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A portrayal of the Michelin Man icon as a pictograph discovered during an archeological dig may be limited to a work of fiction (Levon, 1990), yet the narrative conveys a postmodern sensibility in which historical value is suspect. Some (see Oates, 2005) have suggested that such suspicion is in fact the zeitgeist, albeit disengaged, of young highly educated urban adults. A new comic book depicts the difficulty of such a zeitgeist, as urban youth who are superheroes face confusion in regard to matters ranging from their sexuality to the use of their superhero powers, and are distressed to find that both older superheroes and their parents are in no position to mentor them (Heinberg, 2005).
Central to the thesis of the current work under review, the 27th volume in the Relational Perspectives Book Series now edited by Lewis Aron and Adrienne Harris, is the argument that a loss of meaning due to uncertainty is a central experience of contemporary young urban adults. The focus of this book is the cultural changes encountered by the cohort commonly referred to as generation X - born between 1960 and 1980 - and the impact of such a culture change on the psyche.
In The Designed Self, Carlo Strenger suggests that members of generation X live in a world different from that of the Baby Boomers. He notes changes such as shrinking populations and extended singlehood status to suggest that categories that were meaningful to the parents of current young adults are less or not at all relevant in contemporary society. Pace Lacan, Strenger argues that such a condition characterizes a culture in which fatherlessness (i.e., a lack of cultural authority) is prevalent.