tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38209572007-09-17T22:04:59.608-04:00Generation WatchSteveBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-77000985895122867532007-09-17T20:19:00.000-04:002007-09-17T22:04:59.635-04:00Final post. I've decided I'm done with this blog. If anyone even bothers to read it any more it probably comes as no surprise to them since this is only the second post of 2007. After five years I'm just out of steam.
I encourage people who are interested in generations and history to join in the discussions at the Fourth Turning forums. Or check out the links in the blogroll in the sidebar to Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1172790080729796062007-03-01T17:53:00.000-05:002007-03-13T17:51:43.574-04:00My favorite blogger calls them "Millennials." Thomas P. M. Barnett, the grand strategist who is my favorite person to read on the Internet, refers to the rising generation as "Millennials" in an interview with Hugh Hewitt. He sees them as more connected and willing to sacrifice for larger goals than other generations, and also doubts their receptiveness to Boomers' political messages.Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1162072817382564762006-10-28T17:51:00.000-04:002006-10-28T18:00:17.393-04:00A brilliant Strauss & Howe post. From Sara Robinson, on the blog Orcinus. A must read if you're a Strauss & Howe junkie.Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1157658796288482892006-09-07T15:46:00.000-04:002006-10-23T18:56:20.716-04:00Leadership page update. I finally got around to updating the current leadership page on the LifeCourse leadership project. It was woefully out of date, with the old Supreme Court still displayed. I updated the justices and the governors. Still left to do: the more arduous task of making sure Congress is up to date.
Of course, what we really want to know is what's in store come November and the Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1156545432778955522006-08-25T18:23:00.000-04:002006-08-26T14:32:39.366-04:00The immigration "crisis" in generational terms. Whenever you read about some politician proposing or instituting laws to crack down on illegal immigrants, you can be sure he or she is a middle aged Boomer, such as the mayor of this Pennsylvania town. And who can blame him for enacting such a harsh law, if he has crack dealers and gang shoot-outs plaguing his town? Though who have to wonder about Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1155680957975712762006-08-15T18:23:00.000-04:002006-08-15T18:29:17.986-04:00More old timey blogs. When recounting the sites at the ageless project, I find that the number of sites by members of the older generations has increased substantially. There are now seven (7!) coming from the G.I. generation. You gotta love an octogenarian linking to YouTube. Go, Internet!Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1154369999407102982006-07-31T14:18:00.000-04:002006-07-31T16:30:16.506-04:00Strauss and Howe resources. I put together a diagram of the four turnings, with descriptive phrases, all of which are taken from the book The Fourth Turning. I ended up creating a handy reference chart.
Another great Strauss & Howe resource is Mike Alexander's Model for the Saeculum. What makes Mike's site so cool is that he has actually done considerable research using statistical data (crime Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1153448281905701652006-07-20T21:43:00.000-04:002006-07-21T08:48:31.653-04:00Still waiting for things to really get grim in the Middle East. Seriously. Historian David Kaiser has a post on his blog, pointing out the irreconcilable differences between two generations of Arabs and Israelis. We're talking about the war in Lebanon here, but that war is really a front for Iran, free to play hegemonic power games with the U.S. bogged down in Iraq. So the really dangerous Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1151799177678598722006-07-01T19:43:00.000-04:002006-07-02T14:25:44.703-04:00What a joke. The only commentary you'll ever need on the political scene in the United States of America today comes from those very funny guys on Comedy Central. You know the ones - Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report. These two Gen-Xers skewer the older generations who run the show in D.C., mocking up video clips of them making idiots of themselves, and Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1151361079736546482006-06-26T18:09:00.000-04:002006-06-26T18:31:19.810-04:00Sex farms for prison guards. A recent news story about a prison shootout exposed a sad and shocking aspect of the United States' vast penal system - that many female inmates, even juveniles as young as 13, are prostitutes to corrupt guards. Of course, this is really no surprise as this country has long been in the habit of crimininalizing and warehousing Gen-Xers and then not caring about them Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1151179191857552392006-06-24T15:54:00.000-04:002006-06-24T16:44:46.710-04:00Ytt discussion well worth a listen. Phil Mariage sent me this email:
Hi Steve,
Just wanted to let you know that we aired this Tuesday a very good generational discussion on Pornography. My guests were authors -Dr. Joseph Slade - older generation - 'Pornography and Sexual Representation, 3 Vols. Jan La Rue - middle generation, Protecting Your Child in an X-Rated World and Ben Shapiro - Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1150842866920431782006-06-20T18:21:00.000-04:002006-06-20T18:34:26.976-04:00More generations. For some good generations blogging, check out Generations in Conversation, from Duncan Macleod, a prolific online journalist who is also a minister living in Australia. He concentrates on spiritual and cultural topics with respect to generations, which makes his blog a nice complement to mine, since I tend to obsess on politics and war.Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1150586793458617642006-06-17T18:25:00.000-04:002006-06-20T18:17:06.496-04:00House debate is as much generational as it is partisan. I watched part of the House debate on the war resolution and was struck by the generational divide across political sides. It was basically Democrats from the Silent generation objecting to the madness, their primary stand-in being Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha, who gets the pile-on from a bunch of Team America Boomer and Gen-X Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1150068377528523912006-06-11T16:19:00.000-04:002006-06-11T19:26:17.603-04:00Enron: The Ultimate 3T Story. For a good lesson in how a generational constellation can achieve an extreme of behavior which is ultimately dysfunctional, watch Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
This movie demonstrates how the rise of the company and its malfeasances – both how it took advantage of deregulation to game the marketplace and how it used fraud to prop up stock prices – were Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1149555398291721372006-06-05T17:54:00.000-04:002006-06-06T08:53:52.456-04:00The pragmatic visionary. It was nice to be mentioned on the blog of Thomas P. M. Barnett, a strategic planner with a vision of how our world can evolve in the next generation so that globalization continues to advance and benefit more of the planet's people, without a repeat of the disaster that derailed the process back in the era of the World Wars.
