How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It?

[Cryptic]

I'm not particularly sure how more easily usable long-distance communication fosters anything that could be compared to a community of people who live next to each other, who might regularly collaborate to fix each others' problems and strive to make life better for everybody and have known each other for extended periods of time.

I have friends and people who I haven't seen in years, but I can get on Skype and talk with them for hours and discuss life's problems with them and get advice.  Maybe I'm not there physically, but I can still listen to problems they're dealing with, provide emotional support, and give advice.  As someone who loves to write, I can type a short story and ask one of them to proofread it for me on Google docs.  There, I can watch as they make live corrections to my document far more effectively than if they were scribbling notes on paper.  I can still have them on Skype and we can discuss in real time the changes.  When assigned group projects in an online graduate class we can have our paper on Google docs and make changes, edits and leave comments for the edits.  We can work on our assignments and projects far more effectively.  Also, some of my friends from college and myself enjoy tabletop roleplaying games and we can continue the activity that allowed us to meet and become friends in the first place online, something that would be impossible to do physically now that we're longer in college.

I have plenty of friends who live close by who I hang out with in person too, but the internet has made it incredibly easy to maintain just as much of a relationship with others I've met in college or who live back home as well.  And I consider that as much a community as the physical community I have with my local friends. 

Oh, and the above brings up another point to counter one you made earlier. 

today, more and more people are going to college and then not returning to their suburban or rural place of origin and instead moving to cities.

Just cause one doesn't move back to the community they grew up in after college doesn't mean they can't become invested in the community they move to.  Maybe they become a regular participate in their circle of friends in whatever city they move to?  Community doesn't begin and end where you were born.

[Vosem]

The first thing I have to get out of the way, Cryptic, is that you're addressing me as if young people are some sort of mystery to me. I was born in 1997 (which I'm willing to bet is after your own birth).

  But there are some characteristics that are similar:  Community is important to them.

I have to just disagree with this statement flat-out: Americans, especially young Americans, are steadily becoming more and more individualistic, as people's spiritual beliefs are increasingly not necessarily similar to their community's, and people are moving around more than ever. The GIs in large part returned to where they grew up, after the war/higher education; but today, more and more people are going to college and then not returning to their suburban or rural place of origin and instead moving to cities. 'Community' is not a constant concept to Millennials, and for this reason it is not necessarily prominent in their thinking.

The problem with that analysis Vosem is it also ignores my generation's increased inter-connectivity through technology and social media.

I don't think it does because, as I already argued replying to Snowguy, I don't think a community being maintained online takes the same form as a community in person. It's not (usually) based on having the same problems (like a real-life community), but on having the same culture, and for that reason I don't think it fosters the same sort of reaction. My relationship with real-life friends is very, very different from that of people I know online. It's close to incomparable.

  As Snowguy said above, the definition of community changes.

If the definition of community changes, can you or Snowguy please provide the new definition. Saying 'the old one doesn't apply anymore' you would seem to be acquiescing to my point of view, but you're keeping yourselves from doing that through this bit of mental trickery.

  For instance, I don't see how moving away and not coming back after college is a good measure of valuing community or not considering it is now ridiculously easy for many people to stay in close contact with friends and family no matter where they live.  You can make the argument that's not the same as physically being there, I suppose,

Because it's not

but I'd counter that's more an opinion based on one's perceptions of what's normal.

It's not a question of normality. I have 571 friends on Facebook, most of whom are people I barely know, some of whom I've never met. I consider this figure to not be particularly exorbitant -- it's normal. It's a question of comparing this sort of online community to a traditional 'village' (or even 'neighborhood') structure and seeing that it's not really all that similar.

  For those of us who grew up with the internet and such, we're naturally going to be more comfortable with it than older generations.

I know I'm more comfortable on the Internet than (say) my parents, but that doesn't really have anything to do with it.

  Community 'is' a constant concept for us.  It just takes a different form than previous generations.

Do you know what 'constant' means? Always the same. If something starts 'taking a different form', it is no longer constant. But even if we ignore that bit of dissonance, why would you or anyone else assume that if something takes a different form it has the same effect as it does in its old form?    

and laissez-faire economics will not deliver that.

