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Generations on paper: Bourdieu and the critique of "generationalism"

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DOI: 10.1177/0539018415608967
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Semi Purhonen
School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Finland

Abstract
This article first examines the role of the concept of generation in Pierre Bourdieu’s
work. It shows that Bourdieu’s usage of the concept of generation varied throughout
his œuvre and that Bourdieu seldom if ever used the concept in the same sense as
Karl Mannheim and many subsequent sociologists who have understood generation
as a potential source of identity and political mobilization. However, and second, the
article argues that Bourdieu’s sociology does have much to offer for the sociological
study of generations, but only if we stop concentrating on those rare passages in
which he explicitly used the word ‘generation’. We should focus instead on his more
general approach to the genesis of social groupings, classification struggles and the
difficult relationships of representation. The application and extension of Bourdieu’s
ideas demonstrated here can provide a welcome antidote to so-called generationalism
– a simplified and exaggerated picture of generations, which dates back to early 20th-
century European intellectuals and which can still be found in today’s popular discourses
as well as in academic studies.

Keywords
Bourdieu, generations, classification struggles, generationalism, Mannheim

Résumé
L’article examine le rôle du concept de génération dans l’œuvre de Bourdieu. Il montre
que l’utilisation que fait Bourdieu du concept de génération dans son œuvre a varié et
qu’il a rarement utilisé ce concept dans le même sens que Karl Mannheim et que de
nombreux sociologues qui l’ont suivi, qui ont compris le concept de génération comme
une source potentielle d’identité et de mobilisation politique. Cependant et en second

Corresponding author:
Semi Purhonen, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Linna 5056 (Kalevantie 5),
FIN-33014, Finland.
Email: semi.purhonen@uta.fi

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2 Social Science Information 

lieu, l’article défend la thèse que la sociologie de Bourdieu a véritablement beaucoup

à apporter à l’étude sociologique des générations à condition d’arrêter de concentrer
son attention sur les rares passages où il utilise explicitement le mot ‘génération’. Il
faut au contraire s’intéresser de près à son approche plus générale de la genèse des
groupes sociaux, des luttes de classification et des relations difficiles entre systèmes
de représentation. L’application et l’extension des idées de Bourdieu démontrée ici
peut fournir une antidote bienvenue à ce que l’on nomme le générationalisme – image
simplifiée et exagérée des générations, qui date des intellectuels Européens du début du
vingtième siècle et que l’on trouve encore de nos jours dans le discours populaire ainsi
que dans certaines études universitaires.

Mots-clés
Bourdieu, générations, luttes de classification, générationalisme, Mannheim

Introduction
Although sometimes interpreted as one of the ‘elementary concepts’ of modern sociol-
ogy (Jureit & Wildt, 2005), generation famously has many meanings, which have been
widely discussed and profoundly criticized (e.g. Aboim & Vasconcelos, 2014; Kertzer,
1983; Laslett, 2005; Pilcher, 1994; Ryder, 1965; Spitzer, 1973). For at least 60 years,
Karl Mannheim has been the dominant figure in generation studies. His essay ‘The prob-
lem of generations’ (Mannheim, 1952; German original, 1928) has become the canoni-
cal, unifying point of reference in the field. The concern here is not with Mannheim’s
view of generations as such, including his well-known distinctions between ‘generation
location’, ‘generation as actuality’ and ‘generation units’, or his famous discussion of
‘non-contemporaneity of the contemporaneous’, ‘formative years’, and the ‘zeitgeist’.
For the purposes of this article it is sufficient that, for Mannheim, like many subsequent
sociologists, generations emerge only under special historical circumstances and are thus
something ‘more’ than simply age cohorts; they are a group of people of similar age
bonded by a shared experience that can eventually result in a distinct self-consciousness,
a world-view and, ultimately, political action (Mannheim, 1952).
Pierre Bourdieu was arguably one of the most eminent figures in sociology and neigh-
bouring disciplines in the last decades of the 20th century (e.g. Sallaz & Zavisca, 2007;
Silva & Warde, 2010). In Bourdieu’s œuvre, the theme of generations was marginal – at
least if we seek explicit discussions. Rather, Bourdieu discussed or referred to generations
sparsely and unsystematically. Yet this has not prevented some of the recent generational
theorists from trying to use Bourdieu’s account of generations as a starting point for devel-
oping a ‘sociology of generations’ (Edmunds & Turner, 2002a, 2005; see also e.g. Dumas
& Turner, 2009; Eyerman & Turner, 1998; Gilleard, 2004; Gilleard & Higgs, 2005, 2011;
McMullin et al., 2007; Turner, 1998, 2002). More precisely, it has been argued that, even
though the importance of generation as an ‘explanatory factor’ in Bourdieu’s approach to
cultural change has usually gone unacknowledged because his main emphasis was on
class, for Bourdieu, ‘generational struggle seems to be especially important in major rup-
tures in taste and practice’ (Edmunds & Turner, 2002a: 13). Moreover it has been argued

