Effect of generational changes in American society/culture/politics

Great Debates
1

In Edge City (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385424345/qid=1130784076/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2871545-1479902?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), Joel Garreau made the point that, “You cannot count on people to change, but you can count on them to die.” IOW, the decline of racism in America post-1965 is attributable in part to a generation of hard-line white racists gradually passing from the scene. Seems to me it might work that way with a lot of things. Everyone learns values and culture from their parents and their immediate social environment; but every generation grows up under different conditions and internalizes somewhat different assumptions and attitudes.

William Strauss and Neil Howe have formulated a theory in which generations go in predictable cultural cycles, four archetypes to a “Saeculum.” Whether that theory is valid or not, their analysis provides a starting point for discussion. In their “Fourth Turning” hypothesis, the American generations now living include – from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Strauss#Anglo-American_Generational_History:

The G.I. Generation, born between 1901 and 1924
The Silent Generation, 1925-1942
The Boom Generation, 1943-1960
The 13th Generation, 1961-1981
The Millennial Generation, 1982-2003?

Assuming these are valid generational “cohorts” for discussion, what can we say about them? How do they differ in religious beliefs? Are 13ers and Millennials less tradiationally religious than previous generations, or more? How do they differ in political views? How will the shape of American society be changed as the G.I. generation dies off and the Boomer generation moves into retirement? (N.B.: I am asking about cultural/political/religious changes, not about the financial challenge of supporting all those retired Boomers.)

2

Very interesting, but almost too broad of a subject making it ripe to get hijacked. For the record I am a member of The Silent Generation.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that the generation before mine should not be limited The GI Generation, since they were influenced as much if not more by The Great Depression

Also regarding the Boomers their infuence is more a result of the demographics of size than the particular time they came along.

I had to look up The 13th Generation despite the fact that is where all my children are grouped. I feel sorry for them having to follow behind the Boomers. I believe that there were some benefits to being in the group preceding them that I was able to enjoy.

The newest generation may turn out to be The Flat World Generation referring to the recent best seller.

Since there has been a return to evangelical religions and beliefs in recent times I don’t believe much of a change will be noticed anytime soon. Much to my concern one of my grandchildren has said (at age 7) that he wants to be a minister. :frowning: [sup]More later![/sup]

3

I went to public school and then to a private, Catholic university. We were a pretty secular group. I was shocked to find that my niece, also a product of public schools, said that her friends think it’s “cool” to be a creationist. So I would guess that my generation (born in 1971) is more secular than the people who came after. But that’s just a guess.

My generation is way more homophobic, though. I think attitudes towards gays and lesbians will continue to improve as the oldsters die off.

4

Such as?

5

I am a member of the 13th Generation and I deal with a lot of people from the generations to either side of me, being that I do a lot of events and such, from activism to raves, as well as being a freemason where I run into a lot of people from every generation.

Now it’s important to realize that everyone falls into a skewed demographic based upon socialization.

In my experience however, in the younger kids, spirituality is on the rise, but it’s not a spirituality that resembles what my generation and older tend to despise. It’s not an authoritarian “You must believe or else” paradigm. They take their beliefs from all over the place and suit them to taste. As my little sister calls it “Cafeterianism”.

My generation tends to fear religion for it’s authoritarian tendencies, but they are not areligious as a whole. I find that the boomer generation is the most likely to be ‘godless’ as many of them are either against religion completely, don’t believe church has anything to offer them, or feel obligated to go to church.

My generation is the generation that has Kurt Cobain and Radiohead as our spokespeople. Our music is largely melancholy and dark, or aggressive and angry. Though that darker tendency seems to kind of had it’s pinnacle around 1977 which is the year I was born. I notice that people barely older than me tend toward cynicism, whereas people barely younger than me tend to be slightly more optimistic. As a lot of us were making money hand over fist in the late 90s, that definitely skewed our perceptions.

I think that the boomer conception of liberal/conservative that we’ve been laboring under is being questioned a lot by the internet generation. I think the internet is the largest factor in the generational gap. You’ve got the GI Gen and the Silent Gen who are almost incompetent with computers, and you have the boomer generation where it’s hit and miss. The 13th generation are the first generation that had computers as a child, whereas many from the millenial generation don’t remember ever NOT having a computer.

The usage of a computer changes the way people organize things. In my peer group creating a corporation on a whim isn’t uncommon. Most of my friends have run a small corporation or a 501c3 etc… I think this has to do with the fact that machine hierarchies are similar whether it’s corporate or a file system on a computer. We are generations that grew up with E-Mail, AIM and Friendster, keeping us connected with our larger peer groups that are increasingly spread across the globe far more than other generations. I can very easily go around the country and get connected to people quite simply by looking at what’s going on in art scenes similar to what I have here in New York, and I can look up on My Space or Friendster who in another city my friends might know.

So to put it succinctly I’d say that access to the internet is a marker. We’re inundated with constant ideas. The sheer inundation of porn has made a lot of us nearly incapable of being shocked, and we just don’t care if people are doing weird* shit as long as it’s not right in front of us.

