Here’s a Quick Quiz … what Gen Y’r wrote these words:”Come mothers and fathersThroughout the landAnd don’t criticizeWhat you can’t understandYour sons and your daughtersAre beyond your commandYour old road isRapidly agin’.Please get out of the new oneIf you can’t lend your hand … “For those of you who don’t know, three clues:
- This artist was born in Duluth, Minnesota
- This artist won a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in April 2008 for “profound impact on popular music and American culture … “
- I left off the last line because it could be a giveaway
While we wait for your responses, I’ll muse about Gen Y, the generation after that (Gen Z?), and the generation before the Baby Boomers (what were they called, anyway?).Like many of you, I’ve been following the conversation - debate, argument, battle – about Gen Y for some time.I’ve read how Gen Y’rs are different, how they are the same. Heard the songs of themselves and the diatribes of detractors. I love this quote from NASA Watch for its daring vitriol: “I think they’re a bunch of narcissi(s)tic pansies.”At the other end of the spectrum, though not quite as arresting: “I’m completely impressed with the GenY folks that I know.”- - -My three-year-old son of late has been waking mornings, padding into the living room in his “jammies” and asking “Daddy, can you get me online?”I hook him up to the Little Einsteins site and observe while he clicks through interactive educational games, downloads PDF files, and makes printouts so he can color the characters with felt markers. A few decades ago kids his age were transistor natives. Or was it vacuum tube natives? Wonder what he’ll be hooking up to in 20 years. For those of you who don’t know what Little Einsteins is, ask a Gen Z. Or Google it. I’ll take my answer online.- - -Okay, time for the answer to our Quick Quiz:Bob Dylan. Lines from the song “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” copyright 1963. That last line I withheld goes like this:”And the times they are a-changin’.”Trick Quick Quiz question, right? Dylan was born in 1941, turned 67 in May. He is of that generation that has no reliable label (that I can find). He can’t be Gen Y, either.Or can he?In this brave new world that has so ingeniously harnessed the flow of electrically charged particles, where actions speak louder than words, and where we take everyone as an individual, and never prejudge, and keep open minds, and whereas teleporting a laser beam of light has been achieved experimentally, and all things seemingly are possible … can generational characteristics and their consequent labels be enabled to transom time and space?Dylan, a physicist at heart, obviously foresaw this potential when (1964) he wrote, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”I’ll take my answer online.- - -By the way, I say, let ‘em live. They seem human enough.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I was going to guess Lil’ Wayne…
June 10th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
The generation before the Baby Boomers was the Silent Generation. These are the people who experienced WW2 in their childhood. It’s a generation you never really hear about, slotted as it is between the GI Generation that fought WW2 and the much larger Baby Boom generation.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Sounds right. I remember that now, from when I was a young Boomer (and before I knew I was a “Boomer”) during the Nixon administration. Thanks.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Also just noticed that the words from the song are all jammed together. Next time I’ll do better. Cutting and pasting is risky.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
A rapper! I love it!
June 10th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Now the whole thing looks jammed up. Help!
June 13th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
“The Times They Are A Changing” by Bob Dylan – 1964
June 13th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Ah I think you mean Gen X!!! That would be me.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Great post- I love Bob Dylan!
Inspired, here’s a great quote from Dylan on the song, which I discovered with the help of my researcher friend Google, who knew a buddy Wikipedia, who is a fairly open individual with all kinds of friends, one of whom sent her this description about the song:
[A self-conscious protest song, it is often viewed as a reflection of the generation gap and of the political divide marking American culture in the 1960s. Dylan, however, disputed this interpretation in 1964, saying “Those were the only words I could find to separate aliveness from deadness. It had nothing to do with age.” A year later, Dylan would say: “I can’t really say that adults don’t understand young people any more than you can say big fishes don’t understand little fishes. I didn’t mean ‘The Times They Are a-Changin” as a statement… It’s a feeling.”] (no citation)
June 18th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I’m not sure how many of you might have been in attendance during the 2nd Space Exploration Conference that was held in Houston, TX during December 2006. The following was a 4-part video presentation shown prior to the beginning of each major session of the conference.
What I found interesting was that people as far away as Oregon State University recognize the stereotyping problem that faces each new generation. I would encourage watching this series in order, but should you not want to, fast forward 45 sec. into Episode 3.
The moral of the story is this: it’s not a GenX or GenY thing. Nor will it be a GenZ or GenAA issue in the future. It is something each generation faces. Maybe we should focus on how to leverage the talents of each generation to benefit the human race as a whole.
“As I am, you once were. As you are, I will soon be.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRvsgerACeI