06-07-2021, 06:54 PM
(06-07-2021, 03:09 PM)galaxy Wrote: A proposal for a Zillennial definition: those who are old enough to remember the onset of the 4T in 2008, but who also experienced the period of online school, which I believe will come to be remembered as a quintessential Z (or at least older-Z) experience.
That's people born from either mid-2001 or mid-2002 to 2004.
Those born in early 2001, myself (January 4) included, were part of the last cohort to graduate high school before the pandemic began, and are therefore the last unambiguous Millennials.*
Those born in late 2001 or early 2002 had only 2-3 months of online, tacked on to the end of an otherwise typical high school experience. So they're on the edge.
Late 2002 to probably around late 2004 is the true borderline zone.
Those who were born in 2005 or later have no memory at all of any time before the Crisis, and so are unambiguous Z.
*you could argue that the last unambiguous Millennials are the youngest ones who remember 9/11, probably born in 1998, but personally, I really doubt the significance of that event as a major generational marker. It's the "alienating event," corresponding to probably either WWI or the recession of 1920-1921. Though it looms large in people's memories, and there were a few big changes (such as the source of the name of the "Homeland Generation,") the reality is that everyday life in America wasn't really that especially different between 1999 and 2004. The difference between 2008 and 2013 is far more dramatic, with the current ongoing period of political realignment beginning with the 2008 election (analogous to 1968) and the social media/internet revolution taking place from roughly 2010 to 2015.
You may be right, especially should the Crisis of 2020 be approaching an end. Maybe there is not quite the heroism in the War against COVID-19 as there was in the war against the demonic powers of Axis fascism, the war that put an end to the disgrace of slavery, or the end of the pre-Union chaos that ended only with the establishment of the Constitution in 1787. Artist/Adaptive generations come of age just as the potential for heroism comes to an end. There is a huge difference between storming Iwo Jima and doing occupation duty in Japan.
Civil life is often much easier for adult Artist/Adaptive types after a Crisis because the hardships of a Crisis and the inequities of a 3T are past.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.