FOREWORD
BY NEIL HOWE AND WILLIAM STRAUSS
This foreword is long
for a web format (approximately pages) and maybe easier to read if printed out.
ABOUT HOWE AND STRAUSS
Neil Howe and William Strauss are historians and the best selling authors
of Generations (1991), 13th Gen (1993), The Fourth Turning (1997), and Millennials
Rising (2000). They write and lecture frequently on generational issues. They
host active discussions with readers (at millennialsrising.com and fourthturning.com).
They are among the leading experts in America about generational theory, especially
the rising Millennial Generation.
Neil Howe is also an economist, demographer, and frequent media commentator
on fiscal policy, retirement, and global aging. Howe is a senior advisor to
the Concord Coalition and senior policy advisor to the Blackstone Group.
William Strauss is also a playwright, theatrical director, and entertainer.
He is the co-founder and director of the Capitol Steps, a professional satirical
troupe that has performed over 5,000 shows.
FOREWORD
In today’s America, too many people assume that young people always and
everywhere have little interest in politics—that they have no agenda,
that their preferences are easy to manipulate, and that unless you make it “fun,” they
won’t pay attention. This is wrong. There is nothing intrinsic about
the human lifecycle, or about politics, that dictates that the old must be
more politically powerful than the young.
The past two decades have indeed revealed a political disinterest, and weakness,
in the most recent batch of young people, alias Generation X. The fact that
they vote lightly is well documented. Their high-priority issues tend toward
the personal. One consequence is that, from childhood to the brink of middle
age, Gen Xers have fared poorly whenever politicians get together to divvy
up resources. Look at the tax code. Look at Social Security. Look at health
care or housing or welfare—everywhere you turn, you see institutions
disfavoring whatever age bracket Gen X happens to occupy at the time.
How short our memories are. Around the time the first Gen Xers were born—the
early 1960s—a common complaint was about the powerlessness of old people.
By far the most politically muscular generation was in midlife, the “G.I.
Generation” that had fought World War II, built the suburbs, and was
building rockets aimed at the moon (and Vietnam). When they were young adults,
back in the 1930s, young adults had the most political power. They cast the
largest generational vote—over 80 percent—ever measured (for
FDR). They were the prime beneficiaries of the New Deal.
Look at the movies of the 1930s and see how they depicted young people—as
civically engaged, smart, determined, earnest activists, often in uniform.
The leading teen movie of their time, Babes in Arms, has a big Busby Berkeley
finale, with dozens of business-suited teenagers and collegians descending
the steps of the U.S. Capitol, singing “here we go a-marching, your nation’s
future presidents.” And, in the end, they did produce more presidents
than any other generation in U.S. history. From youth to old age, the G.I.
Generation was a political powerhouse.
The way history works, a new such generation appears whenever an old such
generation expires. Junior citizens step in to fill the role just vacated
by senior citizens.
Enter the Millennials.
Today’s collegians and high school students, and the kids coming along
after them, show every sign of being intensely interested in politics. We’ve
forecast for some time that they will vote heavily when the time comes. And
even before they can vote in a number that is likely to be decisive nationally
(probably in the 2010s), their sheer energy and activism as volunteers—coming
to rallies putting up signs, canvassing neighborhoods, operating phone- and
internet-banks—will spell the difference between victory and defeat
for many a candidate.
In their emerging mindset, politics is mainstream and serious, not just for
policy wonks or Saturday Night Live joke-fests. They are coming of age poised
to launch major political movements, to propel candidacies, to set and achieve
a new youth-driven agenda. There is good news, and some worrisome news, for
both political parties. On the whole, their economic agenda may please Democrats
more than Republicans, their social and cultural agenda the other way around.
They will adhere less willingly to anti-war positions than their recent predecessors
in youth (that’s already been true, in Afghanistan and Iraq), and will
be prepared to sacrifice some personal freedoms for a greater sense of security
(witness the many young voices in favor of a universal national youth service
program).
In many ways—most ways—their agenda has yet to take shape. It will
be driven in part by the years in which they’ve grown up, but also
in part by events that have yet to happen. The 9/11 and Columbine tragedies
have
already influenced their politics in fundamental ways, but cannot alone explain
their new sense of cohesion, specialness, optimism, and faith in the capacity
of civic institutions to do important work.
Millennials are not X, not even close, a fact that is often lost on Hollywood
these days. Nor are they some “Gen Y” extension of Gen X. Not even
close—which is one reason we’ve encountered nearly no one currently
under age 21 who uses or even likes that term. While they get along with their
parents (and other adults) better than any other youths in the history of polling,
they are not at all “echo Boomers.” It’s more correct to
call Millennials anti-Boomers, history’s correctives for the “mistakes” they
perceive that their parents are making.
We, and most others, define the Millennial cutting edge as starting with
babies born in the early 1980s. Scott and Abeer set the initial Millennial
boundary
five years earlier than we do, which is in some ways an important difference.
In our view, the political attitudes and behaviors of Americans born in the
late 1970s have several aspects of Gen X. But in at least one way, this five-year
boundary difference is not important. Here again, history is a useful guide.
Recall how, in the 1960s, so many of the Boomer movements were set in motion
by somewhat older (Silent) generation activists. Kicking off the ‘60s-era
youth movement was an organization called Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS), whose founding document, the Port Huron Statement, had no Boomer coauthors.
The Chicago Seven were all born before 1943—as were Stokely Carmichael,
Bob Dylan, Jerry Rubin, Gloria Steinem, Joan Baez, Abbie Hoffman, Huey Newton,
and Bobby Seale. Throughout the Vietnam War, the leaders of anti-war and pro-civil
rights “youth” were people in their mid- to late-twenties. Boomers
followed many (though not all) of the paths they laid—or, at least,
had plenty of dorm-room arguments over them. By the 1970s, those movements,
or
what remained of them, became fully Boomer.
We expect that the same will happen in the years ahead, as the young edge
of Gen X mentors the new movements of this Millennial Generation. At some
point,
probably around 2010, we’ll hear and see this new cadre of youth speak,
and act, on its own.
What Scott and Abeer have done, here, is to provide Millennials with a very
thought-provoking initial blueprint. We agree with much of what they’re
saying, and where we do not, the authors provide an excellent starting point
for good conversations. We find their how-tos
on civic activism to be particularly
helpful.
Throughout this book, the particulars matter less than the authors’ core
point, with which we totally concur. Something new is about to break out,
in the world of politics, from this Millennial Generation. Something large.
Something
powerful.
America will be the better for it.
William Strauss and Neil Howe
(co-authors of Generations, 13th-Gen,
The Fourth Turning, and Millennials Rising)
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