Howe shares with us some historical background of his proposition. In the late sixties with the summer of love and student protests, the  older people in society wondered about what made these ’sweet kids’ do all these rebellious things. Later on, with the generation X, who had no political engagement or ideology what so ever, spiked hair and earrings were considered political statements. These examples show how the characteristics of the previous youth generation are used to judge the present generation and that the expectations in society about the potential force of this new generation are linked to that.

Howe says that the new generation of today, the millenials, are typically stereotyped with the characteristics of generation X. They are expected to have no ideology, to have no political engagement and not to come to action. But, 2008 has been the year, as states Howe, in which reality has overtaken the stereotype, at least on the political side of society, and in which the millenials have shown to truly be a new generation that does have civil inclination.

My view on this is that 2008 was actually the first time that the millenials where enabled to show where they stand, simply because regulation had controlled their political vote untill the age of 18. Now the question off course is then what to expect of this new generation when it will be enabled to express its voice on other areas as well. 2008 maybe has been a year in which we saw a major change, but my question is if it was the biggest one we will witness?