A Generation in Politics

A Definition

Bibliographic Data

ID6397384
AuthorsMarvin Rintala (corresponding author)
Year1963
Volume25
Issue4
Pages509-522
Publication date1963-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670500006446
OpenAlexW2126074226
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited26

C. p. snow suggests that it is a short way to the grave for individual human beings, but the life of society can be made immortal. Many of the groups to which we belong, of which we are conscious, and to which we feel a sense of allegiance, such as our nation and our class, may indeed survive for centuries or longer. There is, however, one group to which we belong that need not fear immortality: our generation. If, as has sometimes been argued, it is the sense of a common destiny which unites all Frenchmen and all Germans, all members of the working class and of the middle class, surely no shared destiny is more fundamental than that of members of the same generation. These members have in common, not necessarily language or income, but the agonies and triumphs of life itself. If the ability to communicate helps to define membership in a group, surely our generation exists both as an objective reality and, in human motivations, even more important, as a personal commitment. This ability to communicate is shared by our generation, but at the same time we are cut off from other generations. Some things we can share only with others of our own age. Even if, by some quirk of fate, we should wish to evade our destiny as members of a generation, we cannot. Anyone who tries to escape from his generation is faced with cold hard reality: “You belong to it, too.... You came along at the same time. You can't get away from it. You're a part of it whether you want to be or not

Aesthetics · Allegiance · Class (philosophy · Destiny (ISS module · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Immortality · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theology · Wish · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US

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