As for their politics: I have always gotten a much more liberal feeling from their writings, especially their editorial comments in articles and other published works. I am surprised you think of them as conservatives and I wonder where you got that impression.

And finally when it comes to their predictions, I will take a wait and see approach. According to their theories, there should be a massive crisis starting in about 10 years and running until 2020 or 2025. Although I believe the predictions they made in \”Generations\” (1993) and \”Fourth Turning\” (1997) have been surprisingly on the mark, I will withold judgement until the crisis does or doesn't develop. The proof will be in the pudding.

Dave

Among the aspects 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”. Not even close to any real in depth analysis. And 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.

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. If one has read their other books or heard them speak, one becomes aware of their antagonism to cultural trends. Their 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. Their books and their generational divides in general are mostly unsubstantiated, unscientific hooey.

We disagree on the dates for Millennials and Gen X – mine are based on the theories of Neil Howe and William Strauss rather than demographics or popular opinion. To see more about them you can visit my start here section. And to your point about Farrah, McMahon and MJ being icons to Gen Y, I can agree that they were important to this generation, but not nearly as much as they were to Gen X. Millennials were just too young to appreciate MJ's early music en masse and Farrah's early beauty. Doesn't mean that some don't get it, but they were not the pop phenoms during the Millennial/Gen Y period.

It's kinda like how Gen X might appreciate the Beatles – we get that they were wildly popular and appreciate their music, but by the time most of us were born they had already broken up years before. We didn't live through their story, and our story was not bonded to theirs. I am not saying a second-hand experience is irrelevant, but it is certainly different. And that is where generation theory comes from: the experiences of our youth are what bind us as a generation.

Another wrote:
"In spite of their claims being little more than unscientific cyclical theory, they are currently taken seriously by a lot of conservatives and liberals alike, because it offers conservatives hope that society is on the verge of cycling out of the social changes of the 1960s and 1980s and back to the social conservatism of the 1940s-50s, and it offers liberals hope that society is on the verge of cycling out of the Reagan-Bush era of deregulation and privatization and back to the New Deal and Keynesian economics of the 1940s-50s."

I’ll concede that bits of what they theorize is actually somewhat logical. But one cannot just unilaterally change the entire definition of a generation. While I agree that lagging end boomers do not share the exact same life experiences as leading edge boomers, that does not mean they are not all boomers.

Bottom line is, this is not a well established, vetted theory, like the Theory of Evolution, which has the entire scientific community pretty much in agreement. These guys just made up a theory about why they think the generational divides should be altered. That’s all well and good. Perhaps if I put my mind to it I might come up with even more and different divides and rational supporting MY theories.

But “theories” do not change the FACT that Baby Boomers are those born 1946-1964 and Gen X begins in 1965. This fact does not magically change just because you prefer it to be that way and have found a bit of theoretical support for such notion. I see you refer to 1961 over and over as the beginning of Gen X. You state it as a fact; it is not a fact. You can keep on saying it over and over, but repeating something incessantly does not make it so.

This is a bit like if I suddenly began stating, over and over, that a dollar bill is really just 99 cents. I could perhaps cite reasons why it’s only 99 cents: it is no longer worth 100 cents, or whatever. But a dollar bill is still a dollar bill no matter what I say or what my reasoning may be. And a boomer is a boomer (1946-1964) and Gen X is Gen X.

Fascinating stuff.