Wow I just fell into a time warp! Reminds me of when Bush I called John Walker Lindh (who had joined the Taliban) a "misguided Marin County hot-tubber" and much earlier still when we were told that kids of "hippie" parents were destined for lives of sin, penury, and treason against all we hold dear.
I guess the final irony is this: Generations have come and gone, new problems and advances and setbacks have changed our points of view on many issues and changed what the most important issues of our time are. But ossified tropes about the perils of liberal upbringing go doddering on, weak and beleaguered, written up by boomers in the top jobs writing op-eds for the NYTimes.
54
Radical children need their liberal parents’ money.
28
Cultural Marxism? Yikes. David, that's just far-right invective, used to red bait anyone with the temerity to oppose racism, or insist on a right to vote.
46
Given that Brooks acknowledges the same generational split between far-right parents and their children, the NYT editors should have rewritten the title of this piece to be more accurate, like "Parents and their Radical Children."
8
Yikes, this article is absolutely awful. I almost clicked off when I read your whole spiel about the "cultural Marxism" in academia, which is almost word-for-word literal nazi rhetoric reclaimed by the modern alt-right. Am I reading the New York Times or the Daily Stormer here?
Of course it would be easier to explain the resurgence of left-wing radicalism as "oh, just those younglings" (and, according to the author, younglings influenced by the Marxists in academia or some other cockamamie) rather than a generation that sees the writing on the wall for their future. Endless debt. A handful of years left before climate change tosses humanity into another dark age. Of course they would challenge the system.
Then I saw the article's author, and it all made sense. Good ol' David Brooks, my favorite op-ed reactionary. Just as I had suspected!
It seems you're talking about people like myself who would certainly fall under the category of the "radical children"– but you've clearly never met one– only a straw man of one. And it seems you don't even know who the younger conservatives are either. The young conservatives I've met are mostly boring neo-Reaganites. When you talk about young, cynical anti-globalist conservatives who understand "cultural boundaries", do you mean the race realists and islamophobes? Are you talking about the young conservatives who marched in Charlottesville while chanting "Jews will not replace us"? Are they the future of the GOP? This is complete drivel.
75
Predictably, David pumps more dead air into the canard that..."the commies are coming....the commies are coming!"
20
Says the guy whose own son went overseas to fight in a fascist army, for a fascist regime.
11
Typical, David. Progressives are militant and young conservatives are ... wait for it .. younger, educated conservatives. Your straw men/women are devolving, and again you broadcast your conservative blinders. What do you call those "fine, young conservative men" -- all men, exclusively men -- marching in Charlottesville, murdering a young woman and maiming several others? I'd call them more than militant. And as much as you and your GOP brethren would like to promote the false narrative that all progressives are "Antifa", it's simply another story you tell yourselves to create a false equivalence with your angry white mob who are actually militant. Please. Stop.
43
David you sound like a cranky old a making generalizations about "Kids today. Why can't be like we were, perfect in every way? WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KIDS THESE DAYS!"
My generation of hippies and anti war protesters turned into the Tea party, so don't get your hopes up.
17
Just to take up one thrown-away line from this piece by Brooks. Mr. Brooks, do you believe we do not live in a society characterized in part by "rape culture"? If not, say why. If you cannot defend that position (which your column implies), please retire. Or just shut up.
18
Mr. Brooks! Be ashamed. The radicals these days call themselves conservatives. You, in fact, are one. Your suggestion that being liberal extrapolates toward a dangerous pole? In some future that no one can yet see? Quite a Fox "News" tactic.
Want to see a radical? The mirror. The mirror. GOP apologist! Builder of platforms for sociopath Presidents! Vilifier of the poor! Enabler of those who made torture a Federal policy, and invasion under mendacity acceptable!
The mirror, I say! You hardly need pull phantasms from bizarre extrapolations.
26
I work with a lot of biotech and tech startups, and find that the meritorious debate is not driven by age, but by financial accomplishment. Specifically, the more money one makes the more fair and meritorious he or she believes the system to be. I have met plenty of 30-somethings making over $200,000 and not one of them wants to blow it up, and in fact, all believe the system works just fine and is quite fair.
20
Can the kids please stay off David Brooks' lawn?
