The Saeculum Decoded
A Blog by Neil Howe

“Generation Kill” doesn’t do powerpoints

 Baby Boomer, Generation X, Generations, Nomad, Silent  3 Responses »
Dec 252009
 

Very nice piece in the NYTimes by an officer who is almost certainly a Generation X (born 1961-1981) (he started serving too early to be a Millennial (born 1982-200?), and he is not high enough ranking to be a Boomer (born 1943-1960)). Any survey of generational divisions in today’s the armed forces uncovers Xer officers who feel bollixed by their Boomer superiors. The Xers want to decentralize decision making, reduce the bureaucracy, give more initiative to leaders on the ground, make decisive choices, and embrace risk rather than shun it.

Why all the smothering oversight? To reduce American casualties, of course, say Boomer and Silent (born 1925-1942)elders. To create an idiot-proof (Boomer-speak for Xer-proof) safeguard against bad headlines for political leaders back at home. But, counter the Xers, what if this approach simply ensures that America’s effort is ineffectual and that we are still there ten years from now, still slogging around and suffering casualties?

Speaking of the Nomadarchetype at war, I am reminded of the memorable scene in the movie “Patton.”  Omar Bradley (who was given all the best lines because he advised the director) got owned in one exchange after castigating George for being too aggressive in a particular attack in the Sicilian campaign and suffering needless casualties. Patton’s response—and I loosely paraphrase from memory: “Sure, Brad, some died. But we broke through, didn’t we? We brought this war closer to an end, didn’t we? If we did it your way, we might still be pinned down there, dying as we speak.” It is an interesting question whether the war would have been over in Europe in 1944, instead of 1945, if Patton had remained Bradley’s superior during and after D-Day. Germany might never have been divided, and the Soviet postwar domination of Central Europe would have been much weaker.

Ulysses Grant was another famous Nomad warrior who understood better than his elders (except for a few, like Lincoln and his friend Sherman) that sometimes you have to take risks, including the risk of losing lives, to get the job done. This is how the midlife Xer-in-charge pushes the mood toward the Fourth Turning (Crisis).

The final remarks in this article explicitly and eloquently point to the tethering of Generation X leaders:

“The culture of risk mitigation could be countered with a culture of initiative. Mid-level leaders win or lose conflicts. Our forces are better than the Taliban’s, but we have leashed them so tightly that they are unable to compete.”

Senate Goes Haywire

 Baby Boomer, Generations, Silent  4 Responses »
Dec 222009
 

Nice piece in the Washington Post by Joel Achenbach on the weird hi jinks going on over the health-care bill in the Senate.  Here’s an excerpt.  Note the generational roles being played here.  Lieberman (1942), Bernie Sanders (1942), and McCain (1936) are all Silent (born 1925-1942).  Blindsided by the disappearance of politeness and process, they are expressing utter perplexity.  Franken and Coburn, of course, are (very) Boomer (born 1943-1960).  I’m sure they’ve never felt so alive.

Love the final reference to the “smoking tweet.”

Lieberman discovered to his great surprise how the tension of recent weeks has altered the Senate. Holding forth on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon, he reached his time limit and made a routine request for an additional moment to speak. Presiding was the freshman senator from Minnesota, Al Franken. Party leaders had told him to be strict about time limits. Franken said, “I object.”

“Really???” Lieberman said, astonished.

He didn’t take it personally, and later said he realized Franken was just following orders. But the incident raised the hackles of Republican John McCain (Ariz.), who sensed comity going out the window.

“I don’t know what’s happening here in this body, but I think it’s wrong,” McCain said. “I’ll tell you, I have never seen a member denied an extra minute or so, as the chair just did.”

What’s happened is that there is no such thing anymore as a routine “unanimous consent” request. That notion died on Wednesday, when Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, used his senatorial prerogative to insist upon the line-by-line reading of Sanders’s 767-page, single-payer amendment. Three hours of droning by clerks later, Sanders had to pull his amendment.

Later, Illinois Democrat Richard J. Durbin said he’d found irrefutable evidence that Republicans had no goal other than to delay a vote on health care. His people had intercepted a Twitter message authored by a Republican senator that revealed an obstructionist intent.

“I have in my hand,” Durbin told assembled journalists, “a smoking tweet.”

Another Silent Icon Gone

 Baby Boomer, Silent  3 Responses »
Sep 292009
 

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies at 72

Wow. This is a milestone. So many of us who became teenagers in the early 60s were really into the whole folk revival—and Peter, Paul, and Mary was absolutely the dominant public image of that revival.

They took the progressive G.I. (born 1901-1924) folk movement (The Weavers, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger et al.) and culturally radicalized it so that it hit the sweet spot for first-wave Boomer (born 1943-1960). But they were also basically mild mannered—never extreme, unpleasant, or confrontational. Their harmonies were never atonal. They were the most popular “beatniks” ever to perform for the public. The bio points out another Silent (born 1925-1942)  dimension to her life story: four marriages.

