A Boomer, a Gen X, a Millennial and a Gen Z walk into a bar…
It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but this was the premise for a conversation I was invited to join at this year’s Greenbelt festival.
As part of my training for Methodist ministry at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, I was invited to take part in a panel discussion in the Hope & Anchor tent hosted by the Methodist Church.
The event was called We didn’t start the fire: A conversation across the generations. The description promised ‘real talk across the generational divides [with] honesty, disagreement, curiosity and, hopefully, a little understanding.’
The panel represented four generations: Boomer, Gen X, Millennial and Gen Z . We faced questions on housing, money, climate, politics and the economy, with the more challenging question running underneath them all: who is to blame for how we got here?
The title comes from the Billy Joel song, whose refrain insists that ‘we didn’t start the fire’ but recognises that the fire will continue after we are gone. It seemed an appropriate choice for a conversation about generations. We all inherit a world that was already burning in some way, but we also have some responsibility for what happens to it while we are here.
Greenbelt seemed an appropriate place for the conversation too. The festival describes itself as somewhere ‘artistry meets activism, where the political meets the practical’, a place to pray and party, dance and debate, while dreaming of a better world.
The setting itself made it clear that this was intended to be a conversation rather than a formal debate. We sat on stools in front of a wooden bar-like backdrop beneath the yellow canvas of the tent, with the Hope & Anchor emblem behind us and the audience gathered close in front. There was something deliberately informal about the arrangement: this was a place for people to talk to one another rather than to be talked at. Audience participation was expected and encouraged. The Methodist Church described the Hope & Anchor tent at Greenbelt as a conversation-bar and dry, alcohol-free space for ‘free-flowing, real, gritty and sacred conversations’ about faith, justice and identity that go ‘bigger than small talk’. This was certainly not going to be small talk!
Before we could begin talking about the differences between generations, however, we had to decide what we (and others) meant by them.
So, what generation are you?
The commonly used categories are Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964; Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980; Millennials, or Generation Y, born between 1981 and 1996; and Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012. The precise dates vary slightly depending on which researcher or organisation you ask, which may be an indication that these supposedly clear generational boundaries are rather less solid than they might appear.
The arbitrariness of the categories became particularly apparent when I looked at the ages of the people on the panel. I was born in 1970, making me firmly Gen X according to the commonly used dates. The Boomer sitting alongside me, the Principal of the Queen’s Foundation, is less than seven years older than me, while the Millennial, an Anglican tutor at the Foundation, is around twelve years younger. The Gen Z panellist was younger again.
We were described as four generations, but the gaps between us were hardly vast. Yet the labels suggested that we represented four distinct tribes, each with their own characteristics, experiences and political interests. There we were, four people who happened to have been born in different decades, sitting alongside one another in a tent at a festival. The labels were useful shorthand for the conversation, but they could never tell the whole story of any of us.
When I was asked how I would describe my generation in a stereotype, I had to admit that I didn’t actually know what the stereotype of Gen X was. So I looked it up.
I discovered that we are sometimes called ‘the forgotten generation’, having been overshadowed culturally and demographically by the much larger generations on either side of us: Boomers and Millennials. We are stereotyped as independent and self-reliant, shaped by growing up in a period when more parents were working or divorced, and accustomed to getting on with things ourselves. There may be something in that. But the irony is that a generation that prides itself on getting on with things without demanding too much attention can become the generation to which nobody pays much attention. Even the event description seemed to forget Gen X, beginning with ‘A Boomer, a Gen Z and a Millennial walk into a bar…’
I am not sure how seriously I take the ‘forgotten generation’ label. Gen X has hardly been invisible. It has had a significant influence on music, technology and culture, and many of us have spent our adult lives adapting to extraordinary changes. We are old enough to remember life before the internet but young enough to have had to learn how to live with it. We were promised some things that now seem considerably less certain: stable employment, home ownership and financial security. At the same time, we inherited a willingness to question institutions, authority, assumptions about identity, sexuality, gender, work and religion.