22
I’m probably a poster boomer: grew up in the 50s in a traditional, “Rockefeller Republican” household; became radicalized at university in the mid-60s; evolved into a practical liberal who embraced humanitarian ideals while becoming a successful small-business entrepreneur. Now I’m 70, and my changing view of the world today surprises even me.
When I read David Brooks’ description of the worldviews of older liberals versus younger radical progressives, the group I immediately identified with was the kids. Perhaps in this moment of civilizational transition, we need to allow that both worldviews can be “right” simultaneously — but the liberal (and, even more so, the conservative) perspective looks backwards while the radical one looks forwards.
Perhaps no system can last forever. Most or all contain the seeds of their own demise within their structure. For instance, I think three of the pillars of the world we’ve known for centuries are structually failing: the nation-state, capitalism, and organized religion. I don’t say this often because it sounds like crazy talk, easily refuted with a thousand apparently rational contrary arguments. Nevertheless, I think these institutions are dead men walking.
The scary challenge in our technologically advanced world is that everything moves so fast we’re short of time for evolution based on a normal half-life of systems. So ... hey kids! Don’t take too long inventing the new new thing!
24
Disappointing seeing Brooks succumb to sweeping and fatuous generalizations. Reality is much more nuanced across the entire current political spectrum and the roles of gender, ethnicity, race and family history are key covariates.
12
I wonder if Brooks ever reads our comments because I can't understand why he keeps writing the same conservative rationalizations, even in the face of what his "conservative" brethren are doing. At best he changes the subject.
12
This is one of David Brooks' more ridiculous articles. He demeans the so called "radicalism" of current young people while blaming their liberal parents for it without mentioning the hordes who voted for Trump and, while masquerading as conservative, are actually radicals allowing the dismantling of the institutions of our liberal democracy. Brooks must have forgotten the young "radicals" who ended segregation, Jim Crow laws and the Vietnam war. David Brooks' worldview is that seen in a fun house mirror. Perhaps it depends on whose ox is being gored.
21
David, all your observations are accurate but I will take the militant progressives any day of the week over the militant right wingers. The devil that you can see is a lot easier to defeat than the chillingly evil which hides.
9
So, is there a single shred of evidence for this?
9
I believe: Liberal parents, more empathetic children. And even more empathetic grandchildren.
16
Cultural Marxism seems to be a right's lingua franca the to frame the investigation of power structures in society/culture which have a basis in the writings of Karl Marx, as something inherently bad. They aren't. They are simply another tool, among many, to investigate society and culture. All the anger on both sides arises from abandonment of logic and reason. There is another obesity epidemic in this culture that suffers mostly from excess and over indulgence - and that is mental obesity, the inability to interpret the information we stuff into our mouths/brains and how it could be detrimental to our health.
No one is automatically "woke" and enlightenment takes a lifetime to achieve through continually being open to new ideas, while maintaining the ability to interpret those ideas. Claiming you are "woke" is like claiming you are "saved". They are religious slogans.
Being Trumpian means to adhere to a bunch of slogans with no basis in reality: "Build that Wall", "Lock her up", "12 Angry Democrats", "Deep State Conspiracy", Make America Great Again", "No Collusion", "Crooked Hillary", "Dangerous Migrant Caravan", on and on. Loyalty is to the spouter of these unrealistic mantras to the point of being so against your own interests it is akin to suicide - like one of those doomsday cults.
Let's stop encamping ourselves in crisis cults and start studying and employing logic and reason again, starting in Pre-K.
12
I wish he hadn't waited to put "cultural Marxism" so far down in the article. Would have saved me from reading any of it.
12
Hey, DB, show us some stats. This is the worst kind of anecdotal reporting. Shame on you. Your theorizing does not begin to comport with my experience of boomers’ kids. They may be less optimistic - who can blame them? But flame-throwing radicals? Not in my experience. And, don’t forget, we had those in the ‘60’s, as well.
9
Whatever the Republican/right/conservative equivalent of the nonsense phrase "militant Marxist" is, Brooks' babbling encapsulates it. Go out onto the street of any urban area in the country and find me two people under the age of 30 who could CORRECTLY define Marxism, ie not the Fox News revised definition conflating Mao policies with anyone wanting higher taxes or universal health care.
Militant is apparently only a trait of "leftists", because no "rightist" ever drove the nation into the ground with strict (nay, militant?) adherence to trickle down economics.
