04-20-2019, 01:46 PM
(04-20-2019, 10:28 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: My speculations regarding generations of the next 1T:
The few remaining Silents are ancient.
Boomers--elderly Woodstock Wave begins to rapidly disappear, later followed by the rapid disappearance of Jonesers.
Aging Xers presiding over the show through most of the turning. They behave like Mature Nomads.
Midlife Millenials have turned into pseudo-artists/hard-artists/recessive-Civics/whatever-you-want-to-call-them.
Pseudo-artists bleed into younger true artists.
Proto-prophets in childhood. Will likely become Apollo type prophets with the next 2T.
That is what I expect. The likes of Bob Dole, Doris Day, Betty White, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and Jimmy Carter will be gone. The first wave of Silent are largely gone, with a comparatively few remaining ones of prominence (Elizabeth II, most obviously, but also Dick Van Dyke, Walter Mondale, Eva Marie Saint, Whitey Ford, Bernard Haitink) not likely to get past the early-centenarian stage no matter what they do. I remember when WWII vets were commonplace, and when there were people with memories of Civil War veterans. It won't be long before geezers like I (I am not one yet, but I am close -- and I am really old-fashioned in culture!) are the remaining conduit for memories of WWII vets. The 1946-born Presidents will be seen on the whole as disappointments, either for not reshaping society as they promised (Clinton) or for being disasters (Dubya and especially Trump).
So far I expect late-wave Boomers to be passed over in the Presidency. This could ensure that America lacks a leader with the principled vision that one sees in a Lincoln, FDR, or Churchill. Such might be exactly what we need following Donald Trump. This said, the "mature reactive" is a good model of a leader, as shown by the last three. Obama may have been young for the role, but he reminds me of a sixty-something Lost. No drama, unimaginative on stretching moral values, generally relying on pragmatism... I have compared Obama to Eisenhower several times despite the obvious differences. If we can't have another Lincoln this time, then we can have another Obama with an America more patient with needful change than it has been.
I don't see heroism of the storm-the-beaches GI generation that the Millennial Generation will exploit, but as with the GI generation I expect to see them do well at everything except moralizing and moral judgment and with literary achievement. (Have you read any good GI poetry lately -- or even a few decades ago? There's a good reason for that). Many will start small businesses that fill local niches as the bureaucratic behemoths go under; many will be fine actors and scriptwriters. Speaking of which, has there been a better time for American and British cinema since the Golden Age of American cinema and its miraculous year of 1939? The eighty-year rule comes into play. I used to disparage movies rich in special effects and poor in script -- but now there are the products of Marvel that actually have a worthy script for the visual effects... Millennial politics are looking much like GI politics in the 1930s in orientation. I expect Millennial young adults to find ways to get around the financially-ruinous rents and huge student-debt payments that young adults pay if they are in certain activities, like high technology or creative activities. We are going to see more telecommuting, and much one can do in a high-cost place like New York City one can do in a low-cost place like Scranton or Hartford. This may lead to less regional poverty and revitalize such cities as Cleveland, Detroit, and even St. Louis.
I can imagine Americans of all generations recognizing D-E-B-T as an even nastier word than F-*-*-K. In practice, debtors are much less sympathetic to plutocratic government than are creditors, the latter seeing debt as a form of bondage useful for exploiting people. People may prefer sweat equity to a bank loan unless for an appreciating asset.
But back to the Millennial generation. Preventing an apocalyptic war is at least as heroic as winning one. Much will depend upon restoring democratic norms in America even if such implies compromising with economic elites willing to make sacrifices only of others. If a cost of freedom is that people can inherit the medical debt of deceased parents even if they inherited no other assets, then such might be necessary.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.