Talking about Y Generation

15 Jul

Henry Porter, writing in The Observer, is optimistic about Generation Y (his daughter’s generation), but unsure of their attitude to his key theme, liberty.

Meanwhile, Harry Mount, in a book review in The Telegraph, puts his finger on one difference between the present generation and previous ones:

According to Julian Baggini, a philosopher, we are now living in a grievance culture, which encourages complaint and denigrates apology.

Because of increased wealth and rampant consumerism, we feel we are entitled to more than we actually deserve. So, when life gives us what little we deserve, we feel slighted.

And, in a grievance culture, we then blame those deficiencies on someone else. If your personal relationships go wrong, that’s your parents’ fault. If you do badly at school, it’s the school’s fault, and so on.

UPDATE: Porter Novelli has published this document (in PDF format) about the Millennial generation – another name for Generation Y. Via Karen Russell.

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