What a load of drivel.
11
I’ve suspected it all along, but this essay pretty much settles it. Mr. Brooks, you’re an old Republican fuddy duddy. Period.
Now cue up a chorus of “What’s the matter with kids today.”
8
Well, clearly this is an opinion piece. I don't see any research or siting any studies/surveys to support this nonsense. I wish I had a job where I can get paid to just opine without facts and write a piece based on stereotypes. /s
9
Dude. Militants? That's an extreme exaggeration. You are part of the problem if you're describing protest as militant. Secondly, of course these words came from a middle-aged white man. I bet it was was nice NOT graduating with $100K in student loan debt and having (lucky) to start a $30K job in 2009 at the height of global economic collapse caused by unchecked big banks and real estate exacerbated by conservative deregulation and short-sightedness from the Bush years..huh? Oh, then y'all voted for a guy who could be the very mascot of that collapse. Very smart. I have a feeling a lot of folks who think like you performed terribly in the analogies section of the SAT.
11
Why do you speak of liberal millenials as “radical” (over and over) and use not even one disparaging adjective for young conservatives, who at times represent the most blatant racism and hatred the country has seen in ages?
11
Oh, good. Another David Brooks column in which the only inhabitants of the United States are members of the white middle class (& above) and their children.
In the Brooksian universe, the strivings of African-Americans, or Latinos, or Asians, the organizations they form, the causes they fight for, simply don't exist. (Unhappily, the comment thread reflects this perfectly.)
It's no accident that Brooks quotes Midge Decter, a writer who, unlike anybody her age, never had a radical, or even a liberal, phase but glided effortlessly into neo-conservatism and belligerantly remained there. To cite Midge Decter on sociology & politics is like citing Arthur Laffer on economics. In other words, simple but stupid.
8
I appreciate that Brooks is trying to make sense of the moment we're in and the generational differences in our responses to it. But I'm not sure I can see myself or my child in either of these generational depictions in part because I don't think it gets us far to describe the young as "militant" or as under the sway of an "elite" academy and in part because they're not by themselves in having a less individualistic critique of what's wrong with America right now. So I hope this is a first draft of this analysis if it's going to shed light on this cultural moment.
2
And then there are the kids of liberal parents who reap the benefits of the work of prior generations without becoming involved themselves, and take it all for granted. Their parents may have forgotten to teach them that all of this progress requires vigilance to maintain.
4
I'm an older Millenial who just graduated an MBA program after serving in the Army. The same poor kids for whom work is unattainable are the same ones traveling to Europe or Asia every 6 months and living the "Van Life" and posting on Instagram. I work in banking, I see their balances, the picture is an ugly one. I am trying to figure out when and where they think these opportunities are going to arise for them? They are either blissfully ignorant or have given up entirely.
There is plenty of opportunity in this country for those who are willing to rise to the occasion. My company cannot even hire people for lack of those willing to work full time. I've had enough of the finger pointing from people who don't know the meaning of a full day of labor, are entitled and spend all day taking pictures of their food. Mr Brooks' comments about liberal indignation are geniusly worded. Cheers.
76
@Jeff
What does your company do and where is it? What are you paying, and what benefits are you offering?
I tire of hearing about people with MBAs who run some business or other who want to pay minimum wage and provide no benefits to workers. All they do is whine about how nobody wants to do an honest day's work any more--all they want to do is photograph their food. Oh, please, get me my violin.
What I've personally observed is that the MBAs want to pay peanuts so they can get rich like Bezos. That seems to be about the extent of it.
There's a guy named Dan Price who started a company called Gravity Payments. He did the usual nonsense--pay his software guys 100K plus, and the rest 30K. He was getting rich, his software guys were doing okay, the rest of his workers were constantly looking for a job that would pay the bills.
So, he decided to pay everyone at least 70K a year, which provides enough money for a person to live and raise a family. I understand he is still doing quite well--he's happy, his workers are happy, business is doing fine.
So, what do you have to offer this country besides complaints?
55
Once in a (long) while, Mr. Brooks gets it right.
Of course, he never ever gets it fully right.
In this piece, for example, he forgets that some boomers, actually many boomers, do believe that capitalism is inherently evil, that class struggle is the major definer of political action, that the rich betray, hate and exploit the poor.