That last point probably explains something about my own journey. I would not describe my movement from Catholicism through ecumenism and interfaith dialogue into Methodism as a rejection of tradition. It has been more a process of wrestling with inherited traditions and asking whether they still help people to flourish. I remain interested in what we inherit, what we challenge, and what we choose to pass on.
That is why I was uncomfortable with the idea that I should somehow speak for Gen X. I could speak from my generation, but I could not speak for everyone born between 1965 and 1980. Generations are not monolithic any more than churches, political parties or nations are.
Sceptical, not cynical
Inspired by the format of the Methodist Church’s Conversations Against Mundanity card game, the panel began by responding to this question:
‘People my age are constantly accused of ________, but actually ________.’
My answer was that Gen X is often characterised as cynical. I would prefer the word sceptical. There is a difference.
I think some of our scepticism was earned. We have watched institutions disappoint people and political promises fail to deliver. We have seen authority challenged and sometimes found that the challenge was justified. We have learned that not every person who asks for our trust deserves it.
We didn’t create that loss of trust; we inherited it. But we do have a responsibility not to let scepticism become cynicism. I am still hopeful. I simply don’t think hope means pretending that everything is fine.
In fact, one of the things I have been learning through my ministry training is that hope is not the same as optimism. Hope can look directly at what is wrong without accepting that the present is the final word. That seems important in a conversation about generations because it is very easy to become trapped in a narrative that says either that ‘everything was better in the past’ or that ‘everything will inevitably be better in the future.’ Neither is true.
What happens if house prices fall by 50%?
The housing question provoked the most personal answer I gave during the afternoon.
‘If house prices suddenly fell by 50 per cent tomorrow, would you celebrate or panic?’
My honest answer was neither.
Ten years ago, I moved into a home built through a community self-build shared-ownership scheme. It made a mortgage affordable, and the house has since doubled in value. A 50 per cent fall in house prices would therefore bring me more or less back to where I started.
That experience has made me think differently about the way we talk about housing. I have also worked with many people experiencing homelessness over the past 30 years, and at one point came too close for comfort to experiencing it myself. Housing is not an abstract economic question when you have seen what happens when people do not have somewhere secure to call home.
It is easy to look at a younger person struggling to buy a home and blame the generation that benefited from rising property prices. It is equally easy for an older generation to look at younger people and assume they simply expect too much. What interests me more than deciding which generation is to blame is what justice requires of us now, given what each of us has inherited.
We did not choose the whole system we inherited. But we do have some responsibility for what we do with what we have received.
Did we have it easier?
Another question put to the Boomer and Gen X members of the panel was whether people today have it harder financially than our generation did at the same age. My answer was yes, in many ways.
That does not mean that my generation had it easy. We experienced recessions, unemployment and economic insecurity. But there were some protective factors that are unavailable now.
I was in the last academic year to qualify for a student grant and the first year to have student loans. I did not leave university with a massive debt overshadowing the beginning of my career. For many younger people, the financial system they have inherited makes owning a home, finding secure employment and achieving financial independence much harder.
There is a temptation for each generation to look backwards and think, ‘We managed it, so why can’t you?’ But that assumes that the circumstances are the same. They are not.
The more interesting question is therefore not whether my generation was lucky or whether younger generations are unlucky. It is: what responsibility do we have to change a system that benefited some of us in ways that are no longer available to those coming after us?
For me, that is ultimately a question about what we owe our neighbour. If I have benefited from something that makes life harder for somebody else, the Christian response should not simply be guilt and blame. It should be responsibility and accountability.
The quickfire round
The quickfire round made the generational stereotyping even more explicit. Rather than asking us to explain our answers, the chair handed each of us four cards, one for each generation, and asked us simply to hold up the one we thought answered each question.
