The Values Of Your Generation
In response to a clash on the boards…
Life seems designed so you’re part of a generation, which holds certain things dear. The next generations come up and they have things they hold dear. If you’re part an older generation, you’ve got to come to terms with this. That your values may not be shared by younger generations. For example, my generation is informal as compared to the generations that preceded it. Sloppy even, if you compare them side by side.
Some people interact ‘cross generations. This is the normal way in some cultures where there is a family home, children live with their grandparents and a brought up to value their elders. Or you can have someone like me who grew up near my grandfather, and went to work in an old man’s bar when I was a teen, just because I like old people. Today I am part of a woman’s club with women 30 years my senior. I just like this stuff.
So there are people like me, but there are also people who are isolated from anything outside their immediate circle. Their circle might be all one age, all one race, or all one political leaning. Their group may be all extremely rich or all extremely poor, they may be very educated or uneducated, but when a person’s experience is narrow they are going to have very little insight or understanding of people outside their group. With now actual knowledge, the imagination fills in the spaces.
In astrology, it is generally accepted that generations are marked by Pluto’s transit through a sign. An interest in expanding one’s sphere is shown by Jupiter. The Internet has made it easy for people to have contact with people around the world, and many take advantage of this. Certainly this blog has always been a place where people who are interested in contact with a diverse group of people gather.
I think it’s a challenge for older people to come to terms with the fact the younger generation may not share their values. Some young people do embrace the values of their elders. I was like this. My elders were the WW2 generation and there’s a real substance to these people which is attractive and impossible to deny. If the generation(s) that precede yours are not that impressive, then you’re going to be less likely to follow them, provided you want to get anywhere good.
What are the values of your generation? How do they differ from the values of your elders? How are they the same?
44 Responses to “The Values Of Your Generation”
This is a good article on an interesting subject:
http://www.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/05ws/generations.htm
It talks about the different characteristics of the generations and how they manifest in the work place. I’ve often philosophized with my friends as to what ‘Corporate America’ will be like when the Gen Xers are old enough to take over.
One of the most telling differences in the generations to me is that Plutonian influence. You can really see that Pluto in Libra influence in the nontraditional turn relationships (marriage and business) have taken with Gen X.
I really like the solid-ness of the WW2 generation. I would find myself adopting their values more, except that they don’t fit in some ways. I guess that’s why values change.
For example, they are very conservative, as a rule. However, the type of conservative value they espouse is very rare to find nowadays. I think that’s why so many of them voted for Bush Jr. – because they liked his dad, who was of their generation, and thought it would carry over, only it didn’t.
Not trying to get political really, that’s just an example.
My immediate superiors, the Boomers, are not a group whose values I admire all that much. Feminism was a good one, even though, again, that brand of feminism needs to give way to another “wave” that fits better with our current times. Doing a little work on racism was good, too (although, that was largely the work of a small subset of that generation).
Interesting. My parents are pluto in cancer and pluto in leo generation. I get along better with my pluto in cancer dad and grandparents than I do with my pluto in leo mom. Pluto in cancer were very family oriented in my opinion. They were also very private. I am pluto in virgo. We are very hard on o ourselves. Some are very self righteous. But we can be very unselfish. I have issues with the pluto in libra generation. They drive me crazy. At worst, they are very polite to your face while they are stabbing you in the back. On the other hand, at their very best, they are good negotiators and very loving parents. I love the pluto in scorpio and pluto in sag generation. Fortunate for me, my children are either pluto in scorpio or pluto in sag.
steam, the boomers represent two different groups, the pluto in leo and the pluto in virgo. Steam, I laughing tell people that I was born a feminist. I just knew that all people are equal. And I was. As far as civil rights, you will find both pluto in leo and pluto in cancer people involved in that fight. And it was not small.
my natal jupiter is in aquario, 7th. retrograde pluto in libra, 3rd. I have friends of all – and old – ages. i’m having a hard time understanding the almost bovine facial expression and lack of vocabulary of the younger generation – 18-23 yr olds, but i’m coming to terms with it…they just simply grew with working parents and many appliances. not much interaction there. peel off that layer and you’re good to go. And applies to pretty much everyone. I do feel a pull towards the old – being a capricorn -, history and a simpler way of life, a value i do not share with fellow generation Xers. i always have a feeling i was born in the wrong century.
