Exploring The Idea of Intergenerational Identity:

is it fair to say that we’ve become a fairly self-obsessed culture? Carefully cultivating our social media profiles and public image.

We choose what we share with others and how we define ourselves. Our sense of “roots” is also changing. Many of us end up living far from our birthplace and from our families of origin. When we have success in the world, our image and our name are praised. We are rewarded with money and opportunities. But are we separate from our roots?

Would Mark Zuckerberg have founded Facebook if his father didn’t teach him computer programming as child?

Would Brad Pitt be the well regarded leading man without his parents genetics?

The person and these experiences/attributes are inseparable. So why do we reward the individual for their accomplishments and not their ancestry? How much of “us” IS our ancestry and our past experiences? Can we truly take credit for our accomplishments? In the same way, can we take credit for our failures? This may seem like silly thing to ask but the implications are huge. What changes would we see in our culture if we defined ourselves not as individual bodies but as an intergenerational aggregate?