The Culture Wars Are Ending. Here’s What’s On the Other Side … – Atlantic Sentinel
An opponent and two proponents of marriage equality demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington DC, June 25, 2015 (Elvert Barnes)
In 1967, Timothy Leary told the Human Be-In of San Franciscos Gate Park to Turn on, tune in, drop out. It was a high point for counterculturalism, a crescendo of anti-establishment, anti-centrism that exploded into antiwar protests, race riots, civil rights marches and an definitive end of Americas 1950s cultural high.
It wasnt the beginning of the twentieths centurys culture wars, but it was the point by which it was impossible to ignore they were ongoing. They first stirred somewhere in the 1950s in the backrooms of Beatnik poetry slams and the road warrioring of juvenile delinquents as postwar youth experimented with the edges of their humanity in the safety of a democratic superpowers economic boom.
The term culture wars took some time to come about. In 1991, James Davison Hunter coined the term when he wrote about a split between progressive and orthodox views of morality (PDF), giving a label to the phenomenon that went back to the early 1960s. As social scientists delved into the subject, they realized that the clean progressive versus conservative split had more than a few subsets, complicating an already fractured social landscape.
That same year, William Strauss and Neil Howe published their book Generations, tracing American history through a four-cycle pattern of generational behavior that they would later develop into Generational Theory. Through the ebbs and flows of generations, some would engage in culture-shaking Awakenings, while others would find themselves forced to reorder society before it could unravel.
The former the Prophets of the Awakening generationcorrespond to the Baby Boomer generation, which the Pew Research Center defines as those born from 1947 to 1965. They started the culture wars, have fought them their whole lives and are now, as they approach retirement and mortality, fighting the final phase of it.
The latterthe Heros of the Crisiscorrespond to the Millennials, those born from 1980 to about 2005, according to the Pew Research Center. They grew up during the tumult of the culture wars, have spent their formative years picking and choosing the most useful aspects of them and are now, as they enter their early 30s, about to impose their worldview on politics and society.
But thats all broad and people will (rightfully) demand proof.
So lets examine how the Pew Research Center measures attitudes and approaches of the four living generations.
The Boomers and Millennials are the largest generations in the United States, making them formidable voting blocs. The Silent Generation is the oldest and therefore the smallest while Generation X is bigger than the Silent generation but still wedged between the Boomers and Millennials as a smaller slice of the pie.
In 2015, there were about 75 million Millennials, 74.9 million Boomers, 66 million Gen Xers and 28 million Silents.
From a mere demographic standpoint, the political and social weight of the Boomers will rapidly collapse after 2020. They will be eclipsed by Gen X in 2028, a mere three presidential elections away. As Millennials age, their voter turnout will also likely increase, adding weight to their demographic dominance.
Too right. But thankfully Pew has done work on the ideological approaches of the generations. They conform to the Strauss-Howe theory that Millennialsthe Hero archetypeswill close ranks culturally to preserve society.
Millennials are heavily Democratic; heavier than any other generation, with 54 percent favoring the Democrats and only 39 percent choosing the Republicans. Only the shrunken Silent generation is dominated by the Republicans; the Baby Boomers, as would be expected of culture warriors, split Democrat/Republican 44 to 44 percent.
Gen X has a 48-37 percent split as well, once more tilting the political field away from the Republican Party.
In other words, if these trends hold, we can expect that from 2020 onwards, Republicans will have increasingly tough election fights if theyre pinning their hopes on turning out a shrinking base of conservative Boomers. Thats already a narrow needle to thread, as shown by Hillary Clintons popular vote victory in 2016.
Not really. Political socialization happens in the teen years, with the most powerful shapers occurring at or around 18, according to a study from Columbia University.
While attitudes will shift marginally in response to events, fundamental approaches to politics wont. The only way the GOP will win Millennials is by changing their party platform to suit their core values, since Millennials wont be changing their minds about Trump, Bush, the War on Terror or many other of their formative events later on in their lives.
So what will Millennials want?
Beginning in the 2020s, as the culture warriors of the Baby Boomer generation lose steam, the outlines of this new America will emerge.
So what will that mean for Republicans and Democrats?
First, it wont necessarily mean the coming of a Democratic permanent majority. Millennials arent loyal enough to the Democratic brand for that; they can be won over by the Republican Party, or by a new third party, with the right planks.
But it is all bad news for neoliberal Democrats and Republicans who favor creditor and boss-friendly policies. Hillarys workaholic approach didnt impress Millennials and neither did her relationship with a Wall Street that brought Millennials the Great Recession.
Thats good news for more traditionally left forces like Bernie Sanders, but its not a slam dunk: Millennials wont be loyal to staid socialist policies that dont rebalance society away from creditors and ease their burdens. You might call the winning formula of the 2020s neo-socialism: an improved take on the statist policies of the past without the attachment to traditional institutions.
Its also going to dramatically shift the political climate. Nobody is going to win big elections anymore by appealing to cultural wedges. Abortion will be settled, gay rights will be accepted and racial and gender cards will be far less effective. Millennials wont elect the woman or the Hispanic unless the candidate has the merits they saw in Barack Obamas intelligence and oratory.
Theyll also have a knee-jerk reaction with someone throws down an identity card, meaning both the alt right and alt left, with their heavy use of identity policies, are almost surely dead movements.
Itll also utterly reshape how America behaves in the world. Millennials dont want to dismantle NATO or end Americas global hegemony so much as use it with less expense. Millennial leaders will form alliances with unsavory types who provide stability and keep American troops out of wars; they will surely like effective proxies armies and have few qualms if they arent democratic. Americas pursuit of human rights by force of arms will rarely see political rewards.
Finally, Millennials will want to self-indulge within limits. While divorce, sex and marijuana will be fine, there will be increasingly elaborate social cues around them. As Millennials age, they will draw ritualistic lines in the sand about marriage, relationships and how they spend their past time, forming increasingly tough cultural taboos that their children will balk at.
It will be a self-interested time of stability and, most likely, comfortable but boring conformity.
Which will irritate the kids of the Millennials, especially the ones born in the 2020s. As they grow up in a safe but dull time, they will seek identity and individuality in their own way and start the cycle of cultural transformation all over again.
This article originally appeared on Medium, June 20, 2017.
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The Culture Wars Are Ending. Here's What's On the Other Side ... - Atlantic Sentinel