There is a Wikipedia article (however reliable that is) about using "generation" as a category like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation It gives some of the history.
Just about every evil in our society has its roots in so-called "Enlightenment" ideas. If this is the source of the popular concept of generations, I expect no good from it. The article also says that a factor in the development of the concept was "the breakdown of traditional social and regional identifications". That also sounds quite negative.
I found this a helpful and insightful comment. This concept of generation is indeed a "source of contention". In reading the article, I saw that ever since the idea arose, it involved an aspect of conflict between generations. This explains why Struthio saw the parallels between this and cultural Marxism. Just as feminists and SJWs pit various groups of people against each other, modeled on the original Marxist "class warfare", generation theory pits people of different ages against each other. It creates a division between people and then frames the relationship between the groups as one of conflict.
It is clear to me, looking at the history of the idea, that is antithetical to Catholicism. While I remain convinced that there are similarities among people who have experienced similar formative cultural events, I think we need to be extremely cautious in using this concept in social analysis. We should be even more concerned if we find ourselves angry or hostile toward a specific "generation".
Great points Jayne. I remember that the artificial notion of "teenagers" was launched in Life Magazine in 1944. I wonder if the invention of other arbitrary age groups was deliberate.
The Invention of Teenagers: LIFE and the Triumph of Youth Culture
Historians and social critics differ on the specifics of the timeline, but most cultural observers agree that the strange and fascinating creature known as the American teenager — as we now understand the species — came into being sometime in the early 1940s. This is not to say that for millennia human beings had somehow passed from childhood to adulthood without enduring the squalls of adolescence. But the modern notion of the teen years as a recognized, quantifiable life stage, complete with its own fashions, behavior, vernacular and arcane rituals, simply did not exist until the post-Depression era.
Here, in the first of a series of galleries on the evolution of LIFE magazine's — and, by extension, America's — view of teenagers through the middle part of the 20th century, LIFE.com presents photos that the inimitable Nina Leen shot for a December 1944 article, "Teen-Age Girls: They Live in a Wonderful World of Their Own."
http://time.com/3639041/the-invention-of-teenagers-life-and-the-triumph-of-youth-culture/
Topic: Baby Boomers.... (Read 5486 times)