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Purhonen 3

that members belonging to the same generation share not only common unifying experi-
ences – usually thought to be a ‘formative experience’ during young adulthood – which
separate them from older and younger groups, but distinct generational habitus (Edmunds
& Turner, 2002a; Eyerman & Turner, 1998; Gilleard, 2004; Gilleard & Higgs, 2005;
Mauger, 1990). This would mean that the characteristics of a generation would essentially
be manifested at the corporeal level of its members.
Both claims – whether generation is an important factor for explaining the changes in
a given field and to what degree generational differences are imprinted in and identifia-
ble via habitus – are, in the end, empirical in nature and should be resolved case by case;
but there might be also a deeper problem if the aim is to integrate Bourdieu’s account of
generations into the more traditional view of Mannheim. It is not clear whether Bourdieu’s
and Mannheim’s conceptions of generation are compatible with each other.
This article argues that, from the perspective of the task of integrating Mannheim and
Bourdieu, Bourdieu’s use of the term ‘generation’ is not without its problems. First, the
meaning of the concept of generation varies in Bourdieu’s texts, depending on the con-
text. Second, and more precisely, Bourdieu seldom if ever used the concept of generation
strictly in the same sense as Mannheim (1952) and later theorists, for whom generation
means essentially a social or cultural generation, a potential source of collective identity
produced by the shared youthful or young adulthood experience of a group of people of
roughly similar age (see e.g. Bude, 1997; Burnett, 2010; Eisenstadt, 2001; Jureit & Wildt,
2005). For this reason, there is a danger that the attempt to integrate Bourdieu and
Mannheim can lead to conceptual problems, namely, the confusion – and equation – of
age cohorts with generations.
These problems notwithstanding, it is argued here that Bourdieu’s sociology has actu-
ally much to offer the ‘sociology of generations’, which has usually been built on
Mannheim’s legacy alone. However, we must put aside those passages in which Bourdieu
explicitly deals with generations and concentrate instead on the more general approach
to the nature and genesis of social classes and groupings that Bourdieu developed
(Bourdieu, 1985, 1987, 1991). This approach, which emphasized the role of continuous
classification struggles in the processes of group formation and culminated in analysing
the problematic relationships of representation, can be fruitfully applied also to social
generations and generational classifications. The result is an even more ‘Bourdieusian’
picture of generations than Bourdieu himself ever painted.
The purpose of this article is therefore to show that, by applying Bourdieu’s
insights into social groups and the issues of representational relationships, it is pos-
sible to provide a new perspective on the lively discussion of social generations.1
From this perspective, social generations are not seen as naïve, natural objects or as
categories; rather the focus is on the variety of levels at which generations are discur-
sively constructed and especially on the continuous classification struggles over the
attributes and meanings of those very generations. This new approach to generations
will be juxtaposed with so-called generationalism in its classical form. Generationalism
refers to a simplified and exaggerated view of generations, a view that dates back to
the early 20th century in Europe and to its intellectuals (including Mannheim), and is
still found today, both in popular discourse and in academic studies dealing with gen-
erations. By adopting insights from Bourdieu, it is possible to arrive at a new way of

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conceptualizing generations that can serve as a welcome antidote to this exaggerated

generationalism.

Bourdieu’s concept of generation

For Bourdieu, as for anybody else, there are three basic ways to use the concept of gen-
eration (for different conceptual demarcation, see Kertzer, 1983; Lüscher & Liegle,
2003; Lüscher et al., 2014). One is in reference to familial generations. This genealogical
usage, unquestionably the oldest and most profound meaning of the concept (Nash,
1978), appears in the studies that concentrate on the relationships between parents and
children. This meaning thus dominates much of the work in the fields of anthropology,
sociology of the family, life-course, ageing, youth, social mobility and migration as well
as discussions on education and socialization, and so on. A second usage is more collec-
tive. Generation, in this case, consists of a group of people born at the same time, or
during a certain period. In this casual sense, without the characterization referring to
shared experiences, ‘generation’ is synonymous with age group or birth cohort. In many
studies, generation is actually used even more loosely when speaking of the ‘young gen-
eration’ when what is actually meant is youth as a life stage, referring to the banal fact
that there are people of many ages. The third use of generation is in the sense of social
generations where the underlying idea is to emphasize collective identity and the feeling
of ‘us’ created by shared experiences. This third meaning is the only one that refers
directly to a particular background theory, and its meaning is, in fact, modern: it emerged
only during the late 19th century and has been used more widely only since the begin-
ning of the 20th century when it began to be codified in theories and manifestoes (see
Burnett, 2010; Jureit & Wildt, 2005; Kriegel, 1978; Wohl, 1979). All these meanings are,
of course, connected, but for the sake of conceptual clarity they should be kept analyti-
cally distinct (Kertzer, 1983).
There are several points to bear in mind about Bourdieu and the concept of genera-
tions. One is that, in his entire œuvre, he never explicitly referred to or cited Mannheim’s
‘The problem of generations’ (1952). However, it is abundantly evident that Bourdieu
knew the basic idea of Mannheim’s famous essay, especially as it is known that Bourdieu
was familiar with Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. Rather than coincidence, it can
be argued, the reluctance to refer to Mannheim is simply that Bourdieu seldom, if ever,
used the concept of generation in his texts in the same sense as Mannheim and other
theorists, who discussed cultural or social generations in the meaning of collectivities
produced by shared experience.
However, before going into the principal meanings of generation in Bourdieu’s work,
it should be pointed out that there seems to be one passage that does touch upon the
‘Mannheimian’ meaning of generation. It occurs in the section in The Rules of Art
(Bourdieu, 1996) in which Bourdieu is describing the French literary field at the turn of
the 20th century by making reference to Robert Wohl’s study (1979). Bourdieu parodies
and mocks the concept of generation, noting ‘the emergence of a very marked tendency
to think of the whole social order in terms of a scheme of division into generations (fol-
lowing the logic which often makes intellectuals extend to the whole world the charac-
teristics of their own microcosm)’ (Bourdieu, 1996: 126). Hence, it could be argued that

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Purhonen 5

Bourdieu looked askance at cultural generations because of the tendency of intellectuals

to fall into the trap of scholastic fallacy. In other words, when making generational inter-
pretations, intellectuals tend to universalize their own particular and limited experiences
falsely, ‘the vision of the world that is favoured and authorized by a particular social
condition’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 50). Thus, Bourdieu seems to have been consciously critical
of traditional theories of social or cultural generations.2
Apart from this, how did he use the concept of generation? There are three main pas-
sages in Bourdieu’s texts in which he explicitly discussed generations and where they
play an important role.
The first usage occurs in connection with reproduction and the educational system,
and the main source is Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (Bourdieu &
Passeron, 1977). This meaning also appears in Bourdieu’s early ethnographical studies
based on his fieldwork in Kabylia (Bourdieu, 1977: 155, 232). In these works, generation
is used in the genealogical sense and refers to biological kinship, that is, the parental/
child axis within the family along which education mostly takes place. But because the
authors’ examination is not restricted to education given by the parents only, but takes
into account the entire educational system, their perspective is also applied to the aggre-
gate level when it is a question of cohorts.
Because the theme of Reproduction is socialization, it is hardly surprising that all the
formulations used therein, such as ‘from one generation to another’ or ‘the rising genera-
tions’, refer to the genealogical – and not the social or cultural – sense of the concept, as
the formulations in which ‘lineages or generations’ (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977: 27) are
used as equivalents confirm. This is a common and standard use of generation in studies
on socialization, reproduction and the transmission of values. It is important to note,
however, that this use of the term is clearly different from Mannheim’s; in fact the mean-
ings are diametrically opposed, even when the theoretical views behind them are consid-
ered (Demartini, 1985). Mannheim’s theory of generation units (1952) is generally seen
as a form of conflict theory (when dealing with youth in relation to their parents), whereas
in the theories of socialization, it is often assumed that parents can ‘successfully’ trans-
mit their own attitudes and values to their children.
The second meaning of the concept of generation found in Bourdieu’s texts is perhaps
the most characteristic of him. It is related to his field-specific studies – especially the
fields of academia, art, and culture – and the changes and struggles in those fields. In the
case of the academic field, Bourdieu referred explicitly to ‘academic generations’ when
writing about the massification of higher education in France in the 1960s: ‘the conflict
which divided the faculties did not oppose generations understood in the sense of age but
academic generations, that is agents who, even when they are the same age, have been
produced by two different modes of academic “generation”’ (Bourdieu, 1988: 147).
But what is the meaning of the concept of generation in these phrases? In the context
of Homo Academicus, generation means essentially a cohort, all of whom arrive in a
field at approximately the same time (e.g. college or university graduates). They thus
share similar positions in the field and are therefore thrown into its ongoing struggles in
order to gain access to the resources and the capitals by distinguishing themselves from
older and already-established groups (such as professors) as well as from younger
groups. Although they may make no direct references to the generational experiences,

