12-16-2021, 08:53 PM
(12-16-2021, 03:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(12-16-2021, 02:33 PM)Anthony Wrote: Personally, I have my doubts.
Were G.I.s ever castigated as "snowflakes," or anything similar, at like age?
Plus their immediate juniors are acting a lot more like Idealists/Prophets than Adaptives/Artists lately - see David Hogg, Greta Thunberg, and the teenaged defenders of Critical Race Theory about whom I have already started a thread.
Doubt can always be warranted. But I have seen enough evidence to show that Millennials are typical civics, even if not yet fully living up to the archetype. But then, which generation today is? None of us.
Nothing has stopped the Millennial Generation from becoming a Civic generation. They prefer to work within the system, especially when they have a significant role in the system. If they are slow in taking over it is because older people are retiring later. Nothing has rushed the generational cycle so that the Millennial generation loses its chance to be a big player in history.
GI's generally avoided setting scores personally. That isn't cowardice; the Armed Forces typically tell soldiers and officers to run away from bar brawls and street fights. Soldiers have better things to do than to defend personal honor from such a stupid remark as "your mother was a whore".
David Hogg is a Millennial by S&H standards, which is what we should go by. Greta is a cusper, civic/adaptive. They are all acting like civic millennials or cuspers. This latest group of Millennials seems to have the most civic awareness of the bunch, similar to JFK's subgroup last time around.
Quote:Millennials are typical civics. They are experts at networking, as shown by their abundant use of social media and their tendency to focus on their own age group's interests.
Civics are tech savvy. That describes Millennials. They are pro-science, and largely ignorant of mystical or religious awareness. Some of them have some interest in this though.
Religious awareness, often unconventional, was possible. Just think of Alan Watts. Plenty of GI's returned from Japan with some introduction to Buddhism. This said, Buddhism isn't superstition. In view of scientific and technological achievements in countries under Buddhist cultural influence, it is arguable that Buddhism gives no more support to superstition than does mainline Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, or Judaism. Deep inquiry is good for soothing an otherwise-restless soul.
Civic (and Civic-like-by-default, like the Gilded who took on much of the role of a Civic generation... Generation X will not get that role) have little tolerance for mysticism or superstition at the expense of science.
Quote:Millennials typically show interest in global warming and other vital civic issues that other generations gloss over. They are concerned for their future. They have a strong preference for Democrats, even though many are independents. This is all typical civic.
They can read between the lines. It's not just that we Boomers relate how we had to trudge through snowbanks up-hill both ways to school with polar bears chasing us and they can't relate to that. They can contrast old sources to newer ones and recognize change. They pay attention to physics, chemistry, and agronomy. Unlike Boomers, they know that they will be around often into the 2080's when the effects of global warming can lead to inundation and desertification and the spread of tropical diseases. I've seen the prospective climate maps, and they seem convinced that the tropical-subtropical line (no month with an average temperature under 18 C/64.4 F) will go far enough north to reach Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Orlando, and that the cool-winter/cold winter (rain versus snow) line will go completely through the lower peninsula of Michigan (it is now somewhere near Interstate 70 in Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio).
Quote:But thanks to 40 years of neoliberalism/Reaganism, civics classes have been cut back or eliminated across the country, and the cynicism of Gen X and conservatism of Silents and Boomers have created an anti-politics climate in this country, also evident in the popularity of Trump, which is a tough trend for Millennials to buck. Because of this decades-long cynical and anti-education trend, Millennials have been slow to learn civic virtues like voting in midterms and understanding the role of congress and other elected officials, instead of just the president.
The Capitol Putsch will compel changes in the teaching of Civics classes. Note well that electoral participation increases with age as people start to have more of a stake in political decisions. This will be true of the Millennial generation (such indeed is already showing). Although the GI Generation has fully entered voting age or is a very close to doing so (should the last years of the Millennial Generation be 2004 or 2005), it is entering its forties on the old side. Around then, a generation has its own constituency as an entity and might aid some of its members in winning some electoral surprises. Except in super-safe R bailiwicks the Millennial Generation is much more liberal, and indeed liberal enough to win some swing districts.
Neoliberal -- OK, call it what it really is: plutocratic -- politics is not only getting stale, but its core support is also "going gentle into that good night" (Dylan Thomas), which means a shrinking share of the electorate. First-wave Boomers, including Clinton, Dubya, and Trump, are passing 75. The Millennial got nothing good out of the plutocratic era. Then again, the childhood of Civic/Hero generations isn't soft.
Quote:Millennials are not "tough guys" like many in the GI Generation, or Generation X for that matter. They haven't yet personally seen much of big battles at war. Their economic hurdles require many of them to live at home and be more dependent on parents much longer than GIs were. But the essence of civics is not to be tough; it is to be smart, and collegial with each other. And they are.
Count on this: they will be as tough as they must be to make America a good place in which to seek better for oneself, one's family, and one's community. The United States is the equivalent in foreign policy to what a large dog is in the animal world. It's a well-behaved critter that you want as a friend -- because you certainly do not want it as an enemy. Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, and the Commie clique in Grenada found that out to their surprise... the hard way. 200 to 500 pounds of bite-force per square inch can hurt you badly if it is provoked.
I'm not sure that the Millennial Generation is any more dependent than the GI generation. 90 years ago many GI's stayed on the family farm through hard times... or even returned to it as things got dicey in the Big City -- to protect the interests of their parents. Of course not so many people live in rural America on family farms.
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.