perfidy

Reagan Conservatism: The New Youth Protest Flavor Of The Year.

I've been an idiot. For years I have been insisting that apathy is the new form of youth protest. With the Boomer Generation firmly in charge of the media, entertainment, and politics, not to mention the families that produced the Youth Of Today, it's a logical conclusion. The Boomers still claim that all youth activism is inspired by their efforts in the 60s, rather cruelly robbing the younger generation of any credit for initiative, drive, or effort. And indeed, so much college protest seems to be warmed-over Aquarian sentimentalism. Consequently, I naturally concluded that, since the neo-hippies aren't so much protesting as rehashing a mis-remembered past, the Apathetic Majority must be the ones taking a stand, in their apathy, against their parents' generation and their monopoly on activism.

But I've been an idiot. No matter what the era, teenagers have responded to politics with apathy - a silent majority of people with better things to do with their time. We (I) tend to forget that fact, given that the Big Boomer Lie has rewritten the 60s so extensively that it seems that every single person who came of age back then was a hippie, nobody voted for Nixon, and the fields of Woodstock NY held countless millions.

But that's bullcrap. Most kids back then were living their lives quite content to ignore the heated political debates of the age. Hell, my own Boomer father spent the late 60s working construction, building hot rods, and drinking Gennesee Cream Ale. My kid sister had to turn him on to Bob Dylan, in 1998! His collection of Johnny Cash records, on the other hand, is quite extensive.

What I have mistaken for a new wave of intelligent apathy among The Youth Of Today is just new wine in old bottles - the same old not giving a damn, dressed up with an inborn ability to see through the sales pitches, spinning, and artifice that politics shares with entertainment and ads.

I've been an idiot not to have seen it sooner: the Big Protest Movement Of Today is Reagan Conservatism. It makes perfect sense. Alex P. Keaton is the perfect icon for a generation of activist youths whose elders harp incessantly on the virtues of the 1960s and the evils of Ronald Reagan. What is more natural than for politically inclined kids to take a look at what pushes their parents’ buttons and gravitate toward that? The hippies are their parents, for god's sake! How embarrassing! Mommm stop waving that sign! People'll see!!

And then they get to college, where far-left liberals outnumber moderate conservatives fifty to one on faculties (I'm making that number up), and the case is sealed. These kids, brought up being told "Liberal=DoublePlusGood" and "Reagan=Eats Babies" are now fed the worst kinds of Liberal Social Theory (whiteness studies, political correctness). Since kids these days have very fine bullshit sensors what with the constant advertising barrage they've grown up with, some see right through the Theory and rhetoric and reject it in favor of a vaguely populist, ostensibly pragmatic, conservatism. If they can find something genuinely appealing in the legacy of Reagan, good for them! I only worry that kids being kids they will idolize Ronnie, warts and all, and elevate him to the political godhead without actually considering the nuances of his legacy. (Well, of course they will... kids....)

I'm such an idiot. For further reading, the Economist has a good article this week on the topic (subscription only), and New York Magazine ran something about three weeks ago which I apparently cannot link to. The NY Times ran a story some months ago on the same topic. Frankly, punditry about the new turn in campus conservatism has been everywhere for the last year or so, and I've been an idiot for not putting two and two together. 

Previously, I had accepted the rise of conservatism on campuses as a sideshow in the larger funhouse of youth activism. Now I begin to see it's becoming the main attraction.

God help us all.