The questions were deliberately provocative, ranging from which generation was hardest-working, most resilient and luckiest to which should apologise, who would be best in a crisis, and which generation was most responsible for climate change or most likely to change the world or the Church. For each question, my instinct was to say, ‘That depends.’ Instead, I had to choose one of four cards:
I found the exercise both entertaining and frustrating: entertaining because the questions were clearly designed to provoke debate and laughter; frustrating because every question demanded a more complicated answer than the cards allowed. So I tried to play along without accepting the premise. My notes for this section simply say: ‘Refuse the premise without becoming difficult’!
I don’t remember which cards I held up for each question, but these are the answers I would have given if there had been room to explain them:
Which generation is hardest-working?
Probably whichever generation is currently caring for children, parents and everyone else at the same time.
Which is most resilient?
I was reluctant to choose one. Those who have had to be resilient become that way because society gave them no choice. I would rather we did not romanticise resilience. There is a danger of celebrating people’s ability to survive rather than asking why they are having to survive instead of being given the opportunity to thrive.
Which is luckiest?
Every generation contains people who have benefited enormously from circumstances they did not create.
Which should apologise for the most?
The generations with the most power should probably apologise for whatever harm that power has enabled. But apology without change is not much use, and I am sure that my generation has plenty we have not yet realised we will eventually need to apologise for.
Which would be best in a crisis?
The generation that remembers that we need one another.
Which generation would I most like to go on holiday with?
I would choose a Boomer, because they would probably know how to have an actual conversation without checking their phone! One of the things I value about conversations across generations is the opportunity to discover that people who have been reduced to stereotypes are actually interesting human beings.
Most responsible for climate change?
The people and institutions that have the greatest capacity to change the system have the greatest responsibility for what happened. But every generation now shares responsibility for what happens next.
Most likely to change the world?
Hopefully all of us, especially if we listen to those least like ourselves.
Most likely to change the Church?
Every generation changes the Church. The question is whether we recognise that the Spirit might be speaking through people we were not expecting to hear.
Who shaped the world we live in?
We then moved from the quickfire questions to a more serious political discussion. Which generation has been most influential in shaping today’s society, for better or worse?
My response was that influence is not the same thing as blame, and that generations do not act as single political blocs. I am more interested in who has had power, who has exercised it and who has been excluded from decisions that affect their lives.
That seems to me to be a more useful way of thinking about politics than merely assigning responsibility according to someone’s generation.
Every generation inherits a world it did not create and is creating a world that another generation will inherit. That applies to climate change, housing, economics and politics, but it also applies to the Church.
We inherit traditions, structures and assumptions. Some of them are life-giving. Some need challenging. Some need to be dismantled. Some need to be rediscovered because we have forgotten why they mattered in the first place.
My own journey through Catholicism, Anglicanism and Methodism, and my experience of ecumenism, LGBT+ inclusion, social justice and interfaith engagement, has involved negotiating precisely those questions. I have not sought to throw away what came before me, but to discern what is worth carrying forward.
What is Gen X blamed for?
When asked what political problem my generation is unfairly blamed for, I chose political cynicism and disengagement.
I don’t think Gen X’s problem is that we are cynical. I think we have sometimes become very good at recognising what is wrong, but less good at believing that we can change it.
There is a difference between scepticism and disengagement. Maybe our task is to rediscover the difference. We do not need to pretend that politicians or institutions deserve unquestioning trust. But scepticism should not become an excuse for withdrawing from political life altogether.
If we stop believing that anything can change, we leave the field to those who are perfectly happy to exercise power without us. That is not hope.
Who gets to vote?
A question about the voting age brought another dimension to this. I supported lowering the voting age to 16 and rejected the idea of a maximum voting age. Democracy does not belong only to the eldest. Young people live with the consequences of decisions about the environment, the economy and our country’s political direction, possibly even more than older people do.
At the same time, I would want any change to voting arrangements to be rooted in principles of democratic participation rather than in taking away the voice and rights of some people for the perceived benefit of others.