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6 Social Science Information 

these generations may feel solidarity because they are comprised of actors who have
arrived in the field at roughly the same time and under similar circumstances. This is also
the reason why Bourdieu (1993a, 1996) occasionally emphasized that the formation of a
generation has practically nothing to do with biological age – the same point of arrival in
a field is sufficient. The weakness of this view is that generations become very hard to
demarcate; in other words, the cut-off points between generations tend to remain obscure
and, thus, there is actually an endless number of generations because nothing special is
needed other than simultaneous arrival in the field.
The same meaning of generation can also be found in Bourdieu’s studies on the fields
of art and culture (e.g. Bourdieu, 1993a, 1996). Nevertheless, Bourdieu did not provide
a direct answer to the question of what makes these ‘literary’ or ‘artistic’ generations
really generations instead of cohorts.3 It is clear, however, that from the viewpoint of this
second meaning, the time spent in the field was more important for Bourdieu than the
biological age of the actor.
This notion brings us to the third type of passage in which Bourdieu used the concept
of generation, namely, ‘“Youth” is just a word’ (Bourdieu, 1993b). This short interview
is indeed Bourdieu’s most famous reference to the theme of generations – precisely
because it emphasizes the importance of a given field and its structures over biological
age.
In this text Bourdieu (1993b), in a sense, combined and unified the two meanings of
generation discussed above. First, he referred to field-specific generations, in which the
meaning is the same as in his analyses of the fields of culture and the arts. Second,
Bourdieu referred to family generations (at an aggregate level) when discussing the ine-
qualities between ‘the young’ and ‘the old’ with regard to ownership of resources. This
meaning is similar to the one used, for instance, in his studies on reproduction. Finally,
he again brought out a field-specific perspective when highlighting the role of the educa-
tional system in creating generations: ‘What is common to all young people, or at least
all those who benefited to any extent from the school system … is that, overall, that
generation is more qualified in a given job than the previous generation’ (1993b: 101).
The use of the concept of generation to refer to the continuous replacement of older,
‘previous generations’, is again, then, equivalent to a cohort – just as in his other field-
specific studies.
Ultimately, the conclusion is that Bourdieu was never particularly systematic in his
use of the concept of generation, apart from the fact that he practically never used it in
the same sense as Mannheim. This also applies to ‘“Youth” is just a word’. However, the
most interesting part of the text is its title and the opening section in which Bourdieu
argued that the classifications of age are arbitrary and subject to struggle:

One is always somebody’s senior or junior. That is why the divisions, whether into age-groups
or into generations, are entirely variable and subject to manipulation. … My point is simply that
youth and age are not self-evident data but are socially constructed, in the struggle between the
young and the old. (Bourdieu, 1993b: 95)

Bourdieu’s position is that the fact that classifications by age may be arbitrary does
not mean that people are not really of various ages – in the way, for example, that some

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Purhonen 7

are younger and others are older. The classifications of age nevertheless are simultane-
ously the product of the struggle between those very groups. It can be argued that what
Bourdieu (1985, 1987) presented with regard to all social classifications applies here:
class is never objective as such, but it does not mean that the attributes of those classes
(or, to be more precise, the differences in locations in a given social space that consti-
tute the basis on which the class is constructed) cannot de facto vary among
individuals.
The argument becomes clearer if we change one word in the title of Bourdieu’s text:
‘“Generation” is just a word’. The quotation marks clearly express, one can argue, that
the question is essentially about the name given to a particular age group. The word
‘youth’ in the original title could be replaced by any of the names by which the ‘young’
in question are called. If we want to understand what Bourdieu meant when he wrote
about the arbitrariness of the classifications related to age, we must look more closely at
the texts in which he analysed the social classifications and classification struggles at a
more general level.

The genesis of social groups: Classes on paper

As is well known, Bourdieu (1984, 1985, 1987) emphasized that sociology should shift
its focus from the ‘class struggles’ (in which classes are seen as unproblematic objects or
ready categories in the world) to ‘classification struggles’ (in which the classes are seen
not only as objects of classification struggles, but also as being produced by and consti-
tuted through those very struggles). Thus, classes – and social groups in general – are
always only ‘classes on paper’ (Bourdieu, 1998: 10–11). A central part of the approach
(and also a central part of the classification struggle itself) is connected with the question
of representation.4 Usually, there is somebody (the ‘spokesman’) who claims that he or
she represents some larger group, but the larger group – the ‘represented’ – tends to
remain undefined, a kind of blind spot, whereas the one who claims to be the ‘representa-
tive’ remains the centre of attention.
In general, Bourdieu viewed the processes of representation – the ‘alchemy of
representation’ (Wacquant, 2005: 5) – as being connected with classification strug-
gles, and he tried to show that classes are always products of ‘class-making’. In some
ways, even representative democracy was the target of his critique, but it is enough
for our discussion to consider cases in which the relationships of representation are
even more problematic. A salient point here is that social groups or even classes do
not have to mean just social classes, but may be more general concepts that refer to
all types of social classifications, irrespective of the ‘content’ of those classifications.
The issue is one of ‘principles of union and separation, of association and disassocia-
tion already at work in the social world such as current classifications in matters of
gender, age, ethnicity, region or nation’ (Bourdieu, 1987: 14) – and, one could add, of
social generations.
Before returning to the theme of social generations, now from this perspective,
Bourdieu’s general argument warrants more detailed consideration. How did Bourdieu
actually make the shift from class struggle to the classification struggle and how are
issues of representation involved?

