Generational Theory

History

Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist and Suzanne Newcombe:

"Despite some preceding work on the topic, Strauss and Howe are credited with having popularised the generational theory in the 1990s. However, theories about cohorts of generations have wide cultural resonance in the twentieth century.

Perhaps the origin of generational theory belongs to Karl Mannheim, in his 1923 essay, ‘The Problem of Generations.’ Mannheim explained that a generation is a social location that has the potential to affect an individual’s consciousness in much the same way as social class or culture does. He argued that generations are especially affected by major historical events. Mannheim, however, did not recognise cycles. Mannheim’s theory of generations focuses on the influence of history and social events, which in turn influence generations, who change in response to their social surrounding. Mannheim’s theory can be summarised by the idea that people resemble their times more than they resemble their parents (McCrindle, 2007)

Sociologist Norman Ryder (1965) also focused on cohorts seen as aggregates of individuals who could be viewed as independent variables in social change. However, he also specified that cohorts should be placed within other population parameters, such as geographical location, education, and race. Again, this is something Strauss and Howe do not discuss in detail. A criticism of their work is that it does not adequately consider differences in race, socio-economic class, or other social markers.

Another influence was Morris Massey, who identified the so-called Baby Boomers as the generation born immediately after WWII. A sociologist, Massey argued that our behaviours are driven by our value system and generational groups are likely to share value systems. Therefore, people within a generation are more likely to share what Massey called ‘value programming,’ and consequently ‘value systems.’ In contrast, different generation cohorts are more likely to be at odds as they have different ‘value programming.’ In short, Massey argued that values can be generalised based on generations.

Strauss and Howe credit Arthur Scheslinger Jr, an academic historian at Harvard and the City University of New York, as pioneering the cycle approach to American history. Scheslinger’s work on generational cycles appeared in essays before appearing in The Cycles of American History (1986). Strauss and Howe also make use of the generational theories developed by José Ortega Y Gasset and Julián Marías, Spanish philosophers who wrote on history as a system and Anthony Esler’s The Human Venture (2004).

Generational theories are more widely discussed in sociology and history. However, these ideas do not have the same kind of millenarian overtones as Strauss and Howe’s theories. In the European context, Pierre Bourdieu, Julius Peterson, and Willhelm Pinder have also been influential."

(https://www.cdamm.org/articles/strauss-howe)

More information

• Fourth Turning Theory, for articles and books by Strauss and Howe

• Codrington, Graeme. 2008. “Detailed Introduction to Generational Theory” Tomorrow Today. July. Available at http://www.tomorrowtoday.uk.com/articles/article001_intro_gens.htm.

• Onion, Rebecca. 2015. “Against Generations” Aeon, May [Online]. Available at https://aeon.co/essays/generational-labels-are-lazy-useless-and-just-plain-wrong and https://declara.com/content/D5OlwrKa

Bibliography

Mannheim, Karl. 1952. “The Problem of Generations” In Kecskemeti, Paul (ed.) Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge: Collected Works, Volume 5. New York: Routledge: 276–322.

Ortega y Gasset, José. 1981. History as a System. : And Other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History. Greenwood Press.

Ryder, Norman. 1965. “The cohort as a concept in the study of social change,” American Sociological Review, 30 (6): 843–861.

Scheslinger, Arthur. 1986. The Cycles of American History. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.