These boomers are very happy to realize that many young people are at last seeing the light.
So much for feeling beleaguered !
9
I suppose Mr. Brooks thinks young people who want heath care and a functioning government are "militant progressives."
12
A lot of words here. My thoughts would be if the earth is in grave danger, if we are still dealing with color and race, if people of color are dying at the hands of our police, if we are currently in a war that's outlived Viet Nam, if women still make less than men, if the civil rights of all persons LGBT are still not equal....and on and on and on and on. So you want to call the young radicals??? I am a 60 year old white female liberal and I applaud these youth. As to the question of " Does our democracy work?" Obviously if you believe in your politicians you have hope. I personally feel the current president has sold this democracy to the highest bidder. But then I also believe he isn't really interested in America just himself. So bring on the radicals. We are in a democratic crisis and if radical is what it takes DO IT!
8
@Lala,
I used to be very liberal. I am from Honduras and have been living in the USA for 15 years. I see you regurgitate a lot of the same leftist speaking points I used to espouse- unfortunately, (or fortunately) numbers do not lie and do not always fir into one's narrative of choice. Re: People of color dying at hands of police: please look at statistics. People of color overwhelmingly die at the hands of other people of color. Based on police interactions and arrests, police killing civilians is actually a miniscule number. The fact that women make less than men (all factors being equal) has been debunked several times. I don't see women clamoring to go into the most dangerous occupations, or the least glamorous ones, ones where men overwhelmingly make the majority (trash collection, anyone?) You embody the typical well-meaning white liberal who is enamored and convinced of her own narrative but it is one that is easily debunked. There is no democratic crisis; what I see are blatant, unhinged attempts by so-called SJW's to censor any free speech might hurt their feelings.
4
Too many generalities in this angsty pastiche. And the critical commentary, though often right, apes that flaw. Talking past one another here, which coincidentally IS one of David Brooks’ points.
All of our generalizations are flawed, including this one. But we seem to make them anyway. Why?
4
"Whether on left or right, younger people have emerged in an era of lower social trust, less faith in institutions, a greater awareness of group identity."
Well, gee, do you think some of that comes from younger people seeing their parents lose their jobs, their homes, and their dignity in the 2008 recession? Do you think maybe it's because they watched their parents work themselves into poor health brought on by the stress of it all, only to discover, in the end, the company didn't care enough to keep mom & dad around until retirement? Or because they saw mom & dad's pensions cut or taken away altogether? Do you think the youngsters seeing the Catholic Church and other religious and cultural institutions exposed as havens for child predators or sexual harassers maybe makes young people a littly wary of joining up? Do you think growing up wondering if a crazed gunman is going to saunter into your school, workplace, or entertainment venue and start blowing people away while politicians and religious leaders sit idly by and twiddle their thumbs might leave young people wondering if the institutions that are supposed to support the greater good are pointless?
Mr Brooks, this is one of the most ridiculous columns of yours I can remember ever reading.
8
This made me laugh. Has Brooks been to an Indivisible meeting lately? The Blue Tsunami is entirely due to radical Boomer women. The rest of us are too in the weeds struggling to make ends meet and support our kids.
7
Call me radical but I think the highest form of human social evolution may have already peaked within post-war social democracies in Europe, which have managed for a significant time to combine the entrepreneurial rewards of private enterprise with a high standard of universal social services financed by taxes. For whatever reason, the common good is ignored on the American left in favor of identify politics, while the American right cheers at the vision of uninsured Americans "dying in the streets." We are a nation of petulant adolescents.
6
@B Scrivener to be fair the American left cheers at the fact white people are dying, so there's that. It's insane.
1
I don’t know why you can’t shake this notion of the radical left. It seems to be a genetic disorder in many conservatives who, to feel better about thmselves, create this scare of radical left.
I am a liberal progressive who believe that Reaganism (based on Milton Friedman’s naive theories) has been an utter failure. How you can believe in American kind of capitalism that had to be propped up by 22 trillion of borrowing? Last 40 years we mostly applied conservative economic policies of low taxes and low regulations that now are ruining the country.
But still, I have never met any of the left revolutionaries you mentioned. Where are they? What I see on the left are pretty mainstrem ideas of universal health care system, affordable college, infrastructure programs that would be financed by taxing the rich. Remember, 80-90% top income tax was when this country prospered in 50s and 60s. I think rich can afford to pay 55% top tax today. Plus eliminate many of the tax loopholes and overall get 300-400 billions to fix this country.