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Bourdieu’s starting point was to make a clear break with Marxist class theories. A
special priority was to reject ‘the intellectualist illusion that leads one to consider the
theoretical class, constructed by the sociologist, as a real class, an effectively mobilized
group’ (Bourdieu, 1985: 723). The key to Bourdieu’s own perspective is the social space
in which individuals are located (Bourdieu, 1998: 1–13, 31–33). The attributes of those
positions are not, however, dependent on individuals occupying the positions, but on
where the positions are located and their interrelationships within the space. In this sense,
it is possible to distinguish between classes. However, classes based on similar locations
of social space are not ‘actual classes’ or groups but only ‘classes on paper’, which can
have only ‘theoretical existence’ (Bourdieu, 1985: 725). All classifications consist in the
act of classifying from a particular social position. Therefore the class is never purely
‘objective’ (see, however, Bourdieu, 2000: 93–122).
Bourdieu continued to distance himself from Marxist conceptions of class that tend to
identify constructed classes with real classes. When Marxism

does make the distinction, with the opposition between ‘class-in-itself’, defined in terms of a
set of objective conditions, and ‘class-for-itself’, based on subjective factors, it described the
movement from one to the other … in terms of a logic that is either totally determinist or totally
voluntarist. In the former case, the transition is seen as a logical, mechanical or organic necessity
…; in the latter case, it is seen as the effect of an ‘awakening of consciousness’ … performed
under the enlightened guidance of the Party. (Bourdieu, 1985: 726–727)

The quotation above is revealing from the perspective of social generations: in the
sociology of generations, it is still usual to present a generation as analogous to class and
to use Marxist terminology for the difference between ‘class-in-itself’ and ‘class-for-
itself’ (e.g. Edmunds & Turner, 2002a). Thus, the problem of the ‘awakening of con-
sciousness’ is relevant to generations as well. There are no magical solutions to the issue,
only vacillation between voluntaristic and deterministic extremes.
In a way, Bourdieu’s approach provides a solution to the problem by emphasizing that
articulation of consciousness by the ‘spokesperson’ always comes first and that the group
is more likely to be dependent on the representative than vice versa: ‘the group can only
exist through delegation to a spokesperson who will make it exist by speaking for it, i.e.,
on its behalf and in its place’ (Bourdieu, 1985: 740). For Bourdieu, the transition from
‘theoretical’ class to ‘actual’ class is possible only through delegation and representation:
class exists if and only if there is someone who can plausibly represent it (Bourdieu,
1987: 14–15). It is still a symbolic class, however, because the actual individuals pre-
sumably behind the representative do not form any kind of ‘class-in-itself’ (not to speak
of the other Marxist alternative).
According to Bourdieu, ‘the existence or non-existence of classes is one of the major
stakes in political struggle’ (Bourdieu, 1987: 9). The struggle takes place on the symbolic
level, and the question of right is essentially to produce common sense (see Bourdieu,
2000: 97–98) through categorization (that is, making explicit classification) of issues
relating to the social world (Bourdieu, 1985: 729). For Bourdieu, ‘groups are not found
ready-made in reality. And even when they present themselves with this air of eternity
that is the hallmark of naturalized history, they are always the product of a complex his-
torical work of construction’ (Bourdieu, 1987: 8).

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Purhonen 9

An important part of the process of ‘class-making’ is devoted to designation and

labelling, a ‘quasi-magical power to name and to make-exist by virtue of naming’
(Bourdieu, 1985: 729). To create a unified group requires a symbolic work of construc-
tion. To name something or someone, as the habit of bestowing nicknames clearly shows,
means that one possible point of view is foregrounded over all other viewpoints as the
only legitimate way of viewing the individual or group in question (Bourdieu, 1988: 26).
The act of nomination, in turn, is closely connected with the question of representation.
Bourdieu calls for ‘a historical analysis of the genesis and functioning of representation,
through which the representative makes the group that is represented’ (Bourdieu, 1985:
740; original emphasis). The class can exist ‘in and through the corps of mandated rep-
resentatives who give it material speech and visible presence’, eventually ‘uniting the
members of the same “class on paper” as a probable group’ (Bourdieu, 1985: 742).

Against generationalism
Before going into the peculiarities of the process of representation in social generations,
it is useful to introduce a way of thinking about what can be called ‘generationalism’, a
kind of opposing side of the spectrum in contrast to the generational analysis suggested
here, which is sensitive to questions of representation. Generationalism dates back to
early 20th-century Europe and the generational theorists of that period, who, for the first
time, formulated and codified the modern concept of social or cultural generations
(Burnett, 2010; Jureit & Wildt, 2005; Kriegel, 1978; Wohl, 1979). Besides describing the
characteristics of generationalism, it will be argued that notions in accordance with origi-
nal generationalism still have a foothold today in the way sociologists tend to think about
generations.
But what was and is generationalism? Generationalism refers to the views about gen-
erations found both in popular discourses on generations5 as well as in scientific theories
and studies that are in many ways simplifying and exaggerating. In Bourdieu’s (1985)
terms, generationalism represents a ‘substantialist fallacy’ (see Hilgers & Mangez,
2015). Generationalism can be described as having the following characteristics.
Those who embrace generationalism perceive generations as ‘ready-made’ and
unproblematic entities or categories that have an existence of their own. Generationalism
proposes that a generation is a priori an overriding and primary explanatory factor in the
social world. In particular, it contrasts generation with social class and presents these as
mutually exclusive forces. Generationalism tends to overemphasize the characteristics of
the different generations it claims to describe and hence produces mere caricatures. On
the basis of these differences, at its worst it instigates artificial confrontations between
the ‘generations’. In addition, generationalism is a special form of historicism, by which
generations are interpreted as collective actors and the succession of generations as the
primary engine of history.
Described this way, generationalism is not a straw man but an existing view of gen-
erations, even though the characteristics above are presented in condensed form and even
though all generationalists do not have to share all the characteristics.6 As mentioned
above, generationalism essentially originated with the birth of the entire modernist way
of thinking about social generations – or, to put it the other way round, the entire modern

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way of thinking about social generations was effectively produced by the original gen-
erationalists. The concept of generationalism comes from Robert Wohl’s superb analysis
of the great European generationalists in The Generation of 1914 (Wohl, 1979; see also
Hazlett, 1998; White, 2013). Obviously, the terms ‘generationalism’ or ‘generationalist’
can also be found elsewhere, but the terms are usually used more as general and neutral
references to the generational theorists and their advocates.
A modern meaning of the concept of generation emerged only at the turn of the century
in a process that culminated with the ‘golden age’ of the concept of generation, events that
took place in Europe after the Great War, especially in the 1920s. At that time, the concept
was codified in numerous theories and manifestoes that emphasized the priority and impor-
tance of youth and especially youth experiences as the basis for the idea of generations.

