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Legal Commentary

: Althouse

"The term Generation Alpha is usually credited to Mark McCrindle, a generational researcher in Australia who... told me that the name originated from an online survey he ran in 2008..."

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"... that yielded a slew of now-discarded monikers, many of which focused on technology (the 'Onliners,' 'Generation Surf,' the 'Technos') or gave the next round of humans the burden of undoing the damage done by the last (the 'Regeneration,' 'Generation Hope,' the 'Saviors,' 'Generation Y-not'). One popular option from the survey was 'Generation A,' but, McCrindle told me in an email, he thought the name for a cohort that would shape the future shouldn?t 'be labelled by going back to the beginning.' So once the Latin alphabet was exhausted, he hopped over to the Greek one?'the start of something new.' A consensus has formed around Generation Alpha, but it may be a temporary one. The generic 'Generation [Letter]' format began with Generation X. 'It was meant to be a placeholder for something a bit uncertain or mysterious, almost like X in some algebraic equation,' [sociology professor Dan] Woodman told me. Generation Y followed, though it was usurped, at least in the U.S., by Millennials; nothing has overthrown Generation Z. Placeholder names, in a way, make generational generalizations easier. 'They?re almost like empty labels that you can put anything in,' Woodman said. He thinks Generation Alpha will stick for at least a little while, but can also see how it might get replaced by something 'a little more descriptive.' The history of generational labeling is littered with names that gained some traction, but not enough. Gen X has been referred to as 'Baby Busters,' the 'slacker generation,' 'latchkey kids,' and the 'MTV Generation,' though the placeholder won out. The same, so far, has been the case for Gen Z, whose proposed alternate names include 'iGeneration,' the 'Homeland Generation,' 'Multi-Gen,' 'Post Gen,' and the 'Pluralistic Generation.'"

From "Oh No, They?ve Come Up With Another Generation Label/How much do members of ?Generation Alpha,? or any generation, really have in common?" in The Atlantic ? but that was back last February. Now we could consider Generation Covid, as these poor kids are getting a big chunk of their childhood distanced and muted. It's making them different, and we'll see how they turn out.

I looked up that article because I mentioned Generation Alpha in the podcast yesterday. I was hoping they rebel against the prudery and the repression of the millennials. I said I was talking to them, talking to "babies." Are they they babies of America right now, these people I'm investing my hopes in? Yeah! Babies, those who will be born over the next 5 years, and kids up to the age of 10. What are these people going to be like ? after living through the lockdown and witnessing the heightened, hysterical, hypocritical empathy of the millennials.

Full post as published by Althouse on October 15, 2020 (boomark / email).