Can any of you from the younger generation define what your values are? Specifically, what do you value in life? What really matters to you?
Also, where to these values come from? Who (or what) gave them to you (ie the media, your parents, your religion..?)
I value holistic systems and differ from my dad’s generation this way. For example, when my dad started to get health problems, he put all his faith in his doctor, his medicines, whatever surgeries he had. If I was in a similar predicament, I would question my whole lifestyle. Is it stress that is killing me? Are my meds counteracting each other?
My dad was a workaholic who was single-mindedly focused on his business and his money. To him, this was the source of all problems – lack of resources. To me, I differ because I see that some of his problems he couldn’t throw money at, like his health.
I’m from Generation Y (1984), and I know I have a general world view. Aquarian sun and rising perhaps aids this. I’ve lived overseas and in 7 different states, since my father was in the Army and have experienced many cultures. I prefer to be surrounded by people who can bring different perspectives and views to the table and can’t stand being put in a box with one label on it. At one point my family lived in a massive 2-story house in Brooklyn that housed my aunties and grandparents, which is looked at as unusual to most americans, since it’s deemed normal to leave home at 18, however in the rest of the world, you have 3 generations living under one roof.
My values stem from many people. My father is Buddhist and I’ve learned a great deal from him and others.
I’ve also seen both sides of the coin: from living a middle-class life to being homeless. I’m sure this adds to my outlook on life.
Being that technology was prominent while I grew up, I’d say it added to the things I don’t like or prefer, like vanity or consumerism.
My thoughts are a little off, since I just ate a huge breakfast.
really interesting perspective on the bovine gaze et al, lili. hmmm
i am pluto in virgo generation but feel and think a lot like dark aquarian.
Fulfillment
Security that is independent of a system (ie: working for self instead of “the man” because “the man” doesn’t pay anymore)
Humanist principles
Raised by Sesame Street
Pluto in Libra
“Raised by Sesame Street”
Which generation of Sesame Street? Before or after, Jim Henson’s death?
I’m a GenY-er, (1987). I value working with interesting, creative people. I value holistic systems that don’t compartmentalize people’s lives. Like dorchid said, if I’m having an issue with my health, I want to examine my work, relationships, eating, sleeping, and anything else to try to improve. I suppose this can bleed over into a sense of entitlement in the workplace, in that if I am having personal issues at home, I expect my work to be flexible for that, though I would also expect my home life to be flexible in regard to my work. After all, I’m one person with one life, and everything affects everything else.
Beautiful aspects of life that we put on hold while we run around to achieve so many other things.
Thanks Elsa.
@Elsa-1981. Prior to Jim Henson’s death, and pre-Elmo.
Elmo drives me nuts, although I do like the idea of a character that was geared towards pre-school kids. He didn’t go “fast enough” for me. 
I have Virgo sun and Pluto conjuct and sitting at my 5th House (Taurus ASC). I grew up in Asia, moved to US in my late 20s. Value of my generation is different in Asia and USA.
Personally I value my elders if they can earned respect. I’m not going to respect you if you are not nice and respect me. I never exploite anyone and I don’t like to be exploite by others not even by elders.
My brother and I are Gen Y and my mother is a baby boomer. Our values/views are largely different hers.
She takes everything on a personal level, talking, feeling and expressing. I think she is like this, because she had more, face to face communications, compared to us. Sometimes I envy that.