In early twentieth-century Europe generationalists were almost always literary intellectuals

living in large cities. They were members of a small elite who were keenly aware of their
uniqueness and proud of their intellectual superiority. What concerned these writers or would-be
writers was the decline of culture and the waning of vital energies; what drove them together
was the desire to create new values and to replace those that were fading; what incited them to
action was the conviction that they represented the future in the present; what dismayed them
was their problematic relationship to the masses they would have liked to lead. (Wohl, 1979: 5)

Wohl (1979) presented a long list of central figures of European generationalists of the
time: young intellectuals, authors, poets, historians, artists and social scientists. Among
the most interesting from the point of view of sociology were François Mentré (France),
Antonio Gramsci (Italy), José Ortega y Gasset (Spain), Wilfred Owen (England), Wilhelm
Pinder, Edward Wechssler, and, of course, Karl Mannheim (Germany). John Downton
Hazlett (1998) in turn has listed and examined generationalists from the USA. However,
because the American generationalists (such as Randolph Bourne and Malcolm Cowley)
were well aware of their European ‘colleagues’ and their writings, it is reasonable to
regard generationalism as essentially a European phenomenon with strong roots in the
experiences of the First World War.
At the end of his analysis, Wohl summarized his views of generationalism and its char-
acteristics. For him, the generational idea formulated by generationalist intellectuals

suggested a biological determinism that had no basis in social fact; it implied that stage of life
was a prison from which there was no escape and that communication across the chasm of age
was impossible; it postulated that the differences between age-groups were more important that
the differences within them; it demoted the mind and called into question its autonomy by
explaining ideas as the direct and unmediated product of experience; it obscured the importance
of social divisions by subordinating class interests to generational values; it vastly exaggerated
the importance of literary intellectuals by locating in them the conscience and dynamic vanguard
of society at large; and it prevented those who fell under its spell from seeing that all lasting
historical action takes the form of the transformation of that which already exists and results
from the collaboration (as well as the conflict) of different age-groups. (Wohl, 1979: 236)

Hazlett gave his own criteria for generationalism, which can be seen as supplement-
ing Wohl’s. According to Hazlett, ‘generationalism is like all forms of historicism; it

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contains an animism by which collective history is perceived to embody a will independ-

ent of individuals’ (1998: 8–9). In addition, generationalism ‘infuses history with a
suprapersonal meaning, but it also seeks to predict the direction of history on the basis of
the continual replacement of older generations by rising generations’ (1998: 10). Most
generationalists ‘share a quasi-religious belief in zeitgeists that give rise to generational
tasks and historical trends’ (1998: 12). In the end, generationalists ‘attribute internal dif-
ferences within generations to arguments over the shared “reality” that both provides
their common bond and separates them from other age groups’ (1998: 13).
The list of characteristics presented at the beginning of this section, which tried to
condense the essential features of generationalism, is based on these two broad descrip-
tions given by Wohl (1979) and Hazlett (1998). In any case, generationalism is in many
respects an exaggerated (cf. Bude, 2000) view of the generations – with respect to the
characteristics of and differences between generations, their internal unity, the explana-
tory power of generations over other factors, the peculiarity and importance of events
experienced during youth and young adulthood, and the role of generations as the engines
of history and social change. In a word, generationalism raises the status of generations
in some way or another to a mythical level.
But what, then, does generationalism not take into account? The answer is, above all
else, the process of the symbolic construction of generations and the problems connected
with the relationships of representation. Generationalism does not take note of the fact
that, for a given generation, the precondition of its existence is that someone represents
it. In other words, there always has to be someone who articulates the generational expe-
rience in the first place, and it is only after that that the generational consciousness among
wider circles can be formed. Thus, it is impossible for generationalists to see that genera-
tions are never generations ‘in-themselves’, but always only generations ‘on paper’. As
Wohl (1979: 5) has stated, and as Bourdieu showed earlier, social generations, just like
all other social groups, are never born: they are made.
It should not be forgotten that Wohl’s study is the very source cited by Bourdieu in the
unique instance when he made a direct reference to the concept of generation as it is
understood in a cultural or social sense (Bourdieu, 1996: 126, 368). That remark, how-
ever, is loaded with irony or even hostility, which is in accordance with interpreting
‘generationalism’ as a special case of a more general sin typical of elitist intellectuals –
and of which Bourdieu constantly warned – namely, the sin of scholastic fallacy.
How would an influential contemporary conception of generations by Edmunds and
Turner (2002a) look if we compared it with the generationalism discussed here? Below,
three similarities between Edmunds and Turner and original generationalism will be pre-
sented in an order that allows us to conclude with the most important issue.7
First, it seems that Edmunds and Turner clearly overestimate the importance of gen-
eration as a factor that structures society and explains historical processes, as indicated
by statements such as ‘the globalization of culture is itself the product of the 1960s gen-
eration’ (2002a: 118) and ‘the cultural history of the western world in the second half of
the twentieth century is the legacy of this large, active and problematic generation’
(2002a: ix). In short, it seems as though they have forgotten not only the other structuring
principles of society and social change, but also the two temporal factors – the effects of
age and time period – that are, as is well known, logically interdependent on generation

