Commentary
Over recent weeks, I have been intrigued by the thesis of a book I read early in the new year.
It was Mark Bauerlein’s “The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults,” a sequel to his 2008 examination of the high-tech Millennial generation for which so many parents had the highest hopes.
For those uninitiated in the philology of generational divisions, Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, Generation X between 1965 and 1980, Millennials from 1981 to 1996, and Generation Z from 1997 to 2012. Generation Alpha, should this label stick, will grow up in the 15-year cycle after 2012.
Bauerlein’s analysis was advertised as an urgently needed update on the Millennials. He sought to explain this generation’s “not-so-quiet desperation and, more important, the threat that their ignorance poses to the rest of us.”…