I’m a lot more, feel it and get over it. And all forms of telecommunications are important and valued. Whereas I had less face to face. Its not my fault, I did chat groups and instant messaging growing up. But I’ve talk more, and interacted more on a global scale. But I do know, I lack that personal face to face value personality type.
Its weird, when you can say in your head, I’ll just delete that person from my life and carry on.
But this is my personal opinion. I might be very wrong about everything. I hope my kid is better.
In my own generation (X) and those younger than mine, I have a hard time figuring out what values are generational, and what values have to do with age.
In general, I think it’s not until later in life that values become more enduring, just because it takes a while before you see which ones drop off, and which ones stick around.
One example would be freedom. Lots of twentysomethings value freedom because of the stage of life they are in. But for some, freedom will be a lifelong value. Whether I can characterize it as a generational value… I feel like I just can’t know that, yet.
Wow..yesterday I was reading an aarp magazine and these thoughts actually came to mind..Like the different generations driven by the transits in pluto and how they are so different. I also wondered how the scorpio pluto generation felt about the Leo pluto generation. They always say that the leo generation was self serving ect ect..But as much as I love my parents generation,the truth is ,Kids were not treated like they were part of the family,they were to be seen and not heard,It was the generation that was uncomfortable telling their children they loved them.No children were put on a pedestal ,unlike what us baby boomers did to our kids.We spoiled them with “things” we did not have growing up.{Is that the leo influence? buying love?}Now my parents generation is living to 100 years old..When social security was designed {which was not designed by baby boomers btw} people lived to about 68 so 3 years of social security no problem.But now the baby boomers all coming up for retirement ,If like me have worked since they were 16 years old and payed into social security might lose it. I feel bad for our generation and our younger generations who should not have that burden. Maybe we need to go back to the times when 3 generations live in the same home.
Hahaha…!
Hence my name on here… ,-)
I have always been able to intuitively interpret peoples generational & ancestral energies with just a simple glance. I love to study astrology through the cycles & patterns throughout history.
As a child i was very similar to you Elsa, i was generally always around older people. & it was the older generations that gave me my greatest true values in life. Especially the Saturn in Scorpio 1920′s babies.. in which is the very cycle my grandparents were born into!
It is my grandparents that have had the most influence on me throughout my life.
Their spirits/energies soul/ghost will always guide me throughout my lifetime here on earth.
I guess you could even call them ‘Spirit Guides’.
My grandfather was an Indigenous Aussie. It is in my blood to believe in the afterlife, energy & spirit guides. It is always important to honor our ancestors & the generations before us. I have always believed this. & always will.
But then again my Sun, Mars & Mercury being in the sign of Cancer could explain my why i have these beliefs, & my ancestral patterns. & my deep longing to speak, act & illuminate as much ‘truth’ about these topics as i possibly can.
hmmm…food for thought!
Thanx Elsa!!! Loving these threads!
I have gone through every response on here after reading Elsa’s post. It is so heart warming to know that others out there in the world like to think, feel, & communicate in a way that makes sharing on cyber space such a beautiful experience!
This is one of the things that I grapple with on blogging. For example, there is a youthful (compared to me) group on this site. I often feel like I might be a drag on that energy.
Pluto in Virgo : pets, well being, education, self mastery, healthy lifestyle
We are a three generation family with a pluto in cancer grandmother, pluto in leo parents, pluto in scorpio children. A big value difference between my parents and my generation was they had very little, (depression times) and they really hold on tight to whatever they have, work hard, did not want to take time to relax. Even now, my mother is rescuing things that we do not want, saving them in her room rather than letting us clear out old stuff.
They gave us economic security, which they did not have. But they did not give us a lot extra things. In college, we had no stereo, mattress on a floor, bookshelves made from planks and cement bricks, wore army surplus and levis. All of us lived this way, the only way you could tell if someone had money, was they had a GOOD stereo. So my parents did not understand when we felt we could leave after schooling and travel around the world. We had the economic stability to believe that when we came back home we would do fine, but did not need it immediately. I was labelled “my daughter the ski bum, and my daughter the bum” at two different points in their life. They worried constantly about me.