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12 Social Science Information 

and from which the effect of generation is difficult to isolate (Hardy & Waite, 1997).
What is even more alarming is that, when speaking of generations in general and the
‘1960s generation’ in particular, Edmunds and Turner concentrate almost entirely on the
role of intellectuals, without building a bridge to wider contexts. Intellectuals surely have
had cultural influence, but such alleged influence should be analysed and assessed in a
wider framework. If this is not done, then the danger of falling into the trap of ‘scholastic
fallacy’ is great.
Second, to elaborate on the earlier point, Edmunds and Turner’s purpose is clearly to
show the explanatory power of generations over other social factors. They particularly
emphasize the primacy of generation over social class and present the two as mutually
exclusive. They state, for instance, that ‘twentieth-century thought has not been shaped
by class, but by generational experience. Because generations rather than class shaped
knowledge, Mannheim’s view is more sociologically relevant than the legacy of Marx
and Gramsci’ (Edmunds & Turner, 2002a: 69). This goal of elevating the status of gen-
eration always to be considered as a primary explanatory factor was also essential to the
original generationalists.
Third and last is the most important problem: the approach constructed by Edmunds
and Turner does not allow them to discuss the crucial question that is essential for all
studies of social generations if the task is defined as the ‘study of generational cultures
and consciousness’ (2002a: 6). The question concerns the relationship between a genera-
tional movement or a vanguard (i.e. an ‘elite’) and the generation postulated behind that
elite (i.e. the ‘mass’), which the elite is thought to represent.
The inability to address this question is illustrated by the passages in which Edmunds
and Turner (2002a) identify the ‘baby boomers’ (a term obviously referring to an entire
age group) with the ‘1960s generation’ (a term referring mainly to the people around
the radical ‘generational movements’ of the 1960s, that is, a minority, perhaps cultur-
ally significant, but in fact, a small portion of the age group) as well as by the hybrid
concept of ‘generational cohorts’ (Edmunds & Turner, 2002a: 14, 16; see Fietze, 2003:
442–445). The integration of cohort analysis and generational analysis cannot mean
equating the concepts of cohorts and social generations. Rather what is required is the
careful examination of the relationship between them. The means for bridging the gap
between cohorts and generations could, in fact, be found in the same approach for
which generationalism has been criticized above, that is, in Bourdieu’s general analy-
sis of the emergence and construction of social groups and classifications in symbolic
struggles.

Generations on paper: The politics of social generations

Bourdieu’s view, which emphasizes the role of classification struggles, has so far been
contrasted only indirectly with generationalism, the idea that generation is an unprob-
lematic category or group and is therefore incapable of being used to examine the rela-
tionships of representation. The argument here is that Bourdieu’s approach to the nature
and genesis of social groups can also be used to analyse generations and generational
classifications. His approach, which can be applied to all kinds of social groups and
classes, emphasized the need to concentrate on the relationship of representation because

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Purhonen 13

classes can exist only through their representatives. On the other hand, the very relation-
ship of representation is problematic because rarely is the relationship totally unambigu-
ous (who can legitimately represent whom and by what authority), and often there are
opportunities for misuse. This approach and its general ideas about the problems related
to representation fit almost perfectly with the idea of social generations and especially
the process by which generational consciousness is constructed. Here, the question of
representation touches upon the relationship between the ‘vanguard’, which proclaims
itself the ‘spokesman’ for a generation, and those who are thought to be ‘represented’,
that is, the entire group of peers. In this last section, some of the main issues related to
representation and classification struggles that are particularly characteristic of social
generations will be discussed.
In order to exist as a class or a group, someone has to represent – or claim to represent
– the class or group in question, a truth that also applies to social generations. Generational
consciousness, a shared feeling of belonging to a certain generation, requires that the
members of a generation ‘not only have something in common, they have also a (com-
mon) sense for (a kind of knowledge about) the fact that they have something in com-
mon’ (Corsten, 1999: 258). A salient point is that generation as this kind of collective
identity based on shared experience is possible only if someone articulates or formulates
the very existence of the generational experience and its meaning to the people first; only
then can others begin to identify themselves with that generation. Usually, however, it is
not clear to what degree the ‘representatives’ of a generation reasonably and legitimately
represent an entire generation as they claim.
Such doubt is sufficient to make the perspectives of politics and struggle essential
here. There is always someone – usually some kind of social movement or elite, intel-
lectual faction – who articulates the generational experience. By defining itself (‘us’),
however, it usually extends the interpretation to encompass the entire group of peers, that
is, the whole ‘generation’. The person or group that has proclaimed itself to be the voice
of a generation will probably not make divisions and exclusions within the age group;
this would not only be illogical with regard to the general idea of a generation, but also
would presumably work against the spokesperson’s interests (see Hazlett, 1998; Wohl,
1979). This, of course, has nothing to do with how large a group of people the genera-
tional interpretation may really touch.
Thus, it is appropriate to ask, should the ‘sociology of generations’ make a shift in
focus similar to what Bourdieu suggested for the study of social classes, that is, to move
from ‘class struggles’ to ‘classification struggles’? In the case of generations, this would
mean a shift from the perspective of ‘generational conflicts’ (in which generations are
seen as relatively unproblematic, ‘ready-made’ groups) to a perspective sensitive to the
struggle over the definitions and classifications of people in terms of generations that are
never purely descriptive, but are loaded with many kinds of normative attributes and
meanings. This would also mean that generations, as with all kinds of classes, are funda-
mentally only ‘generations on paper’. Even though the analogy between social class and
generation has a somewhat dismal history, the tradition should not be broken if it enables
us to avoid repeating simplified conceptions of generations.
The question of the limits of generational interpretations can also be understood as
‘the question of the existence and the mode of existence of collectives’ (Bourdieu, 1985:

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14 Social Science Information 

741). The power of designation emphasized by Bourdieu is an essential feature in social

