Hawaiian Libertarian has an intriguing spin on the subject:
Prior to the advent of mass mind control enabled by mass media technology, there was no real substantial differences between generations…at least not the sort that so thoroughly and contentiously divided us for the past century. Culture was far more static and slow changing, and influenced much more by religion and cultural traditions and norms.
But the advent of the tell-a-vision, radio broadcasting, the consolidation of print media and the popular music industry all gave those with the same agenda of societal control as the Pharisees of old, the means to “Speak” to the mass audience so as to create such artificially imposed divisions as “generations.” THEY told each different generation that the older generations were “uncool” and “old-fashioned.” With mass media and commercial consumerism, THEY were able to institute a continuous, dynamic change in music, dance, fashion, clothing, hairstyles, slang and lingo, and ultimately an ethos and moral code for each generation of youth entering their young adult years, so that THEY successfully severed the connections between generations to divide and conquer we the sheeple.
Just for one example of this, we need only look at the differences in marriage and family between the different generations. Our Grandparents were for the most part the last generation that followed the patterns of multiple generations that preceded them. They mostly dated, got married, had sex, then had children. Our parents dated, got married, had sex, had children, got divorced, dated, re-married, had more kids and often got divorced again. We (GenX) dated, had sex, had children, then got married, then divorced, then remarried. The younger generation don’t date, they hook up and have sex with a multitude of partners (or they’re incel and resort to teh Pr0n, or gay or transgendered or whatevers). Marriage is mostly out of the question, whether they have kids, use birth control, or have abortions or not.
The common cultural ethos and paradigm that drove the changes in mating patterns and family formation (and disintegration) trends are all different for each generation, and it was this artificially created division causing each successive generation to reject the former generations morality that lead to this cultural devolution and attitudes towards family over the span of a few decades.
Mating patterns are an important element in determining culture, so it should come as little surprise that altering the mating patterns would tend to exacerbate the cultural differences between the generations.
It also might help explain the way in which Boomers are totally unable to understand GenX and the succeeding generations as well as the contempt in which Boomers are held by GenX; the Boomers simply don’t perceive that anything structural has changed.
They tend to think of “change” as something that an individual does within the context of a permanent infrastructure. GenX, on the other hand, sees that there is no permanence to the infrastructure, and that the infrastructure is not only transforming, but is imposing its changes on the individual.
The Millennial doesn’t even see the cultural infrastructure, and thereby doesn’t understand either the Boomer perspective or the GenX fury at the order and infrastructure they have lost.