In the October 18th New Yorker, Louis Menand kneecapped authors who write books on imaginary differences between named generations. For the most part generational differences do exist but in small, privileged pockets unrepresentative of the generation as a whole.
I was interested in my generation. According to Menand, the term "Silent Generation" was coined in Time magazine in 1951, where it referred to people born between 1923 and 1933. But eventually the term "migrated" to those born between 1928 and 1945, which includes me and Susan, my wife.
Menand notes that the Silent Generation includes such wallflowers as Gloria Steinem, Muhammad Ali, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, MLK, jr., Billie Jean King, Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Ken Kesey, Huey Newton, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Andy Warhol, and on and on.
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