic class. Institutions such as universities have been surpassed by broader intellectual movements expressed in wider global forums. Intellectuals, through the internet, have been both carriers of national distinctives as well as creators of a global community.
One of the most helpful chapters in this book focuses on the role of emerging generations of ethnic minorities in shaping national conscioussness. Edmunds and Turner map out the role of ‘founding fathers’ in developing a nation’s self-identity, often around a simple homogeneiety. New generations of minorities, politicised by involvement in a broader generational movement, take on the challenge of re-shaping the nation’s identity. Clear examples are found in the emergence of African American, Indian American, Asian American and Hispanic generations in the USA who have been effectively challenging the concept of ‘melting pot’.
The authors reflect on the UK context in which emerging generations of intellectuals are able to advocate for cosmopolitan transcendence of national boundaries while tolerating benight local and national identities such as the Scottish and Welsh. Being British is no longer simply about being English.
The emerging generations of global intellectuals is able to go beyond the polarisation of “Cold War intellectuals, pro-American apologists or nostalgic migrants.” The authors acknowledge that the post-September-11 environment will test this trend.
Turner and Edmunds explore the emerging voice of women created out of traumatic events such as the First and Second World Wars, Algeria and Vietnam. They argue that in the UK an emerging group of intellectual women are providing alternatives to the war-focused identity developed by the ‘founding fathers’.
The authors conclude with the prospect of generational change developing national consciousness in places of trauma like Palestine and New York. “Watch this space”.
Bryan Turner
Bryan S. Turner was Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge from 1998 to 2005
and is currently professor of sociology in the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He was previously Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Deakin University in Australia. He is the founding editor of three journals - Body&Society, Citizenship Studies and co-editor (with Mike Featherstone) of Body & Society and Journal of Classical Sociology. He is the author of Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism, (1994), The New Medical Sociology: Social Forms of Health and Illness, (2004), edited Max Weber: Critical Responses (1999), in three volumes and wrote the introduction for the 1992 edition of Karl Mannheim’s Essays on the Sociology of Culture. There are many more books written by Bryan Turner.
Over the next six years in Singapore, Bryan will direct research on globalisation and religion concentrating on such issues as religious conflict and the modern state, religious authority and electronic information, religious, consumerism and youth cultures, human rights and religion, the human body, medical change and religious cosmologies. These research foci will be explored through various religious systems. The general aim is to develop a comprehensive overview of the impact of globalisation on religions, and the consequences of religion on global processes. He intends to complete three volumes for Cambridge University Press on religion and globalization.
June Edmunds
June Edmunds is on the staff at University of Cambridge in the area of development studies. Her research background is in nationalism, ethnic relations, politics, culture, and the sociology of generations. She has published widely in these areas with articles in journals such as Twentieth Century British History, Politics, Ethnicities, the Journal of Consumer Culture, and Social Science and Medicine, as well as book chapters on national identity and generational closure. She is the author of The Left and Israel: Party-Policy Change and Internal Democracy (2000), and edited (with Bryan Turner) Generational Consciousness, Narrative and Politics (2002). Dr Edmunds is currently working on the impact of cultural trauma on political identity and activism in migrant communities. Forthcoming articles explore global generations and social change, and transnational social movements. She is also developing a research project on transnationalism among young Muslims in the UK.
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Wednesday, October 12th, 2005
Darren Wright tonight pointed me in the direction of Tara Brabazon’s book, From Revolution to Revelation.
From her web site, Brabazon.net, comes the editorial summary:
What happens when a strobe light is turned off, a bar closed, the colostomy bag belt unhooked, and a sweaty, smiley bandana discarded? How do we understand our own past, and the collective past we share with others? Popular culture offers a bridge, vehicle and vessel for memory, providing the building blocks of identity. The politics and passion of life are captured in the unforgettable song, the energy pumped out of an extraordinarynightclub, the exuberance of an unexpected goal in extra time, and the love of a film. For a fan, the joy and exhilaration is enough. For those writing on the coat tails of fashion, we need to understand why particular popular cultural forms survive through time and space.
This is the task of From Revolution to Revelation. To rewrite the maxim of the great rock writer Greil Marcus, I am interested in the dustbin of Cultural Studies, the discarded remnants of political struggles and theoretical hopes unrealized. To commence this rummaging, I return to Richard Johnson’s theory of popular memory as a way to understand the - now named - Generation X.