Step in your ideological opposite's shoes for a moment, Snowguy. Laissez-faire economics promises economic wellbeing to the talented and smart; and if there's one thing that unites young Americans, it's their high opinions of themselves. This article ( http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/millennials-the-greatest-generation-or-the-most-narcissistic/256638/ ) sums up the trends quite well. And anybody who thinks they themselves are the best thing ever will inevitably support laissez-faire. Which is why I think there is a strong chance towards increased support for laissez-faire when the Millennials "come to power."

I have to disagree here.  The whole "all millennials only care about is themselves" argument is way overblown.  Seriously, every young generation thinks their hot stuff and they're parents always complain.

If you were to actually click the link I posted and read it, you would note Millennials are compared to young people of previous decades, not adults of today.

  The only reason this get's so much attention is cause the rapid advancements in technology and the different ways millennial approach things as a result leads to people thinking "oh, they only care about themselves!"

On the contrary, it doesn't. People who think in terms of generations usually are of the same opinion as Snowguy, that Millennials must be a "hero generation." But they're wrong; if anything, Millennials are the opposite.

As someone who actually is a millennial and knows plenty of other millennials I can say that's absolutely not true.

As somebody who is also a Millennial and whose friends/fellow students/"community" are also millennials I can say that you can't reach any conclusions about people as a whole through anecdote.

  I know plenty of people in high school and college who volunteer and loved it.

So do I; so did I. And the article mentions that volunteering is on the rise (and provides an explanation for why this is happening in spite, not because of, of general Millennial attitudes).

  I know plenty who didn't care for government,

What insane generation cares for it?

but almost every complaint was about gridlock and the lack of progress and not an ideological argument about the need for small government or less regulation.  Honesty, what most millennials I know want out of politics is effective government and we'll take as many ideas form both the big and small camps to make it effective.

I can't agree with you on this; most Millennials that I know are really in tune to politics are 'libertarian' to some degree. The vaguer complaints you get from people who really don't know what's going on, don't particularly care, and are trying not to seem ignorant. But, again, we should try to avoid reaching conclusions from anecdote. 

Ironically, the ease of communication and access to media through technology is probably why this perception that all or at least the majority of millennials are selfish has gotten as much attention as it has in recent years.  I imagine if they had the internet with instant access to news 24 hours a day in the 60's and 70's, there'd be just as much literature on how "the youth only care about themselves!"

Maybe there would, but it doesn't mean that young people today aren't more individualistic than people of the same age bracket were in the '60s-'70s.

  Trust me, the vast majority of us are not selfish assholes, even if some of us can come off a little rough when we feel we are being judged unfairly. 

I'M SIXTEEN YEARS OLD FOR GOD'S SAKE YOU DON'T HAVE TO PROVE THESE THINGS TO ME

[pbrower2a]

The meaning of community changes.  In the world today we have instant communication over vast distances.  This means that community is maintained on a larger scale.  We relate to other Americans over a thousand miles away in ways earlier generations never did.

Do you remember how expensive it used to be to make long-distance calls? The really-expensive ones that I remember from college days in the mid-1970s were intrastate long-distance calls. It cost less to call Detroit from the San Francisco Bay Area than it did to call Los Angeles. On the other hand, intrastate plane trips were cheap (which made a big difference in California and Texas) so that it cost less to fly between San Francisco and Los Angeles than between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Go figure. We were writing far more letters back then, and we were more careful about content.     

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Much so. GIs turned California from a local secret to a collection of metro areas. Bing Crosby sang "Make the San Fernando Valley your home", and farmland became city.  Black GIs may not have started the Great Migration from the feudal South to the Industrial North, but they did return South -- only to show how well they had done and how backward the South was.   

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That is how it was for the Silent if they weren't pathologically sentimental about small-town life.   

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Indeed the old norms of middle-income life (like living close to the city center and using mass transit) became impossible.

[LastVoter]

They'll be lucky to survive to 60 much less change the system which is consuming them.

Feeling optimistic today?

[Ban my account ffs!]

Vosem:

A simple definition of community from the dictionary suffices for both our arguments:

Community

1.  a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

2.  a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

For example, the city I live in is a community.  My neighborhood is a community.  The students at the local university are their own unique community.

But I am a gay, and I am part of the gay community.

The idea that community is necessarily tied to a place is not true.  With modern communications, all sorts of communities have sprouted up all over... including here on Atlas Forum.  Sure, it's not bridge at the local senior center with Doris, Margene, and the gang... but it serves a similar purpose.

