- Winograd, Morley and Michael D. Hais.
Millennial Makeover.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008.
ISBN 978-0-8135-4301-7.
-
This is a disturbing book on a number of different levels.
People, especially residents of the United States or subject
to its jurisdiction, who cherish individual liberty and
economic freedom should obtain a copy of this work
(ideally, by buying a used copy to avoid putting money
in the authors' pockets), put a clothespin on their noses,
and read the whole thing (it only takes a day or so), being
warned in advance that it may induce feelings of nausea and
make you want to take three or four showers when you're done.
The premise of the book is taken from Strauss and Howe's
Generations, which
argues that American history is characterised by a repeating
pattern of four kinds of generations, alternating between
“idealistic” and “civic” periods on
a roughly forty year cycle (two generations in each period).
These periods have nothing to do with the notions of
“right” and “left”—American
history provides examples of periods of both types identified
with each political tendency.
The authors argue that the United States are approaching the end
of an idealistic period with a rightward tendency which began
in 1968 with the election of Richard Nixon, which supplanted
the civic leftward period which began with the New Deal and
ended in the excesses of the 1960s. They argue that the transition
between idealistic and civic periods is signalled by a “realigning
election”, in which the coalitions supporting political parties
are remade, defining a new alignment and majority party which will
dominate government for the next four decades or so.
These realignment elections usually mark the entrance of a new
generation into the political arena (initially as voters and activists, only
later as political figures), and the nature of the coming era can
be limned, the authors argue, by examining the formative experiences
of the rising generation and the beliefs they take into adulthood.
Believing that a grand realignment is imminent, if not already
underway, and that its nature will be determined by what they
call the “Millennial Generation” (the cohort born between
1982 through 2003: a group larger in numbers than the Baby Boom
generation), the authors examine the characteristics and beliefs
of this generation, the eldest members of which are now entering
the electorate, to divine the nature of the post-realignment
political landscape. If they are correct in their conclusions,
it is a prospect to induce fear, if not despair, in lovers of
liberty. Here are some quotes.
The inevitable loss in privacy and freedom that has been
a constant characteristic of the nation's reaction to any
crisis that threatens America's future will more easily
be accepted by a generation that willingly opts to share
personal information with advertisers just for the sake of
earning a few “freebies.” After 9/11 and the
massacres at Columbine and Virginia Tech, Millennials are not
likely to object to increased surveillance and other intrusions
into their private lives if it means increased levels of
personal safety. The shape of America's political landscape
after a civic realignment is thus more likely to favor policies
that involve collective action and individual accountability
than the libertarian approaches so much favored by Gen-Xers.
(p. 200)
Note that the authors applaud these developments.
Digital
Imprimatur, here we come!
As the newest civic realignment evolves, the center of America's
public policy will continue to shift away from an emphasis on
individual rights and public morality toward a search for
solutions that benefit the entire community in as equitable
and orderly way as possible. Majorities will coalesce around
ideas that involve the entire group in the solution and
downplay the right of individuals to opt out of the process.
(p. 250)
Millennials favor environmental protection even at the cost of
economic growth by a somewhat wider margin than any other
generation (43% for Millennials vs. 40% for Gen-Xers and 38%
for Baby Boomers), hardly surprising, given the emphasis this
issue received in their favorite childhood television programs
such as “Barney” and “Sesame Street”
(Frank N. Magid Associates, May 2007). (p. 263)
Deep thinkers, those millennials! (Note that these “somewhat
wider” margins are within the statistical sampling error of
the cited survey [p. xiv].)
The whole scheme of alternating idealist and civic epochs is presented
with a historicist inevitability worthy of Hegel or Marx. While
one can argue that this kind of cycle is like the
oscillation between
crunchy
and soggy, it seems to me that the authors must be exceptionally
stupid, oblivious to facts before their faces, or guilty of a
breathtaking degree of intellectual dishonesty to ignore the influence
of the relentless indoctrination of this generation with collectivist
dogma in government schools and the legacy entertainment and news
media—and I do not believe the authors are either idiots nor
imperceptive. What they are, however, are long-term activists
(since the 1970s) in the Democratic party, who welcome the emergence
of a “civic” generation which they view as the raw material
for advancing the agenda which FDR launched with the aid of the previous
large civic generation in the 1930s.
Think about it. A generation which has been inculcated with the
kind of beliefs illustrated by the quotations above, and which is
largely ignorant of history (and much of the history they've been
taught is bogus, agenda-driven propaganda), whose communications
are mostly “peer-to-peer”—with other
identically-indoctrinated members of the same generation, is the
ideal putty in the hands of a charismatic leader bent on
“unifying” a nation by using the coercive power of the
state to enforce the “one best way”.
The authors make an attempt to present the millenials as a pool
of potential voters in search of a political philosophy and party
embodying it which, once chosen, they will likely continue to
identify with for the rest of their lives (party allegiance, they
claim, is much stronger in civic than in idealist eras). But it's
clear that the book is, in fact, a pitch to the Democratic party
to recruit these people: Republican politicians and conservative
causes are treated with thinly veiled contempt.
This is entirely a book about political strategy aimed at electoral
success. There is no discussion whatsoever of the specific policies
upon which campaigns will be based, how they are to be implemented,
or what their consequences will be for the nation. The authors almost
seem to welcome catastrophes such as a “major terrorist
attack … major environmental disaster … chronic, long-lasting
war … hyperinflation … attack on the U.S. with nuclear
weapons … major health catastrophe … major economic collapse
… world war … and/or a long struggle like the
Cold War” as being “events of significant magnitude
to trigger a civic realignment” (p. 201).
I've written before about my decision to get out of the United
States in the early 1990s, which decision I have never regretted.
That move was based largely upon economic fundamentals, which I
believed, and continue to believe, are not sustainable and will
end badly. Over the last decade, I have been increasingly
unsettled by my interactions with members of the tail-end of
Generation X and the next generation, whatever you call it. If the
picture presented in this book is correct (and I have no
way to know whether it is), and their impact upon the U.S. political
scene is anything like that envisioned by the authors,
anybody still in the U.S. who values their liberty and autonomy
has an even more urgent reason to get out, and quickly.
May 2008 