My Demographic
I am embarking on a small project to create a series of social research surveys about the differences between Generation X and Generation Why; roughly the culture of late teens-20s and the culture of 30 - 40 year olds. I am doing this because of the discipline it will require. I'll have to come up with questions that generate interesting responses. Finally, I 'll "product test" this survey with colleagues in the SRI, so the survey will have to survive their no doubt withering responses. In all, it is a good project for some who has been primarily literary, but now has turned to policy and thereby started committing social science.
But I am also want to do this project because in my time in the English department whenever I made substantial claims about differences between generations, people demurred, in that way that I recognized as saying, "There goes Robert again." The substantial and principled reason that they disagreed is of course the whole discourse about "generations" has more to do with demographics and marketing than anything else. It's commodified, as they say. Thus, the difference between Madonna's place in the culture in contrast to Britney Spears says nothing substantially interesting about the differences in generations, although it may say something about the evolution of the pop culture industry.
I humbly disagree on this point: demographic research, i.e. stereotyping, only works insofar as it actually tells you useful things. But rather than the English thing and simply assert this with amusing and telling anecdotes, I want to create an actual survey so I have (pseudo)real social research to back up my claims. I also believ that the objections of English major not really based on principles or marsixm. Rather, people in English departments, even those doing theory, are really cultivating their individuality. They may sometimes being writing dissertations or short fiction in which people fail at being individuals, but this in service of their (English majors) own individuality. It is pretty much human to deny that stereotype based on demographic information actually applies to you, sometimes followed by a denial that the stereotype even exist. But in the case of an English major, the reaction to that response has been honed even more sharply through the study of literature, but also through the study of theory. Thus, English majors have a number of creative responses to being classified as part of a group, though this may constitute the pattern that they themselves following.
In any case, it is ridiculous to say that broadly speaking your actions do not conform to a larger social pattern. The entire discipline of economics, not to mention its applied form in marketing, is built upon the assumption that people do behave in relatively discernible patterns. And claims built on these disciplines indisputably do work in the world. (Tho' the English major me will have to add that just because you are given choice, it doesn't mean that it isn't already determined.) More importantly, Generation X coincides with the moment when the avant-garde became populist. I mean the punk rock movement, which really was an entire arts movement--its just that punk music has been the most successful version of it. Think of the clothing, the design aesthetic, as well as filmmakers who started as video artists. Some of the gestures had been done, but punk made them available to kids in the suburbs and the non-center cities, where before you would only get It in London, Paris, New York, etc.
The question, then, my survey will try to answer is whether you can discern a more fragmented form of cultural allegiance in younger people, since the array of identities now available in the subculture are legion, rather than the three or so (Punk, Goth, Hippie) that were available in 1983. So, stay tuned for more discussion of the "Madonna-Britney" problem.
I am embarking on a small project to create a series of social research surveys about the differences between Generation X and Generation Why; roughly the culture of late teens-20s and the culture of 30 - 40 year olds. I am doing this because of the discipline it will require. I'll have to come up with questions that generate interesting responses. Finally, I 'll "product test" this survey with colleagues in the SRI, so the survey will have to survive their no doubt withering responses. In all, it is a good project for some who has been primarily literary, but now has turned to policy and thereby started committing social science.
But I am also want to do this project because in my time in the English department whenever I made substantial claims about differences between generations, people demurred, in that way that I recognized as saying, "There goes Robert again." The substantial and principled reason that they disagreed is of course the whole discourse about "generations" has more to do with demographics and marketing than anything else. It's commodified, as they say. Thus, the difference between Madonna's place in the culture in contrast to Britney Spears says nothing substantially interesting about the differences in generations, although it may say something about the evolution of the pop culture industry.
I humbly disagree on this point: demographic research, i.e. stereotyping, only works insofar as it actually tells you useful things. But rather than the English thing and simply assert this with amusing and telling anecdotes, I want to create an actual survey so I have (pseudo)real social research to back up my claims. I also believ that the objections of English major not really based on principles or marsixm. Rather, people in English departments, even those doing theory, are really cultivating their individuality. They may sometimes being writing dissertations or short fiction in which people fail at being individuals, but this in service of their (English majors) own individuality. It is pretty much human to deny that stereotype based on demographic information actually applies to you, sometimes followed by a denial that the stereotype even exist. But in the case of an English major, the reaction to that response has been honed even more sharply through the study of literature, but also through the study of theory. Thus, English majors have a number of creative responses to being classified as part of a group, though this may constitute the pattern that they themselves following.
In any case, it is ridiculous to say that broadly speaking your actions do not conform to a larger social pattern. The entire discipline of economics, not to mention its applied form in marketing, is built upon the assumption that people do behave in relatively discernible patterns. And claims built on these disciplines indisputably do work in the world. (Tho' the English major me will have to add that just because you are given choice, it doesn't mean that it isn't already determined.) More importantly, Generation X coincides with the moment when the avant-garde became populist. I mean the punk rock movement, which really was an entire arts movement--its just that punk music has been the most successful version of it. Think of the clothing, the design aesthetic, as well as filmmakers who started as video artists. Some of the gestures had been done, but punk made them available to kids in the suburbs and the non-center cities, where before you would only get It in London, Paris, New York, etc.
The question, then, my survey will try to answer is whether you can discern a more fragmented form of cultural allegiance in younger people, since the array of identities now available in the subculture are legion, rather than the three or so (Punk, Goth, Hippie) that were available in 1983. So, stay tuned for more discussion of the "Madonna-Britney" problem.
posted by RobCrowe at 3:54 PM
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