[King]

I just hope libertarian propaganda doesn't destroy the wonderful generation on the horizon.

[King]

For a complementary piece to this article, I suggest watching this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJdwc3q5s0o

It's a 40 minute special of Hannity where Mark Levin preaches to a crowd of Michelle Malkin, et al.

Nothing shows the disconnect between Boomers and Millennials better than comparing the moods and mindsets of the OP article with Levin & Co.

Boomer politics is talking entirely about issues millennials don't care about at all.

[Cryptic]

Apploogies if I got ya worked up over the age thing, Vosem. I didn't know you were a millennial too and I apologize if my attitude came off as a little condescending.

I meant "constant" as in community is constantly present in our lives through online groups, social media, etc, even if we are not there physically.  I wasn't trying to say it was the exact same concept between generations. I'll grant I was using the word in a different context than you and I'm sorry for the confusion.  I will maintain community isn't necessarily tied to a physical place though.  Snowguy seems to explain that adequately above.

I think it's fairly clear we both have our opinions on this and neither one of us will change the other. I will just say that plenty of my friends I was talking about are also interested and pay attention to politics, so it's not all libertarians in our generation who are interested in politics. In the end though, our generation is going to mixed and it'll be the undecideds that determine who wins elections. Much as FDR and Reagan both benefited from moderates and undecideds thinking they were best for the country, it'll be them who decide which political coalition comes to dominate. The only way to know where those undecideds will fall is to wait and see.

[ElectionsGuy]

They won't change anything and thanks to the politicians they're supporting, our country will fall flat on it's ass.

You just made my day with this, I honestly busted out laughing.

[Foucaulf]

Going to focus more on this part:

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If there's anything unique about the Millennials, it's how they've grown up in an age of flowing capital. It's not like abandoning politics to engage local communities is anything new: it's just that now they can be funded (or borrow) enough money to talk about it at the Kennedy school! The idea of "old money" is losing relevance now, or to the point that accepting someone from that class requires compensation through a more diverse student base. It's all about chasing after that dark pool of cash, which motivates a need for strong presentation skills (the age of introverts innovating the system to reap the rewards is probably over).

I also bolded the affirmative action part for a reason: people at my elite American university think the system's antiquated, that we need to consider not race but "economic status". They mock the gerrymandered VRA districts; they march less for civil rights. There may be a perception that legal protection of civil rights is malleable and exploitable. The problem is that replacing the law is an equally frustrating notion that it is the college-educated elite who will swoop in and save everything. Maybe more generally we just have more caricatured perceptions of race.

There will be plenty of Millenials entering American politics. But I'm thinking (and call me out on this) they'll be more polemical, less sensitive, much more utilitarian, less willing to sacrifice time. It'll be the Eurocrats all over again!

[muon2]

Going to focus more on this part:

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If there's anything unique about the Millennials, it's how they've grown up in an age of flowing capital. It's not like abandoning politics to engage local communities is anything new: it's just that now they can be funded (or borrow) enough money to talk about it at the Kennedy school! The idea of "old money" is losing relevance now, or to the point that accepting someone from that class requires compensation through a more diverse student base. It's all about chasing after that dark pool of cash, which motivates a need for strong presentation skills (the age of introverts innovating the system to reap the rewards is probably over).

I also bolded the affirmative action part for a reason: people at my elite American university think the system's antiquated, that we need to consider not race but "economic status". They mock the gerrymandered VRA districts; they march less for civil rights. There may be a perception that legal protection of civil rights is malleable and exploitable. The problem is that replacing the law is an equally frustrating notion that it is the college-educated elite who will swoop in and save everything. Maybe more generally we just have more caricatured perceptions of race.

There will be plenty of Millenials entering American politics. But I'm thinking (and call me out on this) they'll be more polemical, less sensitive, much more utilitarian, less willing to sacrifice time. It'll be the Eurocrats all over again!

If I use the Pew Center's definition of 1981 as the first year of the Millennial generation, then the leading US politician from the generation is probably Aaron Schock.

[Vosem]

Vosem:

A simple definition of community from the dictionary suffices for both our arguments:

Community

1.  a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

2.  a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

For example, the city I live in is a community.  My neighborhood is a community.  The students at the local university are their own unique community.