generations: a generation cannot function as a form of collective identity if there is no
idea about how to identify the generation. Hence a basic means of investigating genera-
tional consciousness is to find out with what names and labels people themselves iden-
tify. Well-known, frequently used and strongly established terms express the level of
institutionalization of a given generation (cf. Becker, 2000: 118).
This aspect reveals a fundamental side of social generations that can be captured by
the notion of the symbolic or discursive dimension of generation, which consists of all
the reflective articulations of generational experiences: speeches, manifestoes, writings,
labels, terms, and so on, which are explicitly concerned with generations. Discourses
can be seen as a mediating level between generational experiences and consciousness
– a level which was largely ignored by Mannheim and the line of thought following him
until recently (Aboim & Vasconcelos, 2014; Bohnenkamp, 2011; Corsten, 1999; Foster,
2013; Hörisch, 1997; Jureit & Wildt, 2005; Purhonen, 2007; White, 2013). From this
perspective, it can be argued that social generations tend to produce themselves (and
others as well) by their discourse about those generations. The generational conscious-
ness of people is always more or less formed and coloured by the articulations and
representations of social generations presented in the public (or even the scientific)
discourse. Without resorting to the mythology of an ‘awakening of consciousness’, an
emphasis on designation and the entire discursive generation-making can shed light on
the process by which a generation becomes a group and an object of identification.
Therefore, the perspective implies that the discursive dimension of social generations
– alleged articulations and interpretations of generational experiences and identities and
all the struggles connected to them – should become the fundamental object of the
‘sociology of generations’.
As for social generations, there are two basic relationships through which the pro-
cesses of representation should be analysed and studied. The first is the supposed rela-
tionship of representation between the individual actor (thought of here as the
‘representative’) and the generational movement or other concrete group behind the
actor. The second is the supposed relationship of representation between the movement
or the group (thought of here as the ‘representative’) and the entire generation itself
that is postulated as being behind the group or movement. This latter relationship
between the generational movement members and all other age-group peers has con-
stituted a real problem to all generationalists and classic generational theories. In
Mannheim’s terms (1952), the relationship in question is between a certain, politically
mobilized ‘generation unit’ and the broader ‘generation location’ from which genera-
tional units can potentially emerge. Mannheim himself maintained that the former rep-
resents the latter: each generation unit tries to expand its influence on the direction of
the whole generation location, and thereby the ideas developed inside the generation
unit can attain wider influence. According to Mannheim, this can happen if the ‘basic
integrative attitudes and formative principles represented by a generation-unit … for-
mulate the typical experiences of the individuals sharing a generation location’
(Mannheim, 1952: 307–308).
It would, however, be a mistake to think that a given generation unit or movement
could somehow directly or unproblematically represent the entire generation location

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Purhonen 15

(the ‘generation’ itself being thought of as behind), or that its attitudes, values, or other
characteristics could be generalized as attributes of the whole age cohort. Yet this is pre-
cisely the purpose of Mannheim’s ultimately teleological theory of generations: for
Mannheim, the question was always one of actualization of ‘potentialities inherent in the
location’ and, ultimately, of Aristotelian ‘generation entelechy’ (1952: 309; see Zinneker,
2003: 40–41). Indeed, it is possible to emphasize that generation units or movements are
specifically different from other members of the age cohort precisely because they mobi-
lize and others do not.
An essential element of the politics of social generations is related either to the main-
taining or to the contesting of this relationship of representation. In other words, the
validity and actual limits of generational interpretations and classifications become criti-
cal issues for the politics of generations. From the point of view suggested here, the poli-
tics of social generations means struggles over the definitions, classifications and
meanings of generations. Of course, there are also other aspects in the politics of genera-
tions, in particular aspects that relate to the other meanings of the concept (i.e. family
generations or mere cohorts). However, struggles over classifications and definitions of
generations are elementary because the stake in these struggles is, above all, the exist-
ence and constitution of those very generations.
The sociology of generations should try to avoid treating age cohorts (such as ‘baby
boomers’) as unified, homogenous groups and making false generalizations on the basis
of the attributes of small numbers of elites only. Rather, the very relationships between
the elites of a generation and other parts of the age cohorts should be taken as the object
of careful analysis. In the case of the ‘baby boomers’ and the ‘1960s generation’, the
focus should be on the relationship between the radical 1960s social movements and the
whole mythical package it bears (often regarded as a symbol of an entire generation) and
the entire age cohort (of which some – if not the most – regard those political symbols of
the 1960s with indifference or even open hostility). Even though the ‘old radicals’ of the
1960s may have had a dominant position in interpreting, remembering and giving their
generation a public voice, it should be remembered that they represent only a small
minority of the age cohort.8
However, the processes of generational articulations can also be different compared
to the case of generational manifestoes and other self-definitions by the elite. Such is the
case with those generational interpretations that come from ‘outside’ and are particularly
meant to label a given social movement as a ‘generational movement’. To interpret a
social movement as a generational movement can be seen as a strategy to belittle and
nullify the movements’ political agenda and its significance in general (in the same belit-
tling sense of such sayings as youth protests ‘come with the territory’, ‘boys will be
boys’, and so on). In this case, the process is reversed when compared to the logic of
generational manifestoes. In fact, generational interpretations seem to have two kinds of
functions: interpretations that seek to promote the value of the group in question (usually
one’s own), and interpretations intended to reduce the value of a specific group (usually
a group of others). Which of the two functions is in question seems to be largely deter-
mined by who is presenting the generational interpretation. If the interpretation applies
to oneself, then there is seldom a tendency to degrade one’s own position. In any case, it
should be evident from this discussion that the concept of generation is fundamentally

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bound up with cultural and political struggles since generational interpretations and
labels are hardly ever disinterested, but rather normative and motivated by certain politi-
cal ambitions.

Conclusion
The suggested Bourdieusian perspective of generations ‘on paper’ provides an antidote
to generationalism – a simplified picture of generations, which originally dates to early
20th-century Europe and its intellectuals, and which is still found in many sociological
studies today as well as in popular discourse. For the original generationalists, the con-
cept of generation served as an alternative to the concept of social class, a new way to
think about social change and progress. Since then the concept of generation has been
paired with the idea of the zeitgeist or some other controversial way of defining what is
essential (meaning what it is that creates generations) at a given point in time and in a
given culture. Thus, as a product of classification struggles, the idea of generation is
fundamentally a contested concept. The concept also has clear elitist connotations; the
idea of some kind of vanguard (‘the elite’), which represents an entire generation by
proclaiming itself to be its spokesman, automatically creates a counterpart, namely the
others in the peer group, who are thought to be represented (‘the masses’). The approach
suggested here provides reflexivity that can be used to challenge a naïve view of genera-
tionalism and highlight the importance of analysing the processes of generation-making
in symbolic struggles.
This article has presented a number of reservations about the concept of generation. It
is even possible to argue that at the heart of the concept is a totalizing tendency that
causes trouble with intra-generational differences and produces caricatures of different
generations. This is not to argue, of course, that the concept of generation is worthless.
What it does indicate is that the close analysis of the relationships of representation, the
analysis of differences within the age cohorts that are hidden under totalizing genera-
tional labels, and other concrete questions related to classification struggles that the
approach makes it possible to study are all of a kind that have to be resolved empirically,
case by case.
The suggested approach cautions us always to be careful and precise when dealing
with the concept of generation. If someone claims that their experiences are typical of
their generation, we would do well to consider the possible motives, interests, context
and validity of these claims. On the other hand, it is important to note that the approach
offered here does not mean that social generations are completely reducible to the sym-
bolic or discursive levels only. In the end, generations are also something more, namely
demography. Generational articulations that have gained support could hardly be com-
pletely arbitrary with respect to age. To paraphrase Bourdieu (1985: 725), some age
cohorts are more probable generations than others. This is perhaps one important reason
behind the problems with the concept of generation, but perhaps it is also the reason why
the concept has inspired such passionate discussion.
The approach does not imply that generations are somehow less ‘real’ as a factor in
structuring society or as a sociological concept (cf. Foster, 2013). Nevertheless, bypass-
ing the fact that the concept of generation is also a political concept in this discursive and

