plug department

[sanpaku_backup]

My friend Jean's book has been published! She hangs out here at genme and we have had many a discussion about the themes of the book already.

From Booklist:
"A new book tackles the 18-to-35-year-old generation's problems--those they face and those they create.Twenge's book is comprehensive and scholarly, filled with statistics and thoughtful observations about the group she's dubbed Generation Me. These young people were raised with the idea of self-esteem being more important than achievement, which has caused them to place the self above all else. Such beliefs also have created a generation of young people who believe every dream is attainable but who aren't prepared to deal with discovering it isn't so. Twenge notes that today's young parents are especially lenient with their children and reluctant to discipline them, suggesting that perhaps the next generation will be even worse off. Twenge believes Generation Me would benefit from a heavy dose of realism. Accessible and a must-read for the generation they address."

Now I know this is a hard sell for you all, since, to judge from LiveJournal, this generational cohort is simply not narcissistic at all... well, anyway, look for it at a megabookstore near you!

Comments

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

I just ordered a copy for the library. Thanks!

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

I will check it out because she's your friend and because these "generational" cultural studies books always interest me, but FWIW I am skeptical of the premise. Nobody could agree on where "Gen X" was supposed to end, but I supposedly come in at the tail end of a lot of it, and I can say that I have a lot more in common, culturally, with people in the decade older than me than with people who are in their early 20s now. I had friends in school who were just a few years younger than me who were culturally pretty different. I think "currently 18-35" might be a little bit of a wide age bracket. It's probably more like "18-27" and "28-35" and they're distinct from each other.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way generation-wise, if for no other reason that the advent of giant pants in 1995 or so left a lasting scar... I think it is more focused on people in their 20s. OTOH her book is based on attitudinal research data, although it is also (I understand) supplemented with current culture. So it's not just based on anecdote.

The kinds of things she's studying -- expectations and self-esteem language -- don't seem to me to have shifted a lot in recent years. My own anecdotal opinion is that our generation is pretty goddam narcissistic and so is the one that follows us, whatever else we do or don't have in common.

[genme.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly -- it's the self-esteem and high expectations stuff that the 18-35 group has in common. We were all raised with the same individualistic mantras. I agree with both verbminx and sanpaku about the pop culture gulf between those in their 20s and those in their 30s. I hate rap, I never showed my bare stomach in high school, and I did not pierce anything except my ears. And don't even start me on the stupid giant pants!! But just like the young whippersnappers, I grew up thinking I'd be rich and famous someday, and that the most important thing in the world is to "love yourself."

Anyway, sanpaku was also nice to point out that the book is based on data -- most generations books aren't. There's more on this under "research" at http://www.generationme.org

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I grew up thinking I'd be rich and famous someday

Yes, but now you will be! What would you do if your life actually bore out those admonitions? :-)

[genme.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I'd have to sell books like Dan Brown for it to make any difference in the San Diego housing market.

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

You know, I can't even describe the anger I felt when I discovered that it was all a lie that I should be taking for granted the supposed inevitability of contentment and success. I really resent growing up in an environment that saw a future like that as a complete given. I have no idea what it's like to grow up in an environment in which it's impressed on you that life is hard and suffering is inevitable, but I wonder if it'd ultimately make for a world in which fewer people are suffering from depression for no good reason.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

When I was teaching at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, they had an assembly on the life of (former headmistress) Edith Hamilton, pointing out how when she came she had so few credentials. As I was leaving, a veteran teacher ruefully mentioned that "the main point is that if Edith Hamilton was around today she would never get a job anywhere." You have to teach that to kids (though the kids at BMS will actually run the world).

I think about this often, since a lot of the reason I got a Ph.D. was because my dad was a professor, had done pretty well, and seemed to live a fairly independent life. He told me, "there's always room at the top." For that matter no one in academia, certainly not my advisors, really understood how much worse it is than when they were grad students. And my father, well, he got a Ph.D. in magnetics in 1959, a stroke of incredible luck (given the rest of the century). I feel like I got the other end of the stick -- like I learned to be a typewriter repairman in 1987 or so.

Not to sneeze at it -- on a material level my expectations have been met by life. But I do sometimes think that the message of being able to do anything you want to is not useful. You just can't be an independent person in this world. Well, unless you're flw, though I've never figured out how he has managed to survive.

[genme.livejournal.com]

So true! I couldn't have said it better myself. We were baited and switched -- given high expectations when the world grew more competitive.

Not only are we depressed because our expectations aren't met, but we're depressed when we find out we can't rely on ourselves as much as we were told to. Humans are social animals and get depressed when social relationships are absent. Yet a lot of our culture sells independence and being "on your own" as better than "depending" on someone else. Therapists even talk about "co-dependence." If people weren't "co-dependent" on each other, no one would be married or have kids.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I repeat: you can't really blame our parents for expecting that the world we would get would be like the world they got, only moreso. It's a combination of wish fulfillment and people not realizing how much of 20th century prosperity was based on unreproduceable things like becoming leader of the free world, etc.

It will correct itself as we all learn to "depend" on each other for shelter from the giant hurricanes that will destroy our civilization due to global warming. You think I'm kidding.

[genme.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say a big thanks for the plug!!! (No, folks, I didn't even ask him to do it. Is he a great friend or what?)