10-23-2018, 08:33 AM
(10-23-2018, 05:33 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(10-22-2018, 11:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: He is ruthless, arrogant, and selfish -- the Dark Side of Idealist generations as Howe and Strauss see it. He may be decisive, but he is decisively wrong. His vision is undeniably reactionary. His culture is populist schlock. He reminds me of Idealists at their worst: exploiters who demand to be seen as benefactors to those that they even have as slaves. If you wonder why the Southern Transcendental generation could make so fervent a defense of slavery, they were convinced that slavery was the best of all possible worlds for people who needed the firm and loving kindness of a wise master.
Contrast Obama, who is the better aspects of a Reactive generation -- perceptive, shrewd, and respectful of precedent -- without showing the greed, revenge-seeking, and cynicism common of young-to-midlife Reactive adults. As shown by the last three Reactive Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, and Obama) a Reactive leader can be very effective except at growing a power base. Obama and Truman at the least knew enough to let older Idealists do the moral preaching.
Trump is getting away with what a Reactive leader could not get away with unless the Reactive leader is a despot or tyrant. Fair, free, and competitive elections will test how desirable the Trump agenda is -- assuming that we get them.
Speaking of Obama, I see more Idealist traits in him than you do. His ability to inspire and bond with Millennials parallels the appeal of Missionary leaders to the G.I.s. He was strongly motivated with his moral convictions derived from the 60s and 70s leftism. Perhaps the most controversial thing he did was to pull troops out of Iraq in the middle of the Arab Spring. It was not perceptive or shrewd, but reflected his dogmatic belief that Occupation Is Wrong.
Howe and Strauss said that the Silent Generation as adults often picked and chose between characteristics of both a Civic (typically the GI Generation, for they could have never known anything else fully Civic except in history books) and an Idealist (Boom? I think they might have known the Missionary Generation fairly well) as adults, often getting incongruous or troublesome results. Think of two Silent comedians (Woody Allen and Bill Cosby) who really messed things up. GI-style rationality meets Boom-style sexual experimentation?
The Lost could never cadge together elements of Civic and Idealist behavior because they never got to know a pure Civic type as adults until the Lost were themselves adults, the last Civic generation before them (the Republican generation of Thomas Jefferson) having died off before the 1880s. But Obama's Generation X could get to know the GI generation well in the form of his maternal grandparents. He did get to choose between Boomer and GI traits (the latter relevant to the Millennial generation). The result is the best sort of Reactive leader possible -- someone without the cynicism, greed, bigotry, and revenge-seeking characteristic of Reactive types who never realize that such ultimately destroys what they cherish -- and picks and chooses between social tradition and technical modernity to the benefit of both. As a President, Obama reminds me much more of Eisenhower and Truman than to any prior Presidents, and those were very good Presidents, for practice and character. Truman and Eisenhower got to know and respect the GI generation very well, often as fully-developed adults, before either became President. Obama got to know the GI generation very well when that generation was 40 and up from his childhood. Getting to know GIs as children or young adults and getting to know them as middle-aged or old is very different, but they were good people as influences.
Obama could cadge the best of the Idealist and Civic types and be what he is. It's a very good thing. Out of phase with the time? He was President of the United States when the Civic component was at its weakest, when it was going from very old GIs (84+ when he was elected to 92+) to the Millennial Generation (26 at most to 35 at most). Howe and Strauss suggested the value of pre-seasonal leadership as a means of protecting and promoting what most needs both, but for many Americans that is like getting swimming trunks ready and preparing the boat for a summer in Minnesota -- in February. It is awkward, but I can see our political system sorting out the best sorts of post-Crisis leadership from Generation X. America will be sick of invective, controversy, and pointless crusades after the Crisis is over; it will need someone who can know when to judge and when to back off for reasons other than gain or gut instinct. Such is the Reactive style at its best, and one that only the Reactive can do well.
I will have more to say about the transition from the generational component in high public office after the 2018 election. Many incumbents stand to be defeated, and that usually implies younger pols supplanting those who retire or are defeated. American leadership is now decidedly old, with an inordinate number of Boomers (58-75) and Silent (76 to 93) in high office.
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.