The HBS hosts discuss whether or not generational tags– “Boomer,” “GenX,” “Millennial,” and “Gen Z”– are useful descriptions or just gerrymandered groups.
Are you Gen Z, a Boomer, Gen X? We don’t know either but in this episode Dr. Rick Lee leads a discussion to try to figure out whether these generational designations have any stable meaning. Do they make sense as organizational categories. Are they Objective Types, Natural Kind, or Gerrymandered Sets? Do generational markers say more than gender, racial, class, ability in terms of identity? We ask about the dates of generations, the characteristics of generations and generational self-consciousness.
Check out these links for ideas and thinkers mentioned in this episode:
- Proof podcast
- UGGS
- Timeline of Generations
- You’ve Gotta Love Millenials , a song by Micah Tyler
- Sally Haslanger and Jennifer Saul, “Philosophical Analysis and Social Kinds”
- Tony Kushner, Angels in America
- The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show
- John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address
- The Hacking of the Texas Abortion Snitch Website
- Wargames
