MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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How ‘Millennials’ Ruined Democracy
By barefooted on Mon, 08/01/2016 - 11:43am |The problem inherent in generational politics is that young people grow up. This is what makes winning their votes so difficult, and so unlike appealing to other demographics. There is little time to build networks, develop ideologies, or select leaders. With so much turnover, once a young generation gets organized politically, it’s not young anymore.
URL:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/america-isolated-young-voters/493253/
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Comments
Imo this article misidentifies symptoms as causes. It's not age specific groups that caused the generational division this article talks about. These age specific groups were an attempt to pull young people back into the social, civic, and religious organizations they were abandoning.
Membership in civic organizations like the Shriners and Masons was declining. Less young people were attending churches. Even social organizations like league bowling was declining. This disengagement by the young in traditional organizations is continuing. We can discuss the causes of that disengagement. I suspect modern media and communication technology that is more quickly and more broadly embraced by the young as a main cause. But the age specific groups weren't the cause of that disengagement they were the response of organizations to it. And they were largely unsuccessful in drawing the young back and stopping the disengagement
by ocean-kat on Mon, 08/01/2016 - 10:31pm
Strange article. Boomers focused on the war because they were being drafted and their bodies were being shot up. Their elders were still thinking in terms of The Greatest Generation and Inchon, but that ship had sailed. Kids in the 70's had the recession, oil embargo, Detroit closing, PacMan, disco... Kids in the 80s had the rise of the PC, Reagan's star wars, MTV... each generation had a faster and faster change of ethos to absorb, with subtle psychological difference in outlook. Older folks remember privacy, even typewriters. Younger think of clicks and likes and access. Getting away from it all used to be good - now it's a pain to be 15 minutes w/o data or WiFi access. We once paid for music - now it's largely consumed and monetized through eyeballs somehow, praise Google. If you're 10, your conception of a library is disbelief - you can look it up online in seconds, the world is searchable (memory retention is useless and counterproductive - too much stuff anyway).
Older folks have always wanted to coopt youth on their own terms - whether apprenticeships, indoctrination, etc. But in the real world, this is getting flipped - it's not "don't trust anyone over 30" - it's "they're already out of touch". Many tech companies and investors don't want over-30's as they think tech is moving too fast and only the young ones will have the new mindset to get it (plus will happily work longer for no job benefits or retirement). But the same "just do it" attitude uses the online cloud tools and other approaches to speed up time to delivery. Why wouldn't new generations go from problem/need identification to resolution in much the way they search out an answer, write a trivial mobile app or elsewise whack the mole and move on? Watch Elon Musk hop from electric cars (with Google's autodriving), SpaceX launches, monster battery fab, and then what's next... how much whining *should* we put up with in addressing political process, how to get something thru congress, etc? In the outside world, we identify issues, play with them, tweak them, solve them as good enough, move on. Elections are now about telling already enabled people how hard it is and how the grownups/establishment types will solve the stuff youth is already solving. There's an extra useless layer in there we haven't quite figured out what to do with, and some uncertainty how to deal with dross and runoff from the process. Do we need intelligence as much as fine tuning and quick fixes and then on to something else?
(I say older and younger, but the bands of shared experience are narrower, even as tech allows a great deal of modernism to hit older generations to stay younger and more connected)
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 12:02am
Yes, we do. After all, we need something worth fine tuning in the first place.
by barefooted on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 8:48pm
Yeah, but the need for smart fellas/gals is oversold - much of it's just showing up for work, doing the obvious. And there's less ability to pay for being smart unless it's purely financial arbitrage or a VC goldrush item.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 11:54pm
Well ... if your idea of helpful and/or traditional age specific groups is still the Shriners, Masons, church get-togethers and bowling leagues then the problem may be self evident.
Perhaps the issue leans more toward the natural generational divides and how best to overcome them in the political realm. If that's even plausible, considering that every new "age" thinks that all their ideas are new and exciting while Grampa just talks about the good 'ol days.
by barefooted on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 8:43pm
Well your link did refer to the "19th century, children, youths, and adults “mingled freely together” " I'm just responding to the article and looking back to at least before the 1950's. Where did those barbecues and bonfires take place where ages mingled freely together and who put them on if not civic organizations like the shriners or religious organizations? Bowling was a place where many mixed aged people chatted while playing together, different than team sports like basketball or football where most team members are playing at the same time. No room for conversation among the players.
I made no value judgments but if you're looking for one I'm not at all upset that shriners, churches, etc. are seeing a decline in membership among the young. I've been reading for years about all the traditional organizations creating youth groups to attempt to lure the young back. But if we accept the article's premise that multiage groups are good for society and politics, and I think I may, than what has taken the place of the older organizations where membership is falling?
by ocean-kat on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 9:41pm
I recently moved to St. Paul, MN. There's a mountain to be said about the differences between here and home, but for the purposes of this conversation I'll keep it brief. Music. While it's obvious that music is everywhere, it's not often packaged to appeal to all age groups and given the chance to be shared. I'm thrilled that I've been to Jazz and Blues festivals for free in the same parks that weekly provide local musicians an opportunity to be heard as well as folks to mingle. I've been struck by the generational mix - as wonderful as the racial and ethnic mingling. Parents bring babies; twenty-somethings talk, dance and laugh with us old folks. It's simply grand.
Maybe we don't really need organizations that are too stuck in their ways to gracefully move to the new tunes. Maybe we just need to find new and inventive ways to get us all off the technology grid for awhile and talk to each other.
by barefooted on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 9:58pm
Folks in their 60's/70s are still doing mountainbiking, movies to some extent are crosscultural, travel itself is much easier now... and old age music can be thrash metal or punk as the age of operas and classical subsides.
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 08/03/2016 - 12:02am
Thanks, barefooted. Really interesting article. Especially in light of younger folks living in with parents for much longer periods and counting on parents for financial support.
by Oxy Mora on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 5:59pm
Who knows? Maybe the tough times that are leading to younger generations spending more time with older ones will eventually reap unexpected dividends.
by barefooted on Tue, 08/02/2016 - 8:30pm