Generational Attributes

Below we have some attributes of the different generational archetypes - the recurring sorts of generations - as originally proposed in the book Generations. It included many points of comparison between the generational archetypes - that is, the recurring sorts of generations.  Authors Neil Howe and William Strauss identified them  by comparing contemporary and historical figures to find what they had in common.

The listing below is of positive and negative attributes noted from members of these archetypes. This comes from a single chart, which includes a dozen more points of comparison, so there are certainly additional details on how generations change over time. As we go along, we will find more, but this should be a useful overview to investigate  how we can distinguish characters who belong to different generations.  

Archetype	Positive Attributes	Negative Attributes
Hero	Rational Selfless Competent	Overbold Unreflective Insensitive
Artist	Caring Open-minded Expert	Indecisive Guilt-ridden Neurotic
Prophet	Principled Resolute Creative	Ruthless Selfish Arrogant
Nomad	Savvy Perceptive Practical	Amoral Pecuniary Uncultured

For example, let's consider John McLane of the movie Die Hard, and which of the above attributes describe him best. He's clearly not an Artist, by this standard, as he matches none of those attributes. (We might consider him an Expert policeman, but even that pushes beyond the Everyman story there.) He's a bit more of a Hero, although he isn't really Selfless - he is as threatened by Hans Gruber's gang as anyone else, so whatever he does helps him, too. He is also relatively sensitive and reflective, particularly when talking with his other cop friend on the ground. He's not even too bold, really - he tries to get the police to take care of the issue early on. There's a better fit still with the Nomad attributes, but he's neither amoral or in it for the money, and the practical step would have been staying out of the way once he escaped. 

But is he ruthless? He kills every terrorist  he can. Arrogant? Yippie-ki-yay... Principled and resolute? Definitely. Creative? Let us count the ways. We can suggest, then,  that he is probably part of a Prophet generation, and that his story will be what fits a Prophet.

And we'll soon get to what that means....

In Generations, incidentally, Strauss & Howe use different names for these archetypes. The above versions came into use a few years later. I'll include them here because I may lapse into them sometimes: 

Hero: Civic

Artist: Adaptive

Prophet: Idealist

Nomad: Reactive