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Purhonen 17

classificatory sense would mean a step back into the company of the early 20th-century
generationalists. Yet it may be impossible to have a ‘sociology of generations’ that would
be totally free of generationalism – at least if we do not want to dispense with the idea of
generations altogether. The issue already mentioned above, namely that in the end gen-
erations are always dependent on age in some way, has to do with this question. If there
is no linkage of any kind between age and the concept of generation, there are hardly any
reasons left to call this particular principle of classification a ‘generation’.
The other reason why an approach emphasizing the discursive dimension of genera-
tion and the importance of classification struggles may never win the battle with genera-
tionalism is that, in the logic of its own perspective, generationalism itself is a part of
common sense and thus, of social reality. Perhaps paradoxically, this means that genera-
tionalism should be counted as part of the research object – the phenomenon of social
generations themselves. Consequently, it would be difficult to make any distinction at all
between ‘folk generationalism’ and social generations if the generational consciousness
of people is in accordance with generationalism.

Funding
This research is part of the author’s research project funded by the Research Council for Culture
and Society at the Academy of Finland (grant number: 291619)

Notes
1. The discussion of generations in the ‘social’, ‘historical’ or ‘cultural’ sense has clearly inten-
sified in sociology in the last two decades (Lüscher et al., 2014). This applies not only to
continental, and especially German, sociology (e.g. Bohnenkamp et al., 2009; Jureit & Wildt,
2005; Lüscher & Liegle, 2003; Parnes et al., 2008; Reulecke, 2003), but also, for instance,
to British sociology (e.g. Burnett, 2010; Edmunds & Turner, 2002b; Gilleard, 2004; Vincent,
2005; White, 2013).
2. In a footnote, Bourdieu (1996: 368) went on to make a reference, not to Mannheim, but to one
of his French contemporaries, François Mentré, who was also developing generational theory
in the 1920s: ‘The prototypical expression of this theory of generations, which has become
one of the “methods” admitted into literature (with the study of “literary generations”) and
into politics (the “political generations”) is the book by François Mentré … that constructs the
notion of “social generation” as the “spiritual unity” constituted around a “collective stage”.’
3. For example, in the graph describing the ‘temporality of the field of artistic production’
(Bourdieu, 1996: 159), artistic generations appear to be a constant, successive chain. This
is in contrast with Mannheim’s view of social generations, according to which generations,
unlike cohorts, do not emerge continuously and regularly (Mannheim, 1952: 309–312).
4. If the concept of generation had many meanings then the concept of representation could
be described as extremely multifaceted (see Saward, 2010). One rough distinction is that
representation refers, on the one hand, to the idea of representing someone (in the sense of
delegation), but, on the other hand, it refers to the re-presentation of something (as in the
sense of performing). The different meanings of representation, however, overlap consider-
ably because that which is thought to represent something is often used also to re-present (that
is, to perform) the same (represented) thing.
5. Examples of popular generationalism are easy to find; in literature, for instance, there is an
entire genre devoted to it, namely, the generational novel. Different national contexts have

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their own characteristics in the form and content of popular generationalism. In the USA, an
enormous literature purports to guide business managers on how to manage the Baby boom-
ers, the Generation X’ers, or the Millenials successfully, as each generation is supposed to be
different and behave almost like aliens vis-à-vis one another (see Foster, 2013). As an exam-
ple from another country, in Germany, popular generationalism is expressed in a continuous
search for the latest generation (see Hörisch, 1997; Jureit & Wildt, 2005) with arguments over
the difference between Achtundsechzigers and Neunundachtzigers, not to mention the mem-
bers of Generation Golf (which refers to a particular type of Volkswagen, not to those who
play golf). The commercial media directed at students and young adults provide an especially
fruitful breeding ground for debates about popular generationalism.
6. A more nuanced analysis of the differences between the theories developed by specific clas-
sical generationalists falls outside the scope of this article. This theme has been discussed by
e.g. Wohl (1979), Burnett (2010) and Purhonen (2015). Mannheim, for instance, can be con-
sidered as distinctive in some of his formulations (and probably also generally more careful in
his words than many of the other ‘generationalists’ of the time, whose claims could be rather
extreme and exaggerating), but on the other side, his theory of generations was definitely a
child of its time (see e.g. Purhonen, 2015; Zinneker, 2003).
7. Edmunds and Turner’s Generations, Culture and Society (2002a) is used as an example here
because it is probably the most thorough and influential attempt to integrate Mannheim’s and
Bourdieu’s conceptions in order to develop the ‘sociology of generations’. One can acknowl-
edge the general ambition of Edmunds and Turner’s project in trying to find new ways to
reformulate our understanding of social generations. It is also clear that there are some impor-
tant affinities between Mannheim and Bourdieu, such as relational epistemology and an inter-
est in the sociology of knowledge (for other similarities between Mannheim and Bourdieu,
see Mauger, 1990).
8. For empirical studies and interpretations on baby boomers and the 1960s generation touch-
ing upon this issue of the relationship between a generational elite and the entire age cohort
and allowing room for internal divisions of age cohorts, see e.g. Bude (1995) for the case
of Germany; Klatch (1999) for the case of USA; Nora (1996) for the case of France; and
Purhonen (2007) for the case of Finland.

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Author biography
Semi Purhonen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the School of Social Sciences and
Humanities, University of Tampere, and Academy Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland.
His research interests include cultural sociology, consumption, social stratification, age and gen-
eration, social theory, and methods of social research. His papers have been recently published in
such journals as Acta Sociologica, Comparative Sociology, Cultural Sociology and Poetics.

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