Those born between 1961 and 1981 have endured many (post) youth cultural labels, from slackers to the chemical/blank generation and baby busters. Yet there is no systematic study of the popular cultural literacies that are the basis of - and for - this imagining community. I document the disappearances of history, showing how popular memory - like the Hacienda - can be (re)built, even after the building itself has been destroyed.
The link between Generation X and Cultural Studies is not randomly selected. The histories of both these labels are taken for granted. It was left to Lawrence Grossberg to remind us that Cultural Studies is The Generation X of the academic world
Like the post baby-boom generation that is referenced in this odd phrase
everyone is talking about it but no one seems to know what it is. Lots of people are suddenly claiming to do it while others, nervous about its rather sudden success, are attacking it.
Such a realization is radiantly revealed and well captured, but requires evidence and clarification. From Revolution to Revelation takes up Grossberg’s challenge, following the bread-crumbed trail of popular memory that snakes through both Generation X and popular culture.”
Tara Brabazon lives in Perth, Western Australia, teaches in the School of Media, Communication & Cultural Studies at Murdoch University, and is the director of the Popular Culture Collective. Over the past few years Tara has taught Cultural Studies and History throughout Australasia, working in New Zealand, Queensland and Western Australia.
Tara’s research and writing includes the history of cultural studies, particularly with regard to the theoretical and political relationship between Britain, Australia and New Zealand. She’s written on Australian and New Zealand immigration history, film and television, popular music, feminism and men’s studies.
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Thursday, October 6th, 2005
During our first session together, the Emerging Generations in Conversation group identified a number of potential texts to study over the next eight weeks. We included:
1. Reality TV Shows - Survivor, Big Brother, The Mole. What are these shows telling us about the values or aspirations of those who watch them and those who make them? Are they aimed at Millennials or Gen X?
2. Synod in Session. The most recent Synod showed indications of emerging generations of leaders and their approaches to community and decision making. At the same time we were able to see fine examples of postwar generational leaders in action.
3. Television Advertisements over time. We considered, for example, the changes in advertisements on the topic of AIDS. Another possibility is the history of Coke ads.
4. Technological Advances. What does the prevalence of mobile phones and other such devices say about the generation about to leave school (aged 8 - 18)? How will the mp3 player and portable playstation, not to mention the palm top computer, change the way Generation M thinks, acts and interacts?
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Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
Talking with the seminar group over the weekend, the question of dominant values came up. We had no problems accepting the idea that people who came of age during the Great Depression came to place a high value on financial security. But it was a bit different when considering people who came of age in the 1950s, a time of conformity. Schewe and Meredith say that this generation came to value independence and rebellion. But what about the many people in that generation who still toe the line?
We used the bell curve to explore the spread of values throughout a generational cohort. A minority push the boundaries of new thought and behaviour. Another minority attempt to live out the values of previous generations. And in the middle are the people who gradually adopt and adapt emerging generational values.
Next time we look at this I’ll bring in Everett Rogers’ innovator theory, published in his book, “Diffusion of Innovations”. Rogers classifies consumer attitudes towards purchasing products into five categories according to how quick consumers are to purchase new products. The results are mapped in a bell curve.
1. innovators (2.5%),
2. opinion leaders or early adapters (13.5%),
3. early majority (34%),
4. late majority (34%), and
5. laggards or late adapters (16%).
The chart is often used to describe the adoption of technologies. The same could be used for adoption of generational philosophy, values and behaviours.
The Bell Curve is also the name of a controversial book published in 1994 by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray exploring the role of intelligence in understanding social problems in America. The title is a reference to the bell-shaped graph of IQ scores. The book purports to chronicle the rise of a “cognitive elite”, a social stratum of persons with high intelligence and an increasingly high chance of succeeding in life. (From Wikipedia)
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Tuesday, July 26th, 2005
The first session of the Emerging Generations course will focus on an understanding of generational culture and generational cohorts. I’ll be engaging with:
1. Karl Mannheim’s “A Problem of Generations”, from Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, written for post World War I Germany. This will provide a historical context for current approaches to generational theory. Opportunity to unpack the meaning of ‘cohort’.
2. Turner and Edmonds - looking at the dynamics of generational cohorts and sub groups, with consideration of education and gender as factors.
3. Strauss and Howe - their theory of generational cycles in the United States - how valid is their theory? Application by Mike Regele in his book, “Death of the Church”.