Is that revolutionary or just common sense?
10
@CarolinaJoe
To radical right-wingers? It is revolutionary. To the rest of the westernized world that had already implemented these ideas? We are dinosaurs afraid of change.
3
@CarolinaJoe The problem is radical leftists who censor free speech based on feelings, call anyone who wants protected borders racists, elect radicals like Ocasio-Cortez, and blame everything on "white patriarchy". I am so glad I am not a leftist anymore.
3
Unmentioned in Brooks' latest reductive exercise is that the younger set is being deliberately made poor by the current system that was set up by the holy founders, and perverted by big money. How could they not question the system when automation, monopolies, inequality and a political system of legalized bribery hold sway? If only the Dems hasn't abandoned the New Deal and the need to tax the wealthy and invest in our people/schools/educational system etc perhaps the young set would see more merit in the efficacy of pursuing incremental change only though our electoral system.
3
As I believe Mr. Brooks said himself, “liberal parents, radical
children—generation gaps are nothing new.”
He should have stopped there.
Younger generations are newer to the world and tend to think life is easier than it is. I’m not faulting them. I felt the same way once myself. I still hold onto liberalism, and humanism, though. I would have voted for Bernie, except I thought it might have turned out to be a vote for trump. I wonder how progressives think the new world order will get paid for? It will surely be paid for by taxes, and maybe the harsh reality of paying 50% or more of one’s income in taxes hasn’t hit them, yet.
If I was superrich, I’d want to pay a lot of tax. After you have the first billion, what personal difference could it possibly make?
But I am not close to being a billionaire.
I continue to believe in the theory of institutions and democracy, but I’ve witnessed so much corruption and law bending in my 66 years, that I believe that there is the theory and then there is the practice. We should try to make the two align as closely as possible but recognize that lying, cheating, favoritism, harassment and corruption are always present. Look at the current administration, for example.
The same struggle continues w/ variations on the theme. How much to help people and at what cost to oneself? Life makes one sit up, take notice, and hopefully to do the best one can, causing as little pain and suffering to oneself and others as possible.
5
David Brooks is on assignment. Our guest columnist, Rush Limbaugh, is a nationally-syndicated radio host.
8
Didn't Samuel Moyn critique 'cultural marxism' as a suspect myth in these pages recently? That's right he did. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/opinion/cultural-marxism-anti-semitism.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage. I would like to see Mr. Brooks acknowledge or refute Moyn's premise.
2
@Jason
Mr. Brooks has better things to do, so I'll take a shot at it.
Moyn's premise is that he personally doesn't like the term "cultural marxism" because it is a term of abuse for leftist thinking -- which he enjoys.
His logic is that people he disagrees with use the term, therefore it must be a bad thing. And therefore we should pretend it "doesn't exist."
Moyns is entitled to his opinion. But it is a dumb one.
The "marxism" analogy is actually a very descriptive and useful way of understanding the new quasi-religion of political correctness. Just substitute the term "white males" for "the bourgeoisie" and PofC/LGBTQ/Womyn for "the proletariat." And instead of seizing the means of production they wish to seize the "means of culture" through censorship, speech codes, social media bullying, etc.
If you can't figure out who the new kulaks are, you probably are one.
1
Who would have guessed that a bunch of self-loathing liberal managers who believe they are illegitimate beneficiaries of "white privilege" would be unable or unwilling to exercise the authority necessary or stick up for themselves or their institutions? It's the decline of Western Civilization in a nutshell.
P.S., Extra erudite pundit points to Brooks for using the word "meliorism."
1
I live in a blue state and I don’t recognize this dynamic at all. This column makes no sense at all to me.
4
You have to question a moderate Republican like Brooks' credentials as an expert on the left and its internal family squabbles.
3
And as usual Brooke’s forgets the trope of his parties white nationalists right wing. Remember ‘Jews will not replace us’? I’d rather my kids were matching against climate change.
5
What can you expect from a generation of kids who earned participation trophies just for showing up?
1
Sounds like David Brooks had a bad Thanksgiving involving some young people...”these kids today...”
