Posted on 05/11/2005 7:14:51 PM PDT by NCjim
Children always rebel against their parents but try telling the baby boomers, writes Miranda Devine.
APOPLEXY is striking self-described "progressive" members of the baby boomer generation (aged 45 to 62) as it slowly dawns on them that they have become the conservatives and that generation Y (or the millennials, or whatever you want to call the coming-of-age generation, born since 1982) are displaying characteristics that the boomers have long regarded as "conservative" but which these days are radical.
The boomers were the generation that grew up singing "I hope I die before I get old" from The Who's 1965 anthem My Generation, but they're still around and just pretending not to be old, having perfected bizarre plastic surgery (although not Mick Jagger, who is embarking on a Rolling Stones world tour at age 61 with wrinkles intact).
They seem shocked their stranglehold on youth culture is waning, and to be in denial about the pendulum theory of generational change, which holds that each generation rebels against the previous one, so, theoretically anyway, grandchildren have more in common with their grandparents than their parents.
Rarely has this bamboozled boomer attitude been better articulated than by the theatre director Jonathan Biggins on this page on Tuesday. "The youth of today: relaxed, comfortable and blissfully unaware" was the headline on the article in which Biggins, a boomer, lamented that that "once proud hotbed of student radicalism", the Sydney University newspaper Honi Soit, wasn't buying his tired old agenda. Honi Soit had reviewed his latest play at the Wharf theatre, Concert for Tax Relief, which targets the customary Satans - Christians, Hillsong church, Peter Jensen, Tony Abbott, Alexander Downer - and criticised it for being "too political", moaned Biggins.
"The conservatism of the young poses a greater threat to those still on what is laughingly called the left than John Howard's move into the suburban fringes," he wailed.
Like all people of advancing years, boomers are disappointed when young people aren't more like … well, like them. They equate "youth" with a certain world view that was popular in their youth but forget that they have carried their world view with them as they aged and it is now time for "youth" to believe something else. This is the way the world has always been.
Similarly bamboozled by their juniors were the boomers on Richard Glover's ABC 702's media forum, where they railed against the (in their eyes) misbehaviour of the young people who flocked to Anzac Cove last month for the 90th anniversary dawn service. The popularity of the service is a sign of a resurgent respect for institutions and the sacrifices of our forebears.
Likewise, the millions of people who flocked to the Vatican for the last days of Pope John Paul II stunned many with their youth and prompted the first inklings for the boomers that something was going wrong with their grip on the youth world view.
Millennial pop culture favourites, such as The Simpsons, South Park and Team America: World Police, are clues to the new sensibility, viciously satirising various holy cows of the boomer liberal left, from political correctness and green brainwashing to Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin. Another clue is the complaint of boomer academics on university campuses about the "conservatism" of their students.
Every new generation is a new people, as the American authors William Strauss and Neil Howe have said in a series of books about history through generations, the latest of which is Millennials Rising, published in 2000. Their theory is that history runs in four repeated cycles, or what they call turnings, and is shaped by four repeated generation types.
Their first turning is a high, a conservative, conformist and prosperous era which usually occurs after winning a war (for example, the Victorian era or the 1950s). The second turning is an awakening, an idealistic, progressive era of "spiritual upheaval when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime".
The third turning is an unravelling (the 1920s and our current era, from about 1984, although on his website Strauss has pondered whether we are on the cusp of the fourth turning).
It is a period of disillusionment and alienation as the "new values regime implants". The so-called culture wars are a typical byproduct. The fourth turning is a crisis, during which big wars and crusades happen and the "entire future of society is at stake".
After the crisis the wheel goes full circle back to the first turning.
The authors' four generation types are as follows. There are the adaptive artists (the so-called silent generation, born from 1925-42), who are born in a crisis, enter young adulthood in a high, midlife in an awakening, and old age in an unravelling. They are "subtle, nice (sometimes too nice), indecisive, emotional and inoffensive, often having to deal with feelings of repression and inner conflict".
After them come the idealistic prophets (the generation we call the boomers, 1943-60), who were born in a high, enter young adulthood in an awakening, midlife in an unravelling, and old age in a crisis. They are "spiritually driven, moralistic, focused on self, and willing to fight to the death for what they believe in".
Next come the reactive nomads (born 1961-81, roughly what we know as generation X; Gertrude Stein's lost generation - born 1883-1900 - is another example), who are born in an awakening, come of age in an unravelling, enter midlife in a crisis, and old age in a high. They are "ratty, tough, unwanted, diverse, adventurous and extremely cynical".
And last come the civic-minded heroes (born 1982 to 2003, today's millennials, and also the remnants of the previous cycle's hero generation, those born from 1901-24), who are "conventional, conservative, trust authority", having their first conscious memories during an unravelling and coming of age in a crisis, as did those who were the soldiers in World War II. These are the youth who are disappointing boomers like Biggins.
