The Jim Webb Generation

By: Bernie Quigley
Published On: 3/8/2007 12:14:56 PM

Jim Webb

There is so much discord and dissent in the present Panic Primary Race because our country is undergoing a Clash of Generations. We are at the turning of the fourth post-war generation, a generation writers William Strauss and Neil Howe call Millennials, in their fascinating book, "Millennials Rising."

The Millennials are the only generation which will to be remembered years from now. All who came before in the political world will be forgotten.
That grates with Third Generation types who see Ronald Reagan as their avatar, and Second Generation Sixties people as well: The Second Generation's positive influence was in a post-war time of Peace and Love, which came to awakening with a voice come out of a sleep of a thousand years: Janis Joplin, Primal Mother of the Dixie Chicks. Janis was Sixties Generational Avatar Incarnate in the Summer of Love, and that's what Second Generation was for and about.

But Earth Mother was quickly sent back to remission when love turned to politics. At the apex, John Lennon said, "I am He . . ." echoing a Upanishads conundrum, but by the time The Beatles came back from India, the center had been passed through and the circle had shattered.

At Kent State it ended for good. Jerry Rubin, the most influential student leader of the day, wrote that after Kent State, " . . . you could never get a girl to type your term paper for you." The Sixties ended at Kent State, he said. So Rubin opened the gate to Wall St. for his generation and hippie morphed into yuppie and the urban entrepreneur.

But love does not do business well, as business does not do love well. They live on different sides of the cosmic river. And when the one tries to be the other, it becomes inauthentic and imitational. (And when they try a second time, it becomes absurd.)

Some in the Sixties crowd see Bill Clinton as the avatar of their generation, but he (s/he) only represents that secondary segment of the Sixties; the post-Kent State alchemists who tried to turn love to power: Out of Woodstock (when the Vietnam draft ended in 1973), off to Goldman Sacks. But theoretical physicists tell us that Particles and Waves don't combine: One can be a Particle or one can be a Wave, but not both at the same time. (As per the Taoist fashion, Yin and Yang - again, the cosmic river runs between them).

Nevertheless, each generation fights to insure its own survival and countervailing generations are the dance of the human condition in time. In Love, the Second Generation ascends. In Power, the Fourth.

The Clash of Generations is perhaps more primary to the human condition than the Clash of Civilizations. Taoism understood this millennia ago when it fashioned a historical perspective much like the Strauss & Howe theory, finding it in nature. Traditional Chinese even give their children generational names. Generation is religion, culture and country - particularly in a large federation like our own where regional barriers yield to the participation mystique and the power of the airwaves trump local custom and mores. But as with all things in life, there is no going back and the yielding generation always loses to the rising. In politics it is as it is in Buddhism: There is no Death, there is only the Continuum.

Recently, Strauss and Howe published an essay in The LA Times, refuting studies by sociologists which claim that the rising fourth generation is narcissistic. Millennial-busters draw a picture of " . . . under-socialized young people fated to depression, self-destruction, violence and civic decay as they grow older."

Strauss & Howe say the study "fuels endless negative media commentary on today's kids that will always find an audience - stories about crime, cheating, sexual license and celebrity worship."

They say these studies are widely off the mark, and anyone who has children today would have to agree. No kids? Try Malcolm in the Middle.

But, as Strauss & Howe put it, the Scolders of the Young argue from a generational point of view themselves: "many are themselves boomers, a generation that pushed up most indicators of self-seeking behavior during their own youth: violence, risk, rage and rebellion."

In effect, today's Scolding Sociologists are a rear-garde action of the Second Generation briskly on its way to Palookaville.

In politics today, the important question is not who will win in 2008 or even 2012. The important question is what will be the nature of the rising Fourth Generation, the Millennials? Where will they go? What will they rise to? Who will lead them?

