3 Comments for Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation

• 1. Bima  |  November 7th, 2009 at 8:11 am

  “Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation,” by Neil Howe and William Strauss, attempts to explain the generation of people born between 1982 and 2002. The authors label this group the Millennials; according to the authors’ model, the Millennials follow Generation X (born between 1961 and 1981), the Boomers (1943-60), the Silent Generation (1925-42), and others in a chain of definable generations that stretches back for centuries.

  The authors look at some of the cultural forces that have shaped (and, increasingly, are being shaped by) the Millennials. They consider the increasing emphasis on multiculturalism; the impact of “Kinderpolitics,” or child-centered politics, on Millennial lives; the school uniform movement; Millennial pop-culture favorites like Harry Potter and Pokemon; the “boy band” surge; the impact of the Columbine massacre; and more.

  Ultimately, the authors make some bold predictions. They claim that the Millennials will likely become the latest in a series of “hero generations” that occur every few generations (the last hero generation, according to the authors, was the G.I. Generation, born 1901-1924). They also predict a “Millennial makeover” of American popular culture in the first decade of the 21st century.

  The book is fascinating and informative. But the authors’ essential conceptual model and conclusions are problematic. It seems to me that the whole “generational” model is an artificial (and, at worst, stereotype-driven) way to break people into easily-labeled groups. In fact, I think things are a lot more complex than the authors seem to believe.

  Still, the book is engrossing reading. It was actually recommended to me by a distinguished U.S. Army officer who suggested that the book could give military leaders insights into the wave of young people currently entering the armed services. I believe that many other professionals could also benefit from a critical reading of this book.

  The book is full of fascinating sidebar quotes from many sources: periodicals (”U.S. News and World Report,” “Spin,” etc.); government officials and politicians (Donna Shalala, Bob Dole, etc.); film dialogue (”Cruel Intentions,” “Rushmore,” etc.); song lyrics (Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle,” Hanson’s “MMMBop,” etc,); TV show dialogue (”Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Malcolm in the Middle,” etc.); cultural critics and commentators (Camille Paglia, Bill Maher, etc.); and other sources.

  Throughout the book are funny and incisive cartoons by R.J. Matson. Charts and poll data also add to the book’s appeal. Unfortunately, the lack of an index is a negative point. “Millennials Rising” is not without its problems, but it’s definitely worth reading.

• 2. Uchenna  |  November 7th, 2009 at 9:53 am

  I’ve always been fascinated by social history, and generally enjoy reading about societal trends, so I found this book to be interesting on the surface. The book is entertaining (in small doses!), but there are some deeper problems, both in its assumptions and conclusions.

  First, to really buy into what this book claims, one must in some sense buy into the authors’ ideas about generations. To be sure, social phenomena are not linear, but it is a stretch to assume that they are cyclical in the sense of “great generations”. Many of the events that influence different “generations”, actually are multi-generational, encompassing time scales of a century or more.

  Despite the idea that each generation makes its own future, or has it made for them largely by their parents or their place in a historical cycle, much of what takes place is on a much larger and longer scale and there is no evidence that this is really cyclical in any sense. This book has little to say about these, instead dwelling on grandparents, parents and children and the idea of cyclical generations.

  The other aspect of this book that I find troubling is the combination of facts,trends, and broad assumptions that are not really well verified being taken as some sort rigorous analysis. It is more theme oriented journalism with lots of citations, interviews and “factoids”. It as close to a feature in a Sunday magazine as to any real in depth analysis.

  Prospective readers should also be aware of the background of these authors. Although they are referred to in various reviews as “historians”, their backgrounds are closer to what might be termed “Republican policy wonks”, who now run a consulting business based on identifying and advising on generational trends.

  Why does this matter? First off most of the interviews were conducted in Fairfax County, VA. By no strech of the imagination is this representative of the Earth’s or even the USA’s youth population. Second, if one has read their other books or heard them speak, one becomes aware of their antagonism to cultural trends that might not fit the picture of “hope” painted in this book. Finally, the whole concept of “generations” such as “Xers and Boomers” is largely a marketing and pop culture phenomenon that frequently “fits” the way a horroscope does. Make a few suggestions, present some “proof” and voila, an instant read on history and the future.

  America’s obsession with pop culture, its children, the future and other themes of books such as these make for ocassional interesting reading, if one takes them with a large grain of salt. They trade largely in broad pictures that don’t always hold up to closer scrutiny. They frequently ignore more sophisticated analysis and alternative explanations. To elevate them to something more is a serious mistake.

  They are as much a product of the current culture as a study of it. As with much pop culture, they invent and reinvent stereotypes that take on mythical stature. This book is to be taken with a grain of salt.

• 3. Yamilet  |  November 7th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

  While I do not find today’s youth a particularly boisterous or “bad kid” generation, this book goes beyond assessment of the trends and into self-convincing in a very deceptive way. There are indeed trends out there, some positive and some negative (which is partly a matter of opinion anyway), but Strauss and Howe have gone a little too far this time in seeing what they want to see.

  One reviewer notes: “One thing is that the authors know what to look for by using their generational theory. As a result of this, he [obtained] results that would surprise most people, but would not surprise anyone familiar with their previous works.” Ironically, this is exactly an example of why this cannot be considered a good book. The two authors knew what they wanted to write about youth long before writing this book, in fact wanting to write whatever would fit a set of predictions about this crop of youth that these authors have had for a decade. Rather than “looking for” wholesome youth, they need to look at the whole picture of how things are.

  But William Strauss and Neil Howe look for and write what they want to find. Deceptively one-sided quotes fill the pages with statements from youth who fit their preconceived paradigm and adults who observe something in youth that fits their paradigm. They had to wade through all the quotes from young speakers who fit a different paradigm. Why these teens? Why did they conduct surveys of their own county in Virginia and not some other county?

  What these two authors don’t mention in the book is that they pick and choose from surveys rather than showing the whole picture of the generation. For instance, they quote a CBS survey to persuade the reader of the government/parental trust of this generation (”Half trust the government to do what’s right.”) Why this survey, and not one of the Newsweek, Monitoring the Future or other surveys that showed more cynicism about government or a less two-dimensionally rosy picture of relationships with parents than this book would have you believe? Substance abuse, even though lower than Boomer youth rates, is higher than that of generation X, and the authors’ attempt to deal with this inconvenient statistic fails to convince me. (Curiously, the same CBS survey they cite on government/parental trust has very low figures for use of ANY drug among teenagers, even less than the statistics the authors produce on substancce abuse. Hmmmm.)

  They write that this is entirely an era in which the benefits of youth and children are paramount and trump all else, yet avoid mentioning the fall of school taxes or university funding to the kids who supposedly need it most, and outright deny that cheating has risen in schools, where elsewhere it has.

  At one point they state, “Look closely at youth indicators and you’ll see that Millennial attitudes and behaviors represents a sharp break from Generation X”. Ironically, it shows a continuation of Generation X. They neglect to mention that X was the same generation that reversed the Boomer SAT slide and agrees, rather than conflicts with, these students’ high scores. On the other hand, the substance abuse rates of these youth represent a turn away from Generation X’s youth in the “wrong” direction — they are un-X-like by using drugs more!

  Rather than showing a balanced picture, Strauss and Howe have merely written what they wanted to see, looking for rather than looking at, and presented the reader with a rehash if their precxonceived ideas of youth. This has merely reached cult-live levels of self-assuring.

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