Generation aleph-null

In a couple of articles, John Quiggin convincingly rebuts the notion that one can fruitfully analyze political, economic and cultural history primarily in terms of the differences between "generations". He argues that most supposed generational differences are actually more or less fixed age-group characteristics. I suppose this connects to my thoughts about the generational "loss of innocence" event that seems to happen to everyone sooner or later.

He also says that to the extent that there are significant differences between the experience of different age cohorts, they have mostly to do with whether a major war or economic crisis happens while you are between the ages of 16 and 25, and the historical breaks don't come where they are commonly supposed to. His point about the "baby bust" people being instigators of the supposed boomer culture is absolutely true; there is no large cultural difference between my parents and samantha2074's.

It's interesting that, writing from an Australian perspective, Quiggin manages to discuss more or less the same cultural phenonena that an American would think of. The world is small, or at least the English-speaking world.

I've seen some baroque generational analyses of American history that identify regular alternating patterns of generational behavior going back hundreds of years. Quiggin compares this sort of thing to astrology.