5
I'm waiting for David to write an article about the "radicals" of the right. That would be the neo-Nazis, skinheads, Aryan Brotherhood types that have come out in support of Trump. He mentions the sane ones on the right, but only in passing, and doesn't really nail them here. And why is it terribly "radical" to want universal healthcare, affordable housing, tuition-free higher education, and a real response to global warming? As a "liberal" 65 yr. old, I don't find these to be so "radical" at all.
212
@Stephen Holland
"And why is it terribly "radical" to want universal healthcare, affordable housing, tuition-free higher education, and a real response to global warming?"
ANSWER: Because no one is the world, except maybe those with a population of a million or two and their own oil reserves, has figured out how to sustainably pay for all of those things without going deep into debt.
7
Scott -It sounds like you think money is more important than health.
12
Using the term "cultural marxism" immediately invalidates this premise.
5
@Screed
Yeah, man. You got it. It´s a nothing but a fabricated combat term.
This is revealed by a simple online background research immediately:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory
The "Frankfurter Schule" (Adorno, Habermas et. al.) were smeared as creators of "Kulturmarxismus" but they didn´t know this term just until rumours came from USA that they had invented this ideology. Any traces were found here. Further investigations revealed: It had been made up in USA:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_(Schlagwort)
It´s a perfect sample of typical dissimulatory tactics:
- "It´s from Germany" to distract from the fact that there are no traces of such ideology in USA
- "It´s more than Marxism" to create a sudden "Yuck" effect and to avoid the obvious disproof that neither Karl Marx nor any true "Marxist" has ever written one word about any "Kulturmarxismus"
- "It´s culture AND Marxism" just to make it so vast and slimy that nobody can grab any meaning of this conglomerate to refute it.
That´s the way to do some phantastic homegrown smear propaganda for true mental deplorables. Good job of an experienced camouflage and mislead squad!
No wonder when a Mr. William S. Lind is one of the authors:
(A result of 10 minutes research and 5 minutes analyzis.)
Brooks, Brooks, Brooks....
Editors, editors, editors....
Alright. Off records. Banned.
But you can do better next time.
Good lord what a dichotomous mash.
Either/or, left/right, conservative/liberal, liberal/radical...
Where is the nuance in this piece?
And, as others have noted, of whom is Mr. Brooks actually writing?
So much is wrong here.
I live in a blue state. California, in Los Angeles, in a 93% Democratic voting district (2016 election). I'm in my 50s, work for a multi-billion dollar media company, have never been a member of any party, and I have a fourth grade son.
In his life, his father and mother are perhaps the most "radical" people he knows. Moreover, many of our friends of similar ages, with children of similar ages are of the same mindset. We are not exceptional here. Our convictions aren't extreme. They are shaped by a critical engagement with American reality. And we are not threatened by Brook's described generation of Resistance. Rather, we encourage them, cultivate them, embolden them, and join them on whatever they determine is their front line when we can.
Frankly, I have more in common with Brook's described "revolutionaries" than I do any of his described "liberals."
Etymologically, "radical" does not mean extreme. It means "root."
To get to the root of the problem; of our American problem.
THAT is radical, yes, but it is not extreme.
It is in fact essential.
8
I disagree with your characterization of the younger generations as reactionaries ready to blow up the capitalist democracy we live in. Particularly with your belief in the import of that display of ‘reaction’ for the younger set. I have worked with and know so many of these young people that are working within the systems to effect change. That have strong beliefs and those beliefs color their everyday life. Every part of it. Students that discuss and moralize and yes, react, in their college classes, but then go out and work on changing the world in their image. It was those same students I saw all day long on ASU’s campus standing in line to vote. It’s not a coincidence that AZ had to wait to count all those votes, far past the poll’s closing they were still standing in line, to elect a Democrat Senator. Same in NV. Voting is the epitome of working within the capitalist democratic system to effect change. And I am so proud of them.
8
I was surprised that as I was reading this I realized that the characteristics of these young radicals also applies to the old Trump supporters...the feeling of oppression...truth does not matter...tribal political warfare. David, maybe your characterizations can be applied more widely.
How can any objectively-minded, even mildly-educated person in economics, civics and history, not see that this country is headed off a cliff as presently constituted and constructed?
The “radicals”, as Brooks refers to them, are just simply adapting and pushing back against a system stacked against them with generational legacy entitlements, institutionalize social injustices and loomimg liabilities that are their future burden to bare, to name a few.
