The election and the Millenials

Sanford Dickert has an interesting post, titled (but it wanders off!): Millennial Makeover: Is there a Lincoln or FDR in the 2008 race? 

(Irrelevant answer: Not unless you believe Hillary is; Obama is GenX.  But I'll get to that in a moment, and why that's spectacularly great news as my second point.)

First: Why GenX is the Entrepreneurial Engine

In the post Sanford makes a few points, mostly about the turning over of generational cycles that are coincident with technological breakthroughs. 

So again to point this out: the technological breakthroughs you see are directly a result of GenX (and equivalent Reactive generations) opting out or being shut out by the generations that precede them. This forces a huge entrepreneurial upswell each time.  Why are they shut out? It's complicated, but the theory has a lot to do with society in general becoming far less cohesive (riotous, actually) when the Reactive cycle (GenX) are children, and so the kids in these generations tend to grow up fending for themselves and without any clear social norms to strive for. It's one thing to leave home as a hippie when you're 15... there's a home to leave, standards that have been drummed into you. It's another to cobble together an ersatz family structure as you go.

GenX-type generations are raised to be self-reliant, self-determining, innovative, flexible, and calm in a crisis ... and btw, to eventually forgive their parents for running amok at a time when it would've been better that they had been parental.

So GenX-type generations typically refuse to buy into the social norms or corporate structure, and goes it alone or in groups, entrepreneurially.  This is a refusal to drink the "corporate kool-aid," which is precisely what you'd expect a reviled generation to do. (Yes: reviled. Name a positive attribute the mainstream media associates with the term "GenX." Got one? Nope? ... If you do, email me.)

Second: Why Millenials follow GenX

In Sanford's post, there was reference to a specific voting attribute that GenX has been labeled with, and I need to set that in a new frame also:  Because GenX was disengaged in civics, it's considered apathetic.  Well, folks. That's wrong!  It's reasonable not to trust a broken electoral process, and GenX children endured, quite literally, riots in the streets and later what was termed "white collar crime," which is to say scandalous greed.  To decide to retreat, act with personal integrity among those who do the same for you, and think hard about what exactly to do about society as a whole is what Pragmatic people do. This is a generation of quiet community builders who are expert at conflict management and building cautious optimism.

GenX is characterized by precisely those values Barack (who is GenX) shows: Refusing the corporate kool-aid, which in his case is the party line; validating that life is tough for everyone and that no one should judge another's personal struggles; valuing personal integrity and loyalty PARTICULARLY in times of crisis; motivated far more by disgust with the system than a desire for personal glory.

Most importantly, Obama manages to have an ideal of bringing us together because of a pragmatic understanding shared among GenX: don't polarize issues, don't lose the "shades of gray," and don't indulge in extremist "black or white / my way or the highway" rhetoric. Because you can't solve problems when everyone's polarized.

This is why Barack (and other GenX) can rally the Millenials.  The previous GenX cycle president? Truman. He ended WWII and ushered in a very strong economic era. Pragmatic, unflashy, nevertheless, taking on ultimate responsibility with The Buck Stops Here.

Third: Shout-out to Millenials

Millenials have a world to fix.  The rest of us can contribute for a while, but it's likely to be a 50 year haul.  Millenials: find a GenX who will pragmatically, non-judgmentally, help you find the way out. Later I'll post another component of this, namely what about the kids that follow the Millenials? That's right, we're already rearing the generation following the Millenials, which is equivalent (acto the theory) of the generation that preceded the Boom: the generation that gave us Martin Luther King, Timothy Leary, Kurt Vonnegut, and other revolutionaries and rebels, amidst a group that was notorious for marrying early and being preoccupied with what the neighbors would think.

Comments

[Sanford]

Hey Jessica - thanks. Appreciate the recap. Should tell you my last name is Dickert...

[Jessica Margolin]

Oh, fooey! I am so sorry! I had misspoken... Fixed now.