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I proposed a theory here about how society seems to move in 70 year cycles from crisis to crisis. I called it the 70 year itch and someone pointed out that a rough equivalent theory of an 80 year cycle was laid out in a book called "The Fourth Turning". Cool, let's go with that since it's more laid out.

In that book, there are four discrete generational archetypes (each having primacy for 20 of the 80 years). In the crisis phase, the generation that is in primacy are the so-called "nomads" who grew up in a protected world of relative peace and stability but are forced to mature into pragmatists who navigate society through a crappy crisis. Today that's GenX, back in WW2 it was Truman's generation - the one that preceded the "greatest generation". When the Nomads come to maturity when "Institutions are weak and distrusted, individualism is strong and flourishing". Seems about right, old institutions like the church and the government came to be viewed with skepticism and suspicion by GenX; my generation prefers to go it's own way for the most part. Whatever.

Per this theory the next generation (i.e. the "greatest Generation" of WW2 or the millennials of today) are the "heroes". Here's how they are described: "Heroes grow up as increasingly protected post-Awakening children, come of age as team-oriented young optimists during a Crisis, emerge as energetic, overly-confident midlifers, and age into politically powerful elders attacked by another Awakening."

Basically per this theory GenX is stuck living their best years in a crappy world that they get stuck fixing (admittedly using the millennials as the muscle to make it happen), then the millenials will take it and go forward in peace and prosperity until their own children start to think they are smarter and superior and start to ruin their lives.

So if you buy all that, be content to know that these smug millenials will be mocked and laughed at by their children like the boomers did to theirs.