02-03-2017, 03:24 PM
Quote:A dominant generation is one that exercises an independent role during their first social movement, a role which they then carry on into midlife. A recessive generation is one that play a dependent role (either child or midlife) during their first social moment, and compensates for that in the next.
Consequently, dominant generations end up exerting influence in the public sphere (rhetoric and values, technology and institutions), whereas recessive generations compensate for their dependent role by exerting a commensurately greater influence on the private world of human relationships.
If you'd like something a little bit less paraphrased from Generations, this difference is that the dominant generations get to be the stars of the show (either the guy behind the camera or the guy right in front of it, as it were) during the two social moments they live through, which carries over into the next turning, whereas the recessives play supporting roles (either in the audience or behind the scenes) during the big moments, while their active periods occur when nothing much is going on, and they remain in the shadow of the generation ahead of/increasingly behind them.