Erek

  • Such as being black, gay or using a gigantic dildo
6

I find it difficult to measure generational attitudes. I think our society has more of a system. It obviously does not include every person, but the bulk of the upper middle class move through a set pattern in life. They start out in suburban nieghborhoods, safe and placid and fairly uniform places. They go through school. Then upon leaving high school they set out for a period of exploration, either at college or traveling the world or at a beginning job of some sort. For a period about about four to then years they live in an environment with a fairly liberal attitude towards sex and drugs, little concern for religion, and general cynicism towards powerful institutions. After a time most of them head back to the suburbs and raise their own kids.

This cycle has been churning since the fifties. I’m opposed to the idea of neatly slicing people into generations. Generally, though, I don’t see connections between attitudes of any “generation” staying fixed. Those who came of age in the later 60’s and early 70’s were supposed to be rebels, drug users, subversives. Yet that entire attitude seems to have dissipated. Where are they now? Surveys tells us that current teenagers and twenty-somethings are okay with premarital sex, pornography and drug use in numbers around 70 to 80 percent. I’d bet good money that as soon as they hit the suburbs and have kids, they’ll decide that those three things are anathema.

Strauss and Howe’s book was previously discussed here.

7

Perhaps this is true about the suburbs, and while the percentage may dissipate I don’t think it’s going to dwindle that much. Most people I know think that the drug war is FAR worse than the drugs themselves, most people my age and younger in fact. This is also the message that the History Channel is conveying as well, so my generation will see the drug documentaries on the History Channel, and quote them to their friends when trying to influence their political opinions, so the pressure to relieve the drug war will be greater when my generation starts claiming power over the next decade.

Erek

8

An example would be that about the time I retired, the Boomers were realizing that they were nearing that stage in life and that worked to my groups advantage.* On the other hand those following the Boomers are going to have to pay for the Boomers being on SS. I believe there are many more less obvious factors that have benefited The Silent Minority, while making it tougher for those following the Boomers.

*AARP would not be the force it is without the large number of Boomers supporting them. Even the GI Generation benefitted from this fact.

9

If we made SS mandatory no matter what one’s salary was, it’d be really easy to handle social security. Imagine if all those people with their $ 25mill a year salaries were paying into social security at 6.25%.

Erek

10

Is there any significant cultural difference between Generation X (born mid 1960s-1970s) and Generation Y (1980s-) or whatever the hell they call them? Gen Y from what I can tell seems basically like a more commercialized, upbeat version of Gen-X. The one thing you never see these days is movies about directionless 20-somethings trying to sort their shit out.

The most significant cultural difference I can think of is while Gen X remembers the early days of computers, cell phone, etc, Gen Y has never really known a time without.

11

Yeah Gen Y is more upbeat than Gen X on the whole. Gen X can be signified by Kurt Cobain and Gen Y can be signified by Hackers.

Erek

12

That goofy computer movie from 1995? That sucks.
If anything, I would characterize Gen Y as signified by the American Pie series. Same issues as all teens / young adults but without as much angst.

Generation X, not having a movie series that follows anyone from high school to young adult, can be best characterized with the following:
High school - Any film with John Cusack
College - PCU
20s - Swingers, Office Space
30s - Old School

I am convinced that Generation-X is, as Tyler Derden said, histories “middle child”. We are a much smaller demographic than the Baby Boomers and Gen Y and are essentially a trough in the population wave. That combined with our cynical nature (largely a reaction to the excesses of our parents in the 80s) means that no one is trying to speak to us, marketing-wise.

It also always kind of seem to me that my age group seemed to be a transition in styles. Younger kids were into things like hip-hop, ska, etc while the older kids were into rock and metal.

13

Related question: In the contemporary American “Culture War,” which side has time on its side? Are the younger generations likelier to be red or blue? Pro-choice or pro-life? Pro- or anti-SSM?

14

Always hard to say. However, I think more of my generation is socially liberal. (Personally, I self-describe as socially liberal, fiscally conservative, which means the Libertarians would get my support more often if they weren’t so freaking wacko about economics.) So, I’d say that more are pro-choice, pro-SSM, and so on. Cartooniverse’s thread on race highlights the way we are more likely to interact with each other, at least in my opinion.

As for things like economic and foreign policy, it’s probably harder to say. But I think that there is more of a “live-and-let-live” attitude in my generation.

15

MHO, especially from teaching college-age students.

Pro-choice
Pro-capital punishment
Anti-affirmative action
Anti-welfare
Not much of a problem with big government per se.
Isolationist
Corporate-freindly

FWIW.

16

Almost everyone who is actually from the Southwest is Socially Liberal and Fiscally Conservative, at least in the younger generations I find that to be true. But even in the older generation there was a very live-and-let-live attitude out there. I think it comes from the pioneer idea, everyone was coming out there just so they could do that. It gets more pronounced in the younger generations definitely.

furt I think you summed it up pretty well. I kind of have a problem with big government, but I also see the private and public sector as pretty blurred together. I don’t really have an opinion on the death penalty though.

Erek

17

I think it’s mixed, just like it always has been. You can’t say “my generation is this” or “my generation is that” because everyone you associate with in your generation is probably just like you.

In general, young people tend to be more liberal. They get more conservative as they get older as the realities of managing a job, house payments and family clash with youthful idealism.

Overall, we are becoming more progressive as a society, IMHO. This has more to do with the fact that we are exposed to more and different cultures from an earlier age.