George W. Bush is a Gatekeeper, but his fate has always been to close a gate which Ronald Reagan opened for the Third Generation. A new party could arise within the Republicans, just as the Republicans themselves rose out of the carcass of the old Whigs in the mid-1800s and found a better life. But I don't see young people going there. McCain, probably more than anyone in politics, is a Third Generation phenomenon, recalling homage to the First. The period ends there.

A new third party could arise out of Mike Bloomberg's pocketbook. But that is an honorable attempt to correct mischief and not a flagship. He does offer a fresh start. He is a popular, interesting and creative guy, and that could bring in new potential and possibilities.

But we have already seen a new generational spirit rising in politics this last year, and Millennials have created it and signed on to it. It first began to coalesce in the Daily Kos, Raising Kaine and the other influential blogs in the '04 Presidential Race.

As Strauss & Howe say, the generations find their own way and create their own avenues. This generation's first choice and first victory came in Jim Webb's successful run for the Senate in Virginia.

Jim Webb is wunderkind. In Virginia they are starting to call themselves Webb Democrats and they joke, " . . . is he man or apparition?" They wear bumper stickers which say, "My Senator is Fearless." And now they are unafraid as well. Increasingly, the rest of the country is becoming unafraid, in large part due to Webb's personal courage and character.

But the Others are freaking out. (The Others, as in the context of "Lost," the greatest TV show ever and a cultural event which belongs purely to the Millennials, are the previous generations which are not one's own.)

When Webb responded to President Bush's State of the Union speech last month, calling the American uber-rich today Robber Barons and claiming that one day in the life of these Wall Street Titans is worth 21 years of sweat and labor by the common woman or man doing the real work, George Bush responded within days. He said we've got to do something about these high executive salaries!

Likewise, Jerry Rubin's New Billionaires. Up here in New Hampshire thereabouts, Senator Clinton, she who is currently at the bow of this ship going confused and stuttering into the night and fog, made the same claim.

The Others have finally found someone they are afraid of. And to review: Sun Tsu says, the object of war is to disturb your opponent's psychological under structure. Everything else will follow from there.

Webb has had a remarkable impact on the new Congress and on the Democrats. He is almost building a new party within the old party: It is small, but it is fierce. And what Jim Webb brings to Virginia, Wesley Clark brings to a wider audience. They both show growing influence on Congress and on the Millennial generation.

If you look at the various monthly polls of opinion for Presidential candidates in `08, you will see a stark difference between the DKos crowd and the mainstream. These are distinctly generational differences. Like Webb, Clark is also favored by DKos types and both Webb and Clark are favorites of the new generation rising today.

It is impossible to tell who will win the Presidential Race in '08. But the outlines, ideas and trends of the Millennials are growing clearer every day and it is becoming more and more apparent who will ascend in the next 20 years and what values they will carry with them. Webb and Clark are not necessarily building a new party; it is just that new attitudes are being awakened by them in a new generation and new policies will awaken organically from that. New paradigms are coalescing around them.

The Millennials today are seeing their first days. And they have found their Coyote Trickster, their first avatar: Jim Webb.


Comments



We won't be fooled again!!! (Josh - 3/8/2007 1:23:58 PM)
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again


Thanks Josh (AnonymousIsAWoman - 3/8/2007 5:08:09 PM)
For both the levity and the moment of sanity.


Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (loboforestal - 3/8/2007 5:36:42 PM)
The song ends with ...

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss



Having just come from the WHO Concert (ub40fan - 3/9/2007 8:42:07 AM)
Teenage Wasteland - was the resounding cord .... those were the days!!


baba o'reilly (Alicia - 3/9/2007 12:47:29 PM)
must've given hope to those in Vietnam.  Must make those who listen to it serving in Iraq wonder how things could go so horribly wrong AGAIN.  Makes me think that anyway.


The WHO Concert!! (ub40fan - 3/9/2007 11:04:29 PM)
A GREAT Concert. Pete Townsend was just plain Masterful!! The music started with a 60's montage' complete with pictures of Twiggy and Jimi Hendrix. It was very Shaggadelic.

