(11-11-2019, 04:02 PM)taramarie Wrote: If you aren't here in New Zealand and have not grown up here you can only judge from a distance. It only takes you so far. I have first hand experience living here, growing up here which I can tell you all about as a millennial born late 1984 and yes we definitely are millennials. Ask kiwi's what its like here.
Tara Marie,
For near on two decades, I have studied a lot Australian History, Politics and Popular Culture, also I have studied New Zealand’s to a lesser extent. Also, I have made extensive, detailed observations of people I have known in my life, along with public figures and generational societal attitudes in Australia. Early on I rejected Strauss and Howe’s dates (whih they admitted were for North America) as not fitting the evidence for Australia, therefore I made my own estimates for Australian turnings and generations which pretty much exactly matches British (although interestingly not Irish) ones.
Anyway, what observations I have made about New Zealand, have indicated a generational line-up identical to Australia’s. Indeed the 1980's for New Zealand, especially with the Revolutionary Fourth Labour Government, which was as revolutionary as Thatcher's Conservative government screams totally an Awakening to me.
Anyway, regarding Australians born approximately from 1983 to 1986, I see us being late members of a Nomad generation. Indeed, observations I have made about these cohorts, which I have shared to American old T4T posters, have remarked that would make observations like that of those born in the late 1970's. Also they remark Australia's societal mood currently is similar to America's around 2014-2015, complete with a Tea Party style government, which is turning into a Trump style one. New Zealand's government to me seems to be a somewhat progressive version of the Obama administration.
However, some of us identify as Millennial's and conform to the Civic archetype or even have elements of both Civic and Nomad archetypes, but I am not one of them, I see myself as a Nomad belonging to a Nomad generation, despite these days I am far from a typical Nomad, although many people younger than me are very much Nomads, this all expected of what are considered ‘cuspers’. Although in the people I have known in my life, a lot of those born in the early to middle 1980's are very often Nomads, rather than Civics. While I see more Civics among those born in the late 1980's, although even you get sometimes either Nomads or Nomad/Civic hybrids, indeed the Civic archetype only starts becoming really dominant in the early 1990's cohorts.
Regarding my life experience, growing up in Australia, the experience is consistent of late wave member of a Nomad Generation, the same went for the great bulk of my peers as well. For example; in the High Schools I went to in both Hobart and Melbourne. There were cliques which the students socialised predominantly in, which have been maintained as we approach middle age. However, I was excluded from these cliques and was something of an outcast. That probably made me acquire some Artist traits in the last couple of decades.
Might I add my experience growing up and coming of age, was like the American Lost Generation in some respects, also my relationship with some Boomers (including my parents) was what was described about the American Lost and Missionaries by Strauss & Howe. Especially given that Aussie Boomers greatly resemble the American Missionaries, expect if they embraced New Age Spirituality, the parallels go down to Aussie Boomers having twaged numerous 'crusades' against what they see as "vices", which some were good and others were terrible. Plus the young adult Nomads were especially targeted by the crusades that the Aussie Boomers waged, that is what myself felt and many of my peers as well.
One of the Aussie 'crusades' was imposing a huge amount of social regulations imposed during in the 1990s and 2000s, which has turned Australia into a what is seen as some overseas observers a ‘nanny state’. Which, I argue definitely was an attempt to deny a Nomad generation of the freedoms, that Boomers enjoyed as young adults and to punish us Nomads. On top of that, there were punitive measures introduced in the late 1990s for people collecting unemployment benefits as well, by mutual obligation requirements and work for dole. However the Aussie Boomers could literally 'dole bludge' when they were young adults, indeed some New Zealanders moved to Australia in the 1970s to 'dole bludge' in places such as the suburb of Bondi in Sydney.
Although, in recent years people are starting to question wither some of these 'nanny state' measures were good ideas, such as the Lockout laws for pubs and nightclubs which my state (New South Wales) has. Because as the 1990s and recently 2000s cohorts have come of age, people are much more sympathetic to these cohorts than they were to mine, which was more an attitude of "they deserve it".