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Old white America. Venerable historian and policy analyst Samuel Huntington has created a stir with a piece in Foreign Policy magazine, in which he argues that unprecedented levels of immigration by Mexicans into America are threatening to split the country in two. Meanwhile, paleoconservative Pat Buchanan, writing for the Miami Herald, is worried that America is no longer a united nation of English-speaking white people. It is easy to dismiss such articles as reactionary, racist rants, but first let's consider the birth years of the two authors. Huntington was born in 1927, and Buchanan in 1938, making them members of the Silent generation. These guys are old school, and they really do remember a time when America was culturally homogenous, and more so a white, English-speaking country than it is today. Their works, in part, reflect distress over what has been lost from that bygone age. But that age isn't coming back, so we'll have to face what the future has to offer. Most recent Latin American and Asian immigrants into America are Gen-Xers, and it's possibly true that many will resist assimilation. This generation is already very splintered, comprising the least culturally and ethnically homogenous group of Americans, or pseudo-Americans as the case may be. So it's really up to the future generations - Millennials and Homelanders - to reunite the country under a common culture. Who knows what that will be like, and what sort of reactionary columns aging Gen-Xers will write, in perplexed concern. Posted by Steve Barrera at 1:03 PM
Culture wars then and now. A few posts ago I linked to an article at the Washington Post comparing the movie "The Passion" to Counter-Reformation art, and contrasting how the two phenomena relate to the specific cultural conflicts of their respective ages. Joel Kotkin, also writing for the Post, gives us another piece, comparing today's blue-zoners and red-zoners to the Cavaliers and Roundheads of the English Civil War era. Like our culture partisans today, these two groups of English folk were cousins and neighbors who were deeply divided ideologically. Ultimately, they were incapable of coming to terms without coming to blows, which we all sincerely hope and pray will not happen here with our divided generations. Posted by Steve Barrera at 7:01 PM
Defending the nation isn't my job. One thing you can say about Boomers is that they never apologize for anything and never accept responsibility for their actions. That is why the 9/11 commission is a pathetic joke and can never be anything but a venue for self-serving politicians to bask in the limelight and promote their careers. It really makes no difference whether former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick is asking or answering questions - she's blameless in her own eyes and can't help the rest of us in any meaningful way. So just ignore her, and the other commissioners, and all the officials of present and past administrations who will smugly assure us that they did what they were supposed to do, which is why it must be somebody else's fault we were vulnerable that day. Posted by Steve Barrera at 5:14 PM |
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| Lost | 104+ |
| G.I. | 80-104 |
| Silent | 62-80 |
| Boomer | 44-62 |
| Gen-X | 23-44 |
| Millennial | ?-23 |
| Homeland | ? |
| High | 1946-1964 |
| Awakening | 1964-1984 |
| Unraveling | 1984-? |
| Crisis | ?- |
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Where noted, background information on generations theory is copyright 1996 Broadway Books. All other content on this web site is copyright 2002-2005 Generation Watch and Steve Barrera. All rights reserved. |