I then could not understand the ?pluto in Virgo generation, that wanted to dress up with suits and ties in college, have material things earlier. I think of them as the “Blues Brothers generation. Is that the GenX?
My kids are definitely in a generation where they are just as happy with interacting with their friends on line as face to face. They seem to get bored or frustrated more readily than someone of an earlier generation.
A problem in our 3 generational household, is that my daughter rebelled against her grandmother, rather than me. I still feel sad that she lost something special due to too close of a contact with her grandmother.
Pluto in Virgo. I care about process, how things are done. I need to be as efficient as possible. Usually people are surprised when I explain the reasoning for doing things a certain way, I guess my heavy Pisces vibe hides my practicality.
Deeply concerned with the environment, animal welfare, and trash. We have the most wasteful idiotic trash disposal, dig a hole and bury it…dump it in the ocean. Seriously, WTF? If we can put a man on the moon I’m sure we can figure out how to reduce trash and dispose of it in a manner that impacts the environment less.
And why buy a pet when you can rescue one? Why tear down a building rather than refurbish? Why buy new when there’s thrift shops, Ebay and Salvation Army bursting with clothes? Why buy into the consumer culture hook, line and sinker?
Pluto in Libra here. I always want to see things both ways, and I value multiple perspectives. To me, the older generations see things as black and white. For example, you are either gay or straight, white or “a minority,” liberal or conservative. I think the younger generations are less quick to make judgments and are more likely to see these things as part of a spectrum.
Also, our generation has been less prosperous. We are better off to value human interaction over acquiring big cars or houses. Of my friends who are parents, none of them are raising their children in a space as large as the one they grew up in.
I’m from the Pluto in Scorpio generation, and I can think of a few thoughts about my generation.
Positive: the Pluto in Scorpio generation is very concerned about society and the environment. With that level of concern, I think the Pluto in Scorpio generation has the potential to solve certain problems.
Negative: the Pluto in Scorpio generation may be so concerned about issues at the collective level that there may be less focus on personal responsibility. Just like personal responsibility isn’t enough without collective support and resources to get something accomplished, collective resources are useless when a person does not have the willpower to take advantage of those resources.
I also perceive the Pluto in Scorpio generation as a canary in the coalmine. If things are wrong in society, that generation is going to feel those problems very keenly, a bit too keenly.
While I have met a few Pluto in Virgo people, it’s hard for me to describe my interactions with them from a Pluto generation perspective.
As far as Pluto in Libra people are concerned, I do appreciate their social tolerance, but some members of that generation can be a bit too relativist when some issues do require drawing a line somewhere.
I admire the can-do attitude of members of the Pluto in Cancer generation.
As far as the Pluto in Leo generation is concerned, there can sometimes be a clash in priorities from experience, but I can get along with them pretty well, especially those who identify with the events of the 1960s.
Astrology is great in the sense that it helps keep in perspective some of the priorities of different generations as well as some of the life-altering collective events that define a generation as people come of age.
Pluto in Cancer: the Great depression and WWII
Pluto in Leo: the 1960s (the hippie movement, the Vietnam War, the racial equality movement…) and the 1980s (the Reagan years)
Pluto in Virgo: Reagan years? (could someone confirm this?)
Pluto in Libra: the end of the Cold War and the Clinton years (could someone confirm this?)
Pluto in Scorpio: 9/11, the Bush years and the current economic crisis
With that said, it’s important for every generation to keep an open mind to life-altering collective events way after their 20s. People seem to be stuck on some of the life events that happened in their youth, many people have trouble opening up to other experiences.
While I know the events that will define my mindset, I must keep in mind the events that crystallized the mentalities of previous generations and keep an open mind towards the transformative events the Pluto in Sagittarius and the Pluto in Capricorn generations will go through.