The crowd itself was heavy baby boomer.

So I'm sitting there with the wife and the guy next to her (in tye dye T-shirt) lights up a bone and some boomer types bogart right in. I've been to a lot of concerts at the Verizon Center and this was a first.

The lady next to me ....noting this cultural annomoly? Says "He looks pretty young ... he just can't know what the consequences really are".

I reply ..." well the thing is .... everybody here in this auditorium, when they were his age .... were doing exactly that ... (lighting up a bone during Baba O'Reilley) .... so why is it a big deal now??"

"We Dont' Get Fooled Again" ..... no we go to Jail for stupid policy born from spineless Legislaturers ...

Give me Libery or Give me DEATH.



Beautiful! (Bernie Quigley - 3/8/2007 4:42:44 PM)
Thanks, Lowell. The millenium starts in Virginia and so does the Millenial Generation.


Trickster Toking? (Houdon - 3/8/2007 5:58:26 PM)
I seriously think I got a contact buzz just from reading this.  I plan on spending the rest of the afternoon playing X-box and watching last season's Lost on DVD...pondering its Vedic mysteries and applying them to real life.


Thanks, Houdon - I got a wierd complement on DKos (Bernie Quigley - 3/8/2007 6:16:39 PM)
I got a nice, wierd unintended complement on DKos on this diary. Someone entered comments in a modified rage, talking about when he was in high school in the mid-80s, it was nothing like I said. But he added, I am probably too young to remember that. I'm 60, and probably had even completed military service before he was born.

I also got a nice complement on a "Lost" entry on my other blog a while back. A reader said he found it to be the best "Lost" speculation he'd found on line. I've been in a trance since my kids and I discovered the show. Cheers, Bernie

"LOST: A Taoist Classic" at http://quigleyinexil...



Thanks for writing this piece (Hugo Estrada - 3/8/2007 6:55:24 PM)
I got to meet a lot of kids born in the 1980s while teaching and tutoring, and they are one nice group. Once can accuse Boomers of many things, but the middle chunk of boomers did, as a generation, raised good children.

But is there really a conflict? After all, Webb himself is a boomer, and the bulk of bloggers are in their 30s and 40s.

If anything, it seems that there is some generational harmony that we haven't seen in a long time :)



Webb is a Boomer (Bernie Quigley - 3/8/2007 7:52:55 PM)
Hugo: The Strauss & Howe book "The Fourth Turning" is very interesting and kind of complex until you get the swing of it. Indeed, Webb is a boomer, and is actually famous and well known to boomers like myself because of the book "Fields of Fire" which came out later than the Sixties period, but refered to the Vietnam period. Also in the Webb primary I think it came as a surprise that Jim carried urban professional areas like Alexandria but didn't do so well in his home court, the western hills. I talked to all my Sixties friends and they all knew about him and were excited about him. Strauss & Howe's book see post-war periods as lasting 80 years and it is a time in which the world recreates itself. By the last generation the new man and woman have matured and given substance to the new ideas that had emerged in the second generation; Washington and Jefferson did, especially Jefferson. And Lincoln actually included phrases in his speeches by Theodore Parker, who had come from the Transcendentalist movement. I actually have no complaint personally about the Clintons - I voted for Bill twice and wrote speeches for Al Gore's campaign manager in North Carolina. (I only rag at them all the time because that is what I do; that is my job in conditioned and nuanced influence.) But they "hatched" too soon; they hatched within the third generation. The DLC was a practical survival mechanism for the Dems. It was a good idea for the times and so was Jerry Rubin's move to Wall St.  But these ideas were not relevant to the Sixties; they were ideas tailored to a corporate approach to live - because the Clintons were themselves of the Sixties did not make it substantively so, it was only style they brought. Jim comes forward at a time when the Sixties ideas can be modified to a better fit. His ideas are not corporate-based. They are family based and community based. Jim, Wes Clark and John Edwards can today modify these ideas to bring the new world into balance. I would like to see Mark Warner as well, because it is a management thing. These pepole are in the position to come in as Washington and Jefferson did - having fully internalized ideas of economy and governance to create a new world which will bring us successfully to the end of he post-war period.