4. Hugh Mackay - his Australian research on ‘generational slices’. Insights gained. The limitations of such approaches.
5. Meredith and Schewe - their framework for generational culture based on defining moments. Marketing in the context of life stage, natural ageing, socio-economic background and ethnicity as well as generational culture.
6. Andy Crouch - a critique of defining distinctive and innovative generations - appeal to continuity, consideration of Biblical models of generation.
I’ll be looking at Jesus as an example of a counter-cultural prophetic leader - challenging the assumptions of his elders and peers.
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Wednesday, May 4th, 2005
Andy Crouch is a columnist with Christianity Today and spent several years as the editor of the magazine, Re:Generation Quarterly until its demise in 2003. He’s living in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA.
Andy can take the credit for taking the a lot of the wind out of the sails of generational research in the Evangelical church in the United States. In his Regeneration Quarterly review of Kevin Graham Ford’s book, Jesus for a New Generation: Putting the Gospel in the Language of Xers, Andy appealed for an end to publications on generational theory. His thesis is that the Baby Boomers as a generation have been formed together by shared experience. Generation X, he asserts, are so diverse that they defy the efforts of marketers to categorise them.
In 2001 Crouch wrote a Christianity Today column exposing three myths about generations, “Always in parables: Generation Misinformation”, published in Christianity Today and available online at his site, Culture Makers. Andy begins by bemoaning the popularity of seminars and books purporting to provide easy answers to ministry with Generation X, Y and Z.
The first myth busted by Crouch is the idea that ‘young people are a generation’. Andy points to the huge chasm between the murderous abusive intent of Eminem’s lyrics and the romantic ballads of Faith Hill. Both artists attracted huge levels of loyalty in the United States. Crouch cannot hold them together as members of the same generation. Instead of focusing on the distinctive features of the emerging generations, he would rather focus on the Biblical concept of each generation passing on faith to the next generation.
The scond myth is the idea that young people are disempowered. He points to the obsession with youth in prime time television. He asks if the time has come for members of postmodern generations learned to serve, love, and respect their elders.
The third myth is the idea that members of the emerging generations long for community. Crouch acknowledges that the emerging generations do crave a sense of connection with others. But, he explains, very few are prepared to pay the price of commitment required for intimate faithful community.
Crouch finishes by saying that ministry among young people will help us face our strategies for avoiding intimacy. It will call us to lay down our cherished distinctiveness from others, and invite us into that “chosen generation, royal priesthood, holy nation” that Peter calls the church.
I share Crouch’s concern about the over simplified nature of many seminars and books. That concern has led me to spending seven years paying attention to the factors that help us understand the development of emerging generations. Rather than providing people with generalisations, I am committed to helping people engage with their local context at a multi-generational level. That means, however, being aware of distinctive assumptions and starting points when coming to conversation. The point of conversation is not to alienate - it is to develop intimacy, cooperation and deeper understanding.
So what do I think of Andy’s myth busting? I believe Andy, in his effort to introduce some realism to the conversation, has himself oversimplified matters and overlooked paradoxical trends. In some ways the ‘postmodern generations’ have exposed these trends rather than created them. Diversity has always been there in real life. We’ve always had a disparity between different approaches to music. Karl Mannheim was aware of this tension as he developed his theory of generational cohorts and generational units in the 1920s.
The complaint that young people are disempowered is a perennial one. However I think public policy in USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, at least, has favoured the Baby Boomers even if only because of the sheer numbers in their cohort. Yes there are successful Gen Xers who have attracted investment and opportunity. That doesn’t negate the relative instability faced by emerging generations when entering the workforce. Crouch refers to American Beauty, the 2000 film, in which a 42 year old tries to remake himself into (and make it with) a 17-year-old. That film was made for Boomers, not for young people.
It’s true that emerging generations are missing something when it comes for forming community. Even without inner factors such as fear of intimacy, community experience is muted by the extent of mobility. Longing for community does not necessarily mean capacity for community. And visa versa.
In other contexts Andy writes off generational theories as the domain of marketeers. I’ve seen a few references to this argument by other commentators. There’s almost an intellectual snobbery at work. I haven’t seen academics discounting postmodernism because marketing analysts are also paying attention.