I’m 35 (Pluto in mid-degree Libra). I’ve worked for years, with a ton of early degrees Pluto in Virgo/Saturn in Capricorn people. At work, there were 7 of them, all men. Then I went to art school and met a lot of Pluto in Scorpio people.
Dad is mid-degree Pluto in Cancer, mum is 0 degrees Pluto in Leo.
My values are having kindness as your first handshake, service to the community, a healthy degree of self-sufficiency, combined with this desired connection with community. Determining how best to share everything: values, resources, ideas, energy, bread. I also value spiritual pursuit (Neptune in Sagittarius) on an individual level. I value getting to know your body as well as your mind and your base desires and trying to find a healthy balance. I value questioning everything, most importantly my own behaviour.
Mostly, I value my health, that I was given the gift of a body and I want to honour that gift by making the most out of life. I value taking the good with the bad.
My personality, genes, upbringing, experience…
pluto in mid-libra – gen x’r here.
my group of peers value connection and community. good quality of life (as mentioned above…$$ is usually a means to an end – not the ultimate goal, though all of us are hard workers)
tolerance/”live and let live” philosophy….often peppered with just the right amount of sarcasm:) favorite thing about my generation is our sense of humor. tends to expand when you see both sides of the coin.
what dorchid said about holistic systems rings true as well.
Pluto in Leo on desc.. I value love, loyalty and creativity.. happily married 36yrs to an artist, deeply connected.
Thanks for such an interesting thread,enjoying reading everyone’s posts.
Pluto in Virgo 1957 to 1971. We grew up in the sixties. When we went to college, we were the largest generation to attend college. When we finished college, there was a recession. I would not identify myself with Reagan. But we saw the Vietnam War, Watergate, Agnew’s resignation, Nixon’s resignation, two Supreme Court Justices leave the court in scandal, Iraq hostages, the greatest recession since the Great Depression (until 2008), rising oil prices, Iran-Contra, and the rise of conservatism. Yet so many of my generation have total amnesia.
My mom is Pluto in Virgo and I’m Pluto in Libra. There are times when values-wise, we clash (but I have Virgo, so sometimes we agree.)
She’s more frugally-minded, money-conscious and less wasteful than I am. When we discuss religion or politics, she tends to draw a hard line and I prefer not to do so as as much. So it can be a challenge, for sure. I mean, who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong? We just come from different perspectives is all.
brizo, how many planets you have in virgo?? where is you saturn please?? just interested to know
lol. I hope that breakfast was good….
it seems like there was at least a common language or something between the generations, before. (I grew up around a lot of different types of people.)
Agreed, Jilly.
Why are ‘everyone’ and ‘everything’ statements so popular? I truly do not understand. When a person says ‘everyone’ and follows up with a damning, negative statement about ‘everyone’, do you think that person means himself, too? I am beginning to wonder. I feel like every time I turn I hear or read an ‘everyone’ statement.
t.Saturn moving in on my 11th House Uranus. I truly feel like an alien.
Interesting reads! Personal/ Cultural bias is a loaded subject for me.
I think ‘everyone’ and ‘everything’ expresses what the person is experiencing. It’s an exaggeration of sorts but makes a point of the issue at hand perhaps. Myself, I drive semantically correct people absolutely nuts. Please excuse any lack of eloquence. For a virgo, refined I ain’t.
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Very applicable to my life atm.
My parents and relatives in their generation were work hard, play hard types. Alcohol played a big part in their lives. Money, promotions in job, and objects that boast a wealthy successful image (despite the lack of funds in the bank) were valued – in fact, the image/attitude you project has to always be good when in public no matter how drunkenly wasted you were. To lose your job means to lose your self-esteem even though the work they do is completely unsatifying.
I can’t live the way they did. I think the wellbeing of a person is the most important thing. I value an intelligent mind, creative expressions but more than that I value someone that is just them despite societal rules.
(Gotta love that Merc in Sagg)