Millennial Madness

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson takes on bold declarations on the nature of the millennials. An excerpt:

Yes! That’s the wonderful thing about the millennial generation. They are nature’s gift to “generational analysts,” those big thinkers who are able to grasp entire national cohorts in their meaty arms, lift them up, turn them upside down, and shake them till every last cultural insight falls from their pockets. Generational analysts can make any assertion they want about the 80 million people they identify as millennials and then dare somebody to disprove it, though hardly anyone ever tries. Since the Times story on Generation Nice, I’ve thrashed my way through much of their work. In a single morning the other day I read that “millennials would dump a friend to get ahead at work,” that they have a “deep sense of entitlement,” and that they “will take credit for other people’s work”—three assertions from three articles based on three different social science studies. I learned that bad millennial behavior arises from their “selfishness” and “narcissism,” which also causes them to overestimate their own “specialness” and “uniqueness.” Generation Not Nice! At All!