The discussion made me think about what we mean when we talk about generations having different interests. If a decision made today will shape the world in which someone else has to live for decades to come, their age should not determine how seriously we take their interests.
For me, that connects with a much older Christian question: who is my neighbour? In other words, whose future am I responsible for?
The answer cannot simply be the people who look like me, vote like me, or happen to be the same generation as me. If I believe that my neighbour includes people whose lives are different from mine, then I also have to take seriously the conditions in which they will live.
That is one reason I find the generational framing both useful and problematic. It can help us recognise that people experience the same political decisions differently, but it can also encourage us to think in terms of ‘their interests’ and ‘our interests’, when we are actually living in the same society and sharing responsibility for what happens to it.
If I could swap generations
If I could swap places with another generation for a week, I said I would choose Gen Z.
Between 2005 and 2015 I ran an LGBT+ youth group for people aged between 13 and 25. During that time I met young people who came out at school in ways that I would not have thought possible when I was their age. I saw young people challenge assumptions that I had once regarded as simply the way things were. That experience has made it difficult for me to dismiss younger generations as naïve or entitled.
What I would find most interesting about swapping places with Gen Z is to experience the world from the perspective of people who have never known a time before the internet and social media. I would be fascinated to discover how different the assumptions are about communication, identity, community and what it means to be a public person.
But I would also be terrified by it. Growing up with the whole world potentially watching you, while everyone else’s lives are constantly appearing on your phone, sounds exhausting. When I was younger, you could make a mistake and, mercifully, it could simply disappear into history.
I would also want to understand what it feels like to be young in a world in which you have inherited enormous problems – climate change, housing, political instability and economic uncertainty – while simultaneously being told that your generation is the one that has to fix them.
More than anything, I think I would like to experience their sense of possibility, as I witnessed in the youth group. That may be why we need each other.
Younger people can remind older people that the future is not fixed. Older people can sometimes offer the perspective that change takes longer, and requires more persistence, than we would like. We need the imagination of youth and the perseverance of experience.
Staying at the table
The final question asked what value from another generation we think our own generation needs to rediscover. My answer was commitment.
My generation is very good at questioning institutions, sometimes for very good reasons. But there is a danger in becoming so good at walking away that we forget that meaningful change often requires staying at the table.
You do not change a church, a community, a marriage, a neighbourhood or a society simply by finding somewhere better to go. Sometimes you change things by staying.
That is one of the things I have discovered in Methodism. Recommitting through the annual Covenant Prayer is not about pretending that everything is perfect. It is about choosing relationship again and again, rather than belonging only when it is convenient.
There is something here that reaches beyond Methodism and beyond the question of generations. The challenge is not to make generations agree with each other. It is to learn how to stay at the table with one another when we do not agree.
One of the things ministry has taught me is that you cannot love a generation you have only ever stereotyped. You have to encounter people as people, listen before judging, and allow the other person to change your understanding.
We do not need to swap generations. We need to become curious enough about one another that we can imagine what it is like to live in someone else’s world.
We didn’t start the fire
The title of the panel discussion contains both a defence and a challenge.
None of us chose the circumstances into which we were born. We did not choose the economic system, the political settlement, the climate or the cultural assumptions that preceded us.
But Billy Joel’s song reminds us that the fire will still be burning when we are gone. That means that the question cannot simply be who started it. We have to ask what we are doing with it now.
The questions I took away from the conversation at Greenbelt are:
- What did we inherit?
- What have we changed?
- What are we going to hand on?
Generational labels can help us notice differences in experience, but they can also become convenient ways of turning people into tribes. ‘Boomers did this’, Gen X are like that’, ‘Millennials think this’, ‘Gen Z are the problem’.
It is easier to stereotype somebody than to listen to them, to blame somebody than to ask what we owe them, to defend our generation than to acknowledge where we have benefited from circumstances that others have not. And it is easier to become cynical than to hope.
But hope is not pretending that the fire isn’t burning. It is refusing to believe that the present is the final word.
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