I will have to look for "The Fourth Turning" (Hugo Estrada - 3/9/2007 12:48:06 AM)
Bernie,

I guess I should look for this book. I didn't remember their  "turning" concept in their "Generations" book, but wikipedia has jogged my memory a bit. "Generations" is one of my favorite books. It helped me understand a lot about the U.S. Their ideas can be a bit complexed. But they get so much right.



Fourth Turning is fascinating (Bernie Quigley - 3/9/2007 9:06:06 AM)
Hugo: It is a fascinating perspective. Strauss & Howe make the claim that each post-war period begins to crash in its 60th year thereabouts (the end of the third generation) and completely unravels. That would be this year. As I recall, the theory is derived from Jungian archetypes. I found it similar to Spengler; not as transcendental, but more easily understood.

'Sometime around the year 2005, say Strauss and Howe, America will enter the Fourth Turning. "The nation will be more affluent, enjoy better health, possess more technology, emcompass a larger and more diverse population, and command more powerful weapons - but the same could be said about every other Unraveling era society compared to its predecessor. They were not exempt from the saeculum; nor will we be."'

The book has its own web site:
http://www.fourthtur...



I will check the forums for the book (Hugo Estrada - 3/9/2007 9:50:30 AM)
Thanks!


Generationalism? (Kindler - 3/8/2007 10:29:06 PM)
Bernie:

I appreciate your perspective, and I agree that the Strauss & Howe version of the world is interesting, but I also think these concepts can very easily be stretched too far.  To be sure, the shared experiences of a generation are important, and at least as significant as other bases for shared identity (race, religion, gender, etc.)

But drawing lines at a particular date to divide this generation from that is a relatively arbitrary exercise.  While some events are life-changing for massive numbers of people (like the end of WWII), the fact is that the world keeps turning every day, and there are an infinite number of ways to slice the generational pie.

Worse, I've seen the generational discussion slide too quickly into "generationalism" as a more politically correct refuge than racism or sexism.  A lot of the writing about the so-called "Greatest Generation" or complaints about Boomers or Xers suffers from this problem. 

The fact is that humans are very good at finding ways to divide us from one another and show why my group rules and your group drools.  But ultimately, people are people, and we are more like one another than we like to believe.



I agree. (Bernie Quigley - 3/9/2007 7:15:08 AM)
Kindler: I actually agree with you. I dislike generationality: I see it as conductive to the hamilton view of federalism and I prefer the Jefferson view of region, family, community. I find with generationality it is impossible to develop a deep spiritual life and dense and autonomous regional culture through it. Yet I see if as part of fate. The least developed people of my age (60) are purely generational: they relate to generation in every way and for all values and have lost all relationship to region and ancestors. I think it is better, deeper, to identify with region. Yesterday I sent my son at Vanderbilt a clipping I got from your site about the Episcopalian divisions in the Truro church and the one at Christ's Church in Alexandria as my wife was Baptized in the Truro Church and he was Baptized in the Christ's Church: The history of Virginia becomes their own personal history. This is the legasy of region and regional identity and it goes step by step through generation. The things of Virginia becomes the things of his soul; he is part of the ancestors who lived there; he is part of the struggels there and teh awakenings there; he is part of the earth and the red clay; he is the spirit of the Stanley Brothers by being born there and with the knowledge that all the things that happened in hundreds of years on his mother's line of the family happened in Virginia. Generationality does grant that. If gives a generic product at best. Virginians like my son can share in both. But region goes deeper.


Generationality "does not" grant that. (Bernie Quigley - 3/9/2007 7:20:04 AM)
Intended to say Generationality does not grant that.