Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation
Neil Howe and William Strauss
Reviewed by Michael Fones, O.P.
In 1987 Howe and Strauss coined the term
‘Millennials’ for the youngsters who would be entering college in the year
2000. In Millennials Rising (see www.millennialsrising.com
and www.fourthturning.com)
they offer a fascinating overview of these students who recently began attending our
Newman ministries. It is an informative study accompanied by entertaining sidebar
charts and quotes from Millennials, X-ers and Boomers drawn from nearly 200 sources, as
well as entertaining cartoons by R.J. Matson.
The authors open their study with a brief chapter
examining where Millennials come from, and also lay out their thesis: that it is not
historically useful to define generations by birth numbers, but by ‘generational
personae’. A generational persona is a set of human variables “embodying
attitudes about family life, gender roles, institutions, politics, religion, culture,
lifestyle, and the future.” Howe and Strauss propose that a generation
“can think, feel, or do anything a person might think, feel, or do. It can be
safe or reckless, individualist or collegial, spiritual or secular.” The
persona of a generation will be identified by its perceived
membership, common beliefs and behaviors and
a common location in history. While individuals
will fall outside the norm, all of the members of a generation will have to deal with that
core persona over a lifetime.
More than half of the text deals with who the
Millennials are. Using a variety of resources, from government reports and academic
journal articles to popular magazine stories, the authors examine the generational persona
of the Millennials. Millennial demographics, their experience of school, their economic
clout and even the politics that shaped their generation differ significantly from those
of the Boomers and Gen-Xers who are today’s campus ministers.
Campus ministers will want to know about the
Millennial experience of faith and religion. Many of us have observed with confusion or
consternation the interest among our youngest students for traditional prayers and
devotions that we associate with our parents or with the pre-Vatican II Church. Millennials Rising can give campus ministers a
much-needed change of perspective and even help us recognize our myopia with regard to our
expectations of religion. For example, the authors observe that “Boomers wanted
religion that challenged them spiritually more and institutionally less, while Millennials
seek the reverse”. This sentence alone might challenge the operating
assumptions of many campus ministries! The renewed interest in tradition is combined with
a hunger for intimacy, interest in how to behave, a desire and ability to organize
themselves, and great interest in group activities that help others, rather than
individual spirituality.
Howe and Strauss propose that generational
personae repeat cyclically, and that the Millennials have the potential to be the next
‘great generation’ like their great-grandparents who fought WWII. In their
final section they suggest that the Millennials’ feelings of specialness, their
ability to meet and beat high standards, their respect for adults and responsiveness to
command may embolden older leaders to seize upon them as a powerful tool in times of
crisis. Some social scientists challenge the thesis of Howe and Strauss and others like
them, because individuals and generations change both as they grow older as well as in
response to specific moments in history. Although any attempt to glimpse the future
is speculative, and Howe and Strauss propose alternative possibilities to their generally
optimistic one, a thought from their final section still haunts me. “The higher their
confidence, the more inclined [Millennials] could be to embrace a world-saving role.
The more they uplift the national pride and the more adamant the public feels about
securing a better future for them, the more aggressive the nation’s leadership could
become.” I highly recommend this book as a source of information and insight
for campus ministers, and as a potential source for productive discussions with the
Millennials in our midst. April 2003
Millennials
Rising: The Next Great Generation
by
Neil Howe and William Strauss
Price: $10.47 & eligible for FREE
Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
(4/18/03) |