At the bottom line Andy Crouch’s myth busting helps us steer clear of ‘easy peasy’ trendy pop sociology. Disciplines of cultural exegesis must be grounded in models of theological reflection that last the distance. Models that take us beyond particular life stages or cultural trends.
Andy and his colleagues at Re:Generation Quarterly took what might be called a new orthodox approach to theology and culture. This conservative approach comes through in Andy’s chapter in The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, published by Emergent/Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Andy takes his myth-busting approach in his Christianity Today article on the Emerging Church movement for Christianity Today. More on those elsewhere some other time.
Here’s a biographical note on Andy from Culture Makers:
Andys mission is to help North American Christians discover the meaning of the gospel in our cultural and global context. He is editorial director for the Christian Vision Project and a columnist at Christianity Today, a member of the editorial board of Books & Culture, and a senior fellow of the International Justice Missions IJM Institute. More important, he seeks to befriend, learn from, and connect followers of Christ who are forging innovative paths of discipleship and cultural influence. Most important, he is a son, brother, husband, and father of two children. He lives with his family in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief of re:generation quarterly, a magazine for an emerging generation of culturally creative Christians. For ten years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University. He studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology. A classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz, and gospel, he has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to 20,000.
Back issues of Re:Generation Quarterly are currently being archived online at Christianity Today and will be accessible upon subscription.
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Wednesday, May 4th, 2005
Craig Kennet Miller is the Director of Evangelism and New Congregational Development and Specialist in Generational Studies for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He works with a team who explore ministry with seniors, Boomers, ‘Postmoderns’, Millennials and children in the emerging generations. The GBOD Generations web site is worth checking out.
I appreciate Miller’s research-based approach to generational resourcing. Take one of his earlier books, Postmoderns, grounded in his own 1993 and 1995 Spring Break Surveys as well as demographic information from the US Census Bureau. Craig’s interpretation of the Generation X is shaped by his previous work with Boomers but also by engagement in popular culture. Like Beaudoin, he takes seriously the insights provided by artists such as Madonna and Kurt Cobain.
Craig identifies nine culture shifts for ‘Postmoderns’:
1. From Order to Chaos
A chance to test the waters, look for a new vision of hope
2. From the Atom to the Bit
Move to the Digital age - a challenge to make sense out of world awash in information.
3. From One Truth to Many Truths
Many messages from many media.
Three widely held beliefs
a. We have no values
b. Happiness first
c. Time is wide, not long
4. From The War Out There to the War Right Here
Impact and connections between violence, suicide, drug use, and sexual abuse
5. Traditional Family to Multifamily
Effects of divorce, development of dual-earning family.
6. From Job to Task
Career uncertainty, costly education, debt and success.
7. From One Way to Diversity
Racial ethnic diversity, growth in world population, higher birth rate among Asians, Pacific Islanders & Hispanics, growth in multi-ethnic population, growth in immigration since 1965, subculture tribes, haves and have nots, women and equality, sexual orientation, genetic engineering.
8. From Religion to Spirituality
The loss of meaning in the words, ’secular’ and ‘religious’. Dealing with fear. Healthy skepticism about the church and other religious institutions. Healthy relationships.
9. From Modern to Postmodern Church
A web of inclusion that focuses on discipleship rather than being turned into members. Using the arts in worship, including contemporary pop culture. Importance of team work. Availablity of options. Recylcling of used resources - ‘Ancient/Future’. The implications of hypertext for communication. Deep spirituality. Communication for living.
Books By Craig Kennet Miller
Craig is the author of several books, all published by Discipleship Resources, Nashville, Tennessee.
- Baby Boomer Spirituality: Ten Essential Values of a Generation, 1992
- Contemporary Worship for the 21st Century: Worship or Evangelism?, 1994 (with Daniel Benedict)
- Postmoderns: the Beliefs, Hopes, and Fears of Young Americans Born 1965-1981, 1996
- Encounters with Jesus: A Group Study on Baby Boomer Spirituality, 1998
- Next Church Now: Creating New Faith Communities, 2000, 2004
- Forty-Sixty: A Study for Midlife Adults Who Want to Make a Difference (with Richard Gentzler), 2001
- Now is the Time!: Ministry with the Millennial Celebration Born from 1982-1999, 2003 (video and study resources)
- Making God Real for a New Generation: Ministry with Millennials Born from 1982 to 1999, 2003
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Thursday, April 28th, 2005
Karl Mannheim could be regarded as the grandfather of generational research. Born in Hungary 1893, he moved to Germany to study philosophy and sociology, with a particular emphasis on the roots of culture. He worked under Alfred Weber, brother of well-known sociologist Max Weber. His essays on the sociology of knowledge are now regarded as classics. Mannheim moved to Britain where he attempted a comprehensive analysis of the structure of modern society by way of democratic social planning and education.
From Wikipedia: Mannheim’s book Ideologie und Utopie (1929) was the most widely debated book by a living sociologist in Germany during the Weimar Republic; the English version Ideology and Utopia (1936) has been a standard in American-style international academic sociology. Mannheim was not the author of any work he himself considered a finished book, but rather of some fifty major essays and treatises, most later published in book form.
It is one of those essays that sparked off generational research. “On the problem of generations”, published in German in 1928, outlined Mannheim’s analysis of the impact of generational experience on groups of people across class and geographical lines.
The essay was published English in 1952 in Collected Works of Karl Mannheim, Vol. 5, Routledge, London. The set of complete works was published again in 1996 by Bryan Turner. The set of resource is so huge and expensive it is only ever bought by libraries.
June Edmunds and Bryan Turner, in their 2002 book, Generations, Culture and Society, explore the implications of Mannheim’s pivotal essay. Rather than seeing generations as continuations of societal norms, Mannheim portrayed generations as “sources of opposition, challenging existing societal norms and values and bringing social change through collective generational organisation”.
The three building blocks of Mannheim’s theory of generation, as identified by Bryan Turner and June Edmunds, are:
1. Generational Site or Location
Mannheim taught that a generation could be defined in terms of collective response to a traumatic event or catastrophe that united particular cohort of individuals into a self-conscious age stratum. Mannheim was aware of the angst faced by German youth in the wake of World War I, not only in response to trench warfare, but also the poverty and shame associated with international mood.
2. Generation as Actuality
Mannheim critiqued the Marxist tradition of class analysis and deterministic approach to consciousness or knowledge. Age groups, he observed, were able to act as agents of social change and become carriers of intellectual and organisational alternatives to the status quo.
3. Generational Units
Mannheim wrote about ‘articulate structures of knowledge or consciousness that express particular location’. Even though each generation may include within itself a number of ‘differentiated, antagonistic generation-units’ who fight one another, they belong to each other because of their orientation toward each other.
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Monday, February 28th, 2005
I’ve been to a couple of Australian workshops on generations based almost entirely on Hugh Mackay’s book, “Generations: Baby Boomers, their Parents & their Children”. The biggest reason for this is the Australian base for Hugh’s research. This is not just an Australian take on American research. It’s the result of Hugh’s qualitative research over 40 years, conducted in conversation with small groups in living rooms around Australia.
Hugh Mackay was born in 1938, which makes him just a bit older than the Boomers he’s aiming at with his book. Hugh is a psychologist, social researcher and writer. Hugh has written several novels and books and is a weekly newspaper columnist - for the Sydney Morning Herald, Sun Herald and more recently for The Age.
For the past 27 years Hugh has been publishing his findings in the quarterly research series, The Mackay Report. Since September 2003 the Mackay Report has been brought out by Ipsos Australia, an international marketing research company. To get onto the mailing list you’re looking at between $4800 AU for charitable organisations and $9700 for regular subscriptions. Of particular interest this year (2005) is the report on ‘Whither the Baby Boomers’, due out in September. Hugh will be presenting the report in Melbourne on September 27 and Sydney on October 6.
Here’s the appetiser for the September 2005 Mackay Report:
In 2005, the oldest baby boomers will be turning 59 and the youngest will be turning 44. These are the 4.3 million Australians who have cut a swathe through Australian social, cultural, political and economic life. They have been the social pioneers, the iconoclasts, the revolutionaries, and they have paid a high emotional price, being our most highly-divorced generation ever, and the generation that absorbed most of the impact of the upheavals in the Australian economy over the past 15 years. How are they travelling now? How do leading-edge boomers feel about the looming prospect of turning 60? Where do they stand on the r-word?What are their attitudes to saving, investment, credit? How are their spending patterns likely to change if at all? This is the generation that once said were not here for a long time; were here for a good time
but most of them are still here, so are they having a good time? Are their values changing as they age? How do they feel about the progress being made by their children? What are their dreams for the future?
More on the book itself next post…
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