In Millennials Rising Strauss and Howe say the hero generation, the millennials, were born at a time of a renewed commitment to treasure children. These children of boomers and the older generation X-ers have been programmed to achieve from birth, and are harder workers and more committed to building institutions than any generation since the previous hero generation of World War II soldiers. They are coming of age in a world overshadowed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and are all too familiar with the consequences of family breakdown and institutions crumbling.
Surveys show this age group hold conservative views about religion, believe in marriage, are more likely to volunteer, have better relationships with their parents than any recent generation and are less likely to drink, take drugs or engage in sex than generation X-ers.
Rebellion comes in all forms. The bad news is that Strauss and Howe say the hero generation, which the millennials represent, are also the "perfect soldiers for a major war", which is a none too comfortable thought for their parents.
Ping.
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Excellent annalysis, however, what is not noted is the fact that communism was such a major force in the baby boomer generation. Joseph McCartney was on target and this generation was largely influenced by deception. In many cases the sunglasses have been removed but most of those unwilling to accept that their worldview has changed have been corrupted.
Or, as I like to say, is the Left looking in a mirror and mistaking it for a window?
OH WOW...that is always what I have been calling the GenXers (until CinnamonGirl renamed us Generation Reagan) because it seemed like the GenXers were the ones that had been forgotten, because we are so small, and we were written off as being ineffectual, apathetic, and completely unable to make a difference. GenXers were the ones they assumed would take up the banner of the Left, but when we didnt, we were passed over for the babies coming into the world while we were the apathetic teenagers.
Thanks for the article!!
Geez. They sure like to "move" the dates for boomers. As I understand it one must be born 1946 and later to be considered a boomer.
Anyone who is 62 years of age would have been born in 1943. Next they'll be saying people born in 1939-40 are boomers.
For years it was considered those born before 1946 are on the "tail end" of the great depression/WWII generation.
(Hell, why don't we save everyone trouble and just say anyone born between 1900 and 1960 are boomers. Problem solved)
</sarcasm>
Well, it looks as if I squeak it and make it into the "Millennials" or whatever they call us now. I'm of 1982 vintage, but my parents sure weren't any hippies.
Then again, as you might expect, someone using the handle AZ_Cowboy isn't exactly on the cutting edge of pop culture.
Yah. It makes my teeth grind everytime I read something like that. I just remind myself that it's crass generalizations, lol! Besides, now that I'm gonna be 30 this year, I can't exactly go around sticking my tongue out at people who say things I don't like, hee hee. I may be ineffectual, apathetic, and completely unable to make a difference, but at least I have my dignity. :)
My parents, teenagers/20-somethings of the 1960s, are Democrat, but I wouldn't call them leftist. My maternal grandparents were stalwart Republicans. My younger sister (age 28) and I (age 31) are both staunch conservatives.
My parents are trying to figure out where they went wrong with my sister and me, politically. My maternal grandparents always knew there was nothing wrong with my sister and me, politically.
Their first turning is a high, a conservative, conformist and prosperous era which usually occurs after winning a war (for example, the Victorian era or the 1950s). The second turning is an awakening, an idealistic, progressive era of "spiritual upheaval when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime".
The third turning is an unravelling (the 1920s and our current era, from about 1984, although on his website Strauss has pondered whether we are on the cusp of the fourth turning). It is a period of disillusionment and alienation as the "new values regime implants". The so-called culture wars are a typical byproduct. The fourth turning is a crisis, during which big wars and crusades happen and the "entire future of society is at stake". After the crisis the wheel goes full circle back to the first turning.
Next come the reactive nomads (born 1961-81, roughly what we know as generation X; Gertrude Stein's lost generation - born 1883-1900 - is another example), who are born in an awakening, come of age in an unravelling, enter midlife in a crisis, and old age in a high. They are "ratty, tough, unwanted, diverse, adventurous and extremely cynical".
Well I must say that I like this description. Looks like my generation gets to end on a high note - hope I live to see it.
Do a Google on Harry Dent and read some of his stuff!!! He has spent a lifetime studying the cyclical nature of history and generations since the beginning of time and... HE'S AN ENORMOUS OPTIMIST!!! (one of my favorites)
I have a first edition hard cover actually. Wonderful book and I recommend everyone read it.
Thank you very much for that link...that was my morning read. Looks like they have three books out, 13th Generation, Generations, and The Fourth Turning. Have you read any of the others? Looks like the type of book that makes one see things in a different light....Atlas Shrugged did that for me.
They predicted 9/11 in a way and the war on terror such as it is. I think the real interesting part is how this ties in with all the changes taking place in the middle east.
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