City, Country or Suburbs: The Generational Factor

 Baby Boomer, Generation X, Generations, Millennial, Silent  3 Responses »
Sep 172009
 

There is a lot of debate about how, and where, people should live in the future. You can hear the contrasting views from Howard Kunstler on one side and Joel Kotkin on the other. Howard Kunstler, a Boomer (born 1943-1960), believes that suburbs are disaster and that we should move towards denser urban neighborhoods. Joel Kotkin, also a Boomer, believes that New Urbanism leads to economic instability and serves only the rich.

But how do the Millennial (born 1982-200?), raised mainly in the suburbs and exurbs, want to create as their ideal living environment?

There is a question of the “suburbs” as an unchanging concept over different generations—as though the G.I. (born 1901-1924)-built beehive Levittown has any similarity at all to the fortress-on-every-hilltop ideal of so many Boomer-build exurbs you see today. Let’s face it: There’s no similarity at all. I think Millennials will indeed reject the Boomer exurb ideal—they are really bothered by the privatization, lack of sidewalks or paths, no recreational facilities, and the vast distances between neighbors and friends that must (or you imperil your life) be negotiated by means of internal combustion engines within Sherman tank-sized vehicles. But the original Levittown concept, with plenty of group facilities (playing fields, swimming pools, etc.), plenty of sidewalks, and everything living nearby, does appeal to them. Maybe you could call this a Millennial affinity for what has been called the “traditional neighborhood development” (TND) ideal. I saw this confirmed in a recent age-bracketed poll on ideal places to live.

In the table below, note how rural is uniquely high for early X’ers (which includes some Boomers born in 1960) and large city is uniquely high for Xers. In fact, all four Xer preferences are perfectly ordered by population density. Xers really never liked small towns, despite the affectionate lyrics of John Cougar Mellencamp’s (really nice) song. Also, note that the small town has been making a comeback among Millennials, at the expense of both suburb and large city.

If you could live anywhere you wanted to, would you prefer to live in a city, a suburban area, a small town, or on a farm? Answered by Teens age 13-17

1977

Birth Years 1960-1964 (Boomer + early Gen X)

 1988

Birth Years 1971-1975 (Mid Gen X)

 2004

Birth Years 1987-1991 (Millennials)
large city 25 39 33
small town 27 21 29
suburb 23 26 22
rural/ranch/farm 25 14 14

Source: Gallup, 5/25/04

Ted Kennedy: Process and Detail

 Artist, Politics, Silent  1 Response »
Sep 092009
 

This post from David Brooks and Gail Collins in the NYTimes blogs paints a banal picture of Ted Kennedy.

I have already heard comparisons in the media to Daniel Webster and Henry Clay.  The parallel with John Q. works also.  If (say Chappaquiddick never happened) Ted Kennedy had won the presidency, I suspect his White House tenure would have been as brief and unpopular as John Q’s. And, like John Q., he was always a lot more popular in his native Massachusetts than he ever was elsewhere.

The only comparable figure in the Progressive Generation who springs to mind—a famous reformer and flowery-tongued Senator who won many terms and often competed for the presidency—is Robert LaFollete.  But frankly Ted never had LaFollette’s passion and courage.  And, to tell the truth, he was not close to being the intellectual equal of any of the above.  More than any other political leader I can think of, Ted Kennedy’s early electoral success rested almost entirely on his family’s money and reputation.  Only as an elder statesman did he begin to gain, through his own affability and attention to process and detail, a reputation as a constructive and bipartisan dealmaker.  Not sharing the charisma or vision of his elder brothers, most young Boomer (born 1943-1960) hardly gave him much notice back in the ‘60s or ‘70s.  He was a quintessential Mr. Insider, far more beloved by his friends and staff and close associates than by the anonymous public at large.  Ultimately his insider strengths enabled him to become a coalition-builder and doer in an era when so many other legislators (esp Boomers) were distracted by ideological posturing.

Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of life is just showing up.  This is an  apt summary of Woody’s entire  Silent (born 1925-1942) generation: They came along at an opportune moment, they showed up, they played by the rules, and they got rewarded.  Ted Kennedy’s a good example of this.  Despite his obvious character flaws, he simply stayed around, persevered, went through the motions, did his duty, attended to his family’s crusades, and ultimately got plenty done.  Had he been born twenty years later, in 1952 rather than 1932, he would have run off to Katmandu or Bora Bora—possibly to return with some entirely transformed persona.  Not Teddy.  And that serves as an exemplary life lesson to all of us born in younger generations.

Hat Tip to Reena Nadler for finding the article.

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