But I am a gay, and I am part of the gay community.

The idea that community is necessarily tied to a place is not true.  With modern communications, all sorts of communities have sprouted up all over... including here on Atlas Forum.  Sure, it's not bridge at the local senior center with Doris, Margene, and the gang... but it serves a similar purpose.

I agree, but all the communities you mentioned (your city, your neighborhood, your local university; the gay community) are all interlinked by having the same problems. But the Atlas Forum isn't linked by mutual problems; it's linked by mutual culture. The latter can still be a great thing to be a part of, but it doesn't affect political discourse in the way the first does. When (maybe if, but hopefully when) true equality for the gay community is achieved, it will shift from being based on mutual problems to mutual culture and stop affecting politics as a community. The issue here is that, as communities become less permanent, and more online, increasingly they are based on mutual culture and not mutual problems.

I just hope libertarian propaganda doesn't destroy the wonderful generation on the horizon.

too late

Apploogies if I got ya worked up over the age thing, Vosem. I didn't know you were a millennial too and I apologize if my attitude came off as a little condescending.

It's fine

I meant "constant" as in community is constantly present in our lives through online groups, social media, etc, even if we are not there physically.  I wasn't trying to say it was the exact same concept between generations. I'll grant I was using the word in a different context than you and I'm sorry for the confusion.  I will maintain community isn't necessarily tied to a physical place though.  Snowguy seems to explain that adequately above.

I replied to Snowguy's post about the two different kinds of communities I think you and he are confusing

I think it's fairly clear we both have our opinions on this and neither one of us will change the other.

Well, I personally do enjoy challenging my opinions and notions to debate to see if they can withstand the pressure. Even if neither of us will be convinced, it still has a purpose.

I will just say that plenty of my friends I was talking about are also interested and pay attention to politics, so it's not all libertarians in our generation who are interested in politics.

It's not all libertarians, just libertarians at a much higher rate than previous generations and libertarian ideas creeping into and influencing other ideologies. You're never going to get unanimity.

In the end though, our generation is going to mixed and it'll be the undecideds that determine who wins elections.

Historically, and to the present day, in American politics turnout has been the decisive factor. But we'll see.

Going to focus more on this part:

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If there's anything unique about the Millennials, it's how they've grown up in an age of flowing capital. It's not like abandoning politics to engage local communities is anything new: it's just that now they can be funded (or borrow) enough money to talk about it at the Kennedy school! The idea of "old money" is losing relevance now, or to the point that accepting someone from that class requires compensation through a more diverse student base. It's all about chasing after that dark pool of cash, which motivates a need for strong presentation skills (the age of introverts innovating the system to reap the rewards is probably over).

I also bolded the affirmative action part for a reason: people at my elite American university think the system's antiquated, that we need to consider not race but "economic status". They mock the gerrymandered VRA districts; they march less for civil rights. There may be a perception that legal protection of civil rights is malleable and exploitable. The problem is that replacing the law is an equally frustrating notion that it is the college-educated elite who will swoop in and save everything. Maybe more generally we just have more caricatured perceptions of race.

There will be plenty of Millenials entering American politics. But I'm thinking (and call me out on this) they'll be more polemical, less sensitive, much more utilitarian, less willing to sacrifice time. It'll be the Eurocrats all over again!

Excellent analysis, really. Not sure the Eurocrats are a good comparison (they're associated with bureaucracy, which I think American millennials would be much more inclined to slash), but the first two paragraphs are really spot-on.

[publicunofficial]

ITT: A bunch of middle-aged guys attempt to characterize a whole generation that they don't understand and never will.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

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SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS QUOTE TO ME.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The idea that "Millenials", like any "generation", are a clearly defined group with clearly defined politics is kinda silly, IMHO.

[Lurker]

The idea that "Millenials", like any "generation", are a clearly defined group with clearly defined politics is kinda silly, IMHO.

This. Basically 99% of these theories and broad generalizations about "generations" are simplistic Bullsh**t - it's annoying to see the media giving them that much attention.

That being said, the headline here was somewhat amusing to me as a Norwegian, in light of the (terribly stupid) debates about "Millenials" in my own country. Here the problem is supposedly that millenials are far too fond of government instutions and the status quo - they have no interest in making radical changes, and are pretty happy with things being as they are. This is for some reason considered a big problem.