You see, there are many people who read Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1148755879193065922006-05-27T14:34:00.000-04:002006-05-27T14:56:28.366-04:00Like news? Then visit Ypulse, a web site dedicated to media for the next generation. Published by Anastasia Goodstein, she and the rest of the site's staff do a much better job than I ever do of keeping up with everything out there on the web related to the Millennials/Generation Y.Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1148752579596375402006-05-27T13:41:00.000-04:002006-05-27T13:56:19.606-04:00Lots of new links up. Recently I've had a chance to update the generations news links at LifeCourse, so check them out if you haven't been by lately. There are many articles featuring authors William Strauss and Neil Howe (wherever you see a gold circle) plus some interesting reporting on generations and recent events, such as the NSA spying controversy.Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1147143156468411572006-05-08T22:12:00.000-04:002006-05-09T18:27:00.330-04:00Who's got immigration reform? In all the controversial blogging and punditry over immigration reform - writing done by native born geeks, who apparently have lots of free time on their hands, since they can't be bothered to find work rebuilding New Orleans or picking strawberries and lettuce - I haven't noticed any comments on the generational make-up of our heroic lawmakers.
The House bill Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1144882143657323822006-04-12T18:40:00.000-04:002006-04-12T18:55:11.686-04:00Blogs - a 3T flash in the pan. I like this little piece from Matt Welch, where he says that all that's happened in the world of blogs this decade is that the partisan war of ideas has gotten worse. Blogs make it easier to isolate yourself in your own little opinion bubble, and have failed to live up to any potential to be a source of "grassroots fact-checking" or "cross-partisan critical thinkingStevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1144197071049832322006-04-04T19:24:00.000-04:002006-04-04T20:31:11.100-04:00Our crusading leader. This blog has spent considerable effort pondering the question of what's happened these past few years in America in terms of social change. In the parlance of Strauss and Howe generational theory, have we or haven't we transitioned from the fragmented Third Turning to the gathering storm of the Fourth Turning? The dark and fearful mood of the nation suggests that we have, Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1143588416432292252006-03-28T17:55:00.000-05:002006-03-28T18:26:56.443-05:00A whole army out there. Last weekend saw some real generational drama when, according to news reports, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to stand up for their right to continue living and working in America. These pro-immigrant marches were instigated by Spanish-language radio in major cities, so this could fall into the category of older generations using youth energy to fight Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1143481918799733442006-03-27T12:39:00.000-05:002006-03-27T12:51:58.810-05:00Militant culture wars. This past weekend saw how older generations will use the Millennial generation, today's teens, as pawns in their kulturkampf, when an Evangelical group gathered a veritable host of youth in the heart of Progressive America, San Francisco. Not unexpectedly, this created some friction. Check out these two blog posts, one from the left and one from the right, to see how this Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1142709728064953762006-03-18T12:28:00.000-05:002006-03-18T14:27:09.426-05:00Forget the table, the 90s live on. With the furor that surrounds the Bush administration, and the eclipse that has passed over the Democrat party, you get the idea the radical right-wing ideology dominates government - an idea which is sort of suggested in the 90s vs. 2000s table on this site. But really, as this excellent Economist article points out, centrist reformist politics is alive and Stevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1140994206728909662006-02-26T17:24:00.000-05:002006-02-26T17:50:06.743-05:00Each great in its own way. Leonard Steinhorn has this idea that his generation, the baby boomers, shouldn't be taking this "Greatest Generation" nonsense from his parents any more. He wants to claim that moniker for himself and his peers now, making his argument in a Washington Post article. Steinhorn does a wonderful job of presenting the many ways Boomers have helped improve the American way ofStevetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820957.post-1138836097455697622006-02-01T18:10:00.000-05:002006-02-01T18:21:37.466-05:00The man who would be 4T. As I watch the President give his State of the Union speech, with his grand vision of ending tyranny world wide, and his confident assertion that we are a strong nation growing stronger, and then see Congress rise and applaud his statements, it feels like we've crossed over into a new era of nationalistic pride and determination. Then I realize I'm tuned into Fox, and theSteve