I think the wider story that we’re touching on here is something that the whole idea of generational conflict is only a part of.
These ill-defined generational groups are just another example of a politics that has turned everything into a contest of atomised and antagonistic interest groups, that people are supposed to have an intense identification with.
But that very division and partisanship is at once partisan and incredibly narrowly defined. The split between old and young people might contest the balance of power between these two groups, but doesn’t challenge the status quo in any real way. And by turning everything into a series of conflicts of sectional interests, we’re encouraged to fight for more for “our” groups, to mock and demonie the out-group.
And the split between better-off boomers and broke millennials is another example of distraction politics. Yes, the average boomer is better off than the average millennial, but the driver of inequality in the west hasn’t been age- it’s been because all the benefits of growth since 1979 have gone to the 1%. The argument about older middle and working class being richer than their younger counterparts is just smoke and mirrors, when all the wealth has been pumped up to a tiny elite at the top.
Or perhaps I’m just complaining because I was born right in the crossover year that means nobody can decide whether I’m an old Millennial, or a tail-end Xer.I don’t fit any of their little boxes .
But I’ll let someone who has been studying the millennial generation for the last 12 years have the last word
