Generation What?

A lot has been said recently about my generation: we are cynical apathetic, privileged, irrationally optimistic, ironically detached, isolated, connected in new ways through the Internet. We like to volunteer but not to protest, we like to protest but not to do grassroots organizing, and on and on. How can there be this much contradictory talk about today's youth? What is most accurate? The answer is that it is all right, and all wrong. It is pointless to pigeonhole an entire group of people -- especially one as diverse as American youth. Some of us graduate from prestigious universities and spend our 20s making six-figure salaries working on Wall Street. Others spend their 20s foraging for tofu in Whole Foods dumpsters and giving it away to homeless people. And most of us fall somewhere in between.

Perhaps the most defined generation in recent memory is the baby boomers. For the first time there was a clearly identified "age gap" and you were famously not supposed to trust anyone over 30. Creating and fostering a youth culture helped sell clothes and records to a group of folks focused on being hip. Of course, there was much more diversity of opinion then than was let on. For instance, according to a recent article published in the Times, "In October 1968, when Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon and George Wallace were running for president, a Gallup poll found that about half, 52 percent, of people under the age of 30 supported the war in Vietnam." That is certainly not the impression most people have now towards '60s youth. The identity created by and for baby boomers has stayed relatively unchanged, even though it was completely narrow in scope.

Things are even less clear-cut now. In his recent prize-winning essay published in the Times, Yale student Nicholas Handler declares, "...what do we really stand for? Like a true postmodern generation we refuse to weave together an overarching narrative to our own political consciousness." Many people attacked his essay for being pretentious but I think he touched upon a basic kernel of truth. Postmodernism speaks of the fragmentation of identity and this is no different for the identity of a group of people.

There are some very promising signs for our fractured generation. For the first time since the voting age was reduced to 18 we have seen an upsurge in young people going to the polls. According to Rock The Vote the amount of young people who voted in 2004 as opposed to 2002 increased from 11 percent to 13 percent. Youth were an important factor in the power change in Washington. And young people are volunteering at higher numbers than they have in years. We are also creating new forms of community through sites like Meetup.com and Facebook. Say what you will about the type of interaction the Internet fosters, youth have used it more than any other group to creatively form community.

Does this community building and newly found civic engagement mean we are any easier to pin down? Probably not, but it does show that we are reshaping society as we continue to reshape ourselves. This may be scary to a lot of older folks who are uncertain about what impact we will have. But it is specifically our diversity that will benefit American democracy. We are engendering a dialogue that will create new ideas and new types of action. And from this pluralistic pastiche will come a new image of America. So give us some time, pundits, and stop trying glibly to distill an entire generation of folks into one or two words. As Anthony Michael Hall said in the denouement to the mother of all high school movies, The Breakfast Club: "You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions."

Comments

[bethinCary]

I think most of the baby-boomers sold-out the American system of well....ev­erything..­to materialis­m/consumer­ism. For 20-some years they've had thier cake and have eaten it too. But at what expense-handing over more of our rights to more corporate ownership of us all (war, media..)?
The expense has been the national debt,security, falling $$, high oil prices, lack of oil, global warming,lack of alternate energy policy, tainted Chines products, high drug prices,...­.
The baby-boomers essentially went to sleep/turned their heads when Carter tried to raise the alarm bells to energy and/or other problems. Yet becasue of the baby-booming NIMBYs-having the Volvo,2 kids, an IRA,a green lawn-these(listed above) are the kinds of consumerisms ie. lack of empathy our societal quagmire has come to.
These are the same people who fail to realize their own complicity in this-by not acting on instinct of moral code-but selfishness and greed. It's easier to blame GW or someone for mismanagem­ent/corrup­tion rather than point any blame at themselves.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Oh generate THIS. There's only people, young,
old, rich, poor, when you were born doesn't
matter a tinker's damn, but the propaganda
and rhetoric might do a little change-up,
but that's about it. If you've got a pulse,
can read, and can use a computer, well,
there ya go, you're 'modern'. If you're
modern and you're 19, well, you'll enjoy
it a little longer than everybody else.
But, it doesn't make you special, in
some ways you're just more of a veal calf
than previous generation­s...and, as
far as voting goes, sure, you can do
all that, but what is the REAL significance
of it? Is Cheney going to pack his bags
based on a public ballot? Noooo...he­'s
got the money, he's not going anywhere.
Vote all you want, but heed Carlin's
thoughts on the subject, too. Youth
pandidates are still pandidates­...

[Kansas Evans]

My fear, as a member of this undefined generation, is that not much will change.

Today's college chicken hawks will go on to run the Heritage Foundation, Brookings Institute, and AEI.

We'll still be buying and selling the myth of meritocracy. Etc. Etc.

My one hope is that sometime soon, the Dems will be taking lessons from the Rockridge Institute when it comes to framing arguments. Hopefully, we'll be smart enough to define Rangel's when it comes out and not give a moment for the conservatives to start their "raising taxes" lie. I mean to say, if the Dem Party has become truly progressive, or if there's a 3rd or 4th progressive party, I think we'll be okay.