COMMENTARY
Key characteristics of five age cohorts

By John Griffin

Not everyone subscribes to rigid ideas of set generations and recurring cycles of history as advanced by some scholars. Major events (wars, etc.) and human differences play a role.

Still, while history doesn't always repeat itself exactly and you can't predict the future, it can be useful to see generational differences and even to look for patterns in history.

So here are some characteristics of the five generations that many of us have identified as operating in Hawai'i and the nation:

The greatest

• The G.I. or Greatest Generation came of age in the 1930s and early 1940s. As the adjoining story indicates, this group has been widely and properly hailed for overcoming hardships and for major achievements. President John F. Kennedy was its first president. George H.W. Bush was its last.

All generations have their weaknesses, and they don't always age well. People from this Greatest cohort, the supposedly best and brightest, led us into Vietnam. In Hawai'i, those who authored our 1950s social revolution were also in power when our democratic or Democratic movement looked more like an old-style machine. Eventually, their peak of power came to look too much like a plateau of self-interest.

Silent generation

• My Silent Generation, which followed the Greatest, is often labeled "adaptive" and "reactive," as well as overshadowed.

It did most of the fighting in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Its idealistic younger members staffed the civil rights movement and were among the first Peace Corps volunteers in the early 1960s. As much as any group, Silents guided and weathered the Cold War.

The Silents never produced a president, although Democrats like Mike Dukakis and Walter Mondale tried. Among the many leading figures in Washington they produced are Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, two sobering thoughts.

In Hawai'i, former governors George Ariyoshi and Ben Cayetano come from different ends of Silent age spectrum.

Boomer generation

• The Boomer Generation, discussed more in the adjoining article, have given us two very different presidents who say much about this group's diversity — Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush.

The same may be said about Boomer Hawai'i governors — Democrat John Waihee and current Republican Linda Lingle. It seems likely that our next governor will be from this age group, now ages 45 to 62. But two younger generations may have something to say about that.

Generation x

• The 13th American generation, most often called Generation X, now 24 to 44 years old, is often called nonpolitical compared to its predecessors.

That may be true for now. Still, you can't rule out exceptions and surprises. After all, John Waihee rose to prominence out of the 1968 constitutional convention and became our first Hawaiian elected governor.

And this generation has some young professionals who are now concentrating on new entrepreneurial approaches to social issues. Eventually, that worthy and needed activity could translate to political action.

Millennial generation

• The Millennial Generation, whose oldest members are now coming into the work force, is still a question mark. Some are predicting that it will be our next great generation.

If so, this young and still-growing group should overshadow in achievements its more numerous Boomer parents.

Some still call the Millennials "echo boomers" or a "baby boomlet." But if reports of its strong volunteer activism are right, Hawai'i may have another generation of better-educated and even more ethnically diverse leaders on the horizon.

And with this comes a question: Is this month's sit-in at the University of Hawai'i president's office an echo of the past or a sign of this new, more activist generation, a blend of the Millennials and big brother and sisters of Generation X?

Other unknowns for me in all this is how our flow of generations will play out against such factors as the rise of globalism, the war on terrorism and its cultural roots, the conservative-liberal split in the nation and even Hawaiian sovereignty.

The blending and possibilities are fascinating.