The game changed through globalization and the Information Age, but few gave more than lip service to the consequences of this massive shift in economic power balance and the vast inequalities this redistribution of wealth would unleash upon the middle class, the working poor and upcoming generations trying to gain a foothold in this society.
These things are never accounted for in our predominantly capitalistic economic system. Where a “Just let the chips fall where they may” attitude rules the day. The socialistic backstops provided by government are what preserves a degree of fairness, humanity and balance into society.
Now, the very richest amongst us, fight through their pocketed legislative agents to dismantle or diminish these safety nets for our poorest and most vulnerable. Their desire for more is insatiable.
Good for America’s younger generation to actively work and fight for a more egalitarian and universally-accepting society. There is hope, especially with our young people, that this ship can be righted.
6
Huh? Many times with NYT columnists I go straight past the column to the reader comments. This, Mr. Brooks was one of those times. were you up against a deadline here?
5
This is a patronizing take on the impatience of young people. in my limited experience, they come in at least two varieties. I have a nephew : liberal arts, child of privilege, management trainee in a failing retail outfit, now underemployed as a lawyer's devil -- politics somewhere to the right of AttIla the Hun. My other young American kin are impatient, protest-oriented left, with good jobs. They all know that their housing is over-priced, their public schools range from disasterous to mediocre, and neither the Bushes nor the Clintons give a hoot in hell about their issues.
I diagnose the problem as American blindness. Since the 1970s, the US has waged a phoney political struggle -- identifying democratic socialism as Communism, neofascist racism as conservatism, military adventurism as foreign policy. Neither party has the vaguest idea of fiscal responsibility. The rudimentary protections put in place by FDR to keep markets honest have been systematically uprooted and the financial markets are a crapshoot..
Brooks' analysis is pretty obtuse. He thinks that impatience arises from Marxist groupthink. He thinks that effort and talent is what gets Connecticut Shore kids to where they end up. It takes a lot more of that if you were born in rural Alabama.
I think Brooks should drink less tea in New Haven, and more beer in Berkeley, Seattle and Missoula. The times they are a'changin.' Brooks' analysis is part of the problem, not a solution.
8
Since Trump got elected, David Brooks has seemed to lose his bearings. He reads a book, reflects on it, writes a column, and the reader feels both sorry for lost Mr Brooks, bereft from his Republican Party, drifting through the dusty corners of the left, and also wondering just what the hell Mr Brooks is talking about. Here's another one.
4
What the hell is "cultural marxism" and why haven't I learned about it in my college courses? hmm....
3
@Trevor
I think that it's code for "The Jewish Conspiracy."
I've been on college campuses almost continuously since 1980, and I've never heard of it anywhere except in an article from the Southern Poverty Law Center about rising anti-semitism, anyway.
And I'm still trying to figure out lingua franca.
2
Instead of finding other reasons that avoid the ugly consequences the conservative movement he championed for decades has wrought, David is letting his proud right show again. "Those damn liberal kids and their wacky parents won't keep off my lawn!"
I am not a Boomer and not one of Brooks' militant leftist, but I did teach at a liberal college through the late 90's and 2000's. At that time the shift in behavior of my students was exclusively due to the relativism propagated by the right. As conservatives were shoving down America's throat the idea that there are two views of the world (liberal and conservative) that were at war, they didn't see the erosion of fact and reality would have serious, long lasting effects on the society. The parents and schools didn't "radicalize" these children - the subjectivity of truth did.
You can't stand idle while a group of people say there is no global warming or Trump is a legitimate president or immigrants are to blame for all our problems or any of the litany of absurdities we hear on a daily basis. It is the conservative world view that spread these lies and to call those who have issues with this "liberal" demonstrates David's lack of understanding and vision. Truth is dying and these young people are scared and believe something needs be done immediately. The battle lines have shifted and they are just reacting accordingly.
Please consider letting David fight the battles of yesterday elsewhere and not on these pages.
9
"Identity politics" is the new evil buzzword that just won't die. I see the right's reaction to it as the discomfort non-marginalized groups feel when they hear stories of how being female, black, gay, muslim, etc. has negatively impacted an individual's life experience, either acutely or in a low-grade chronic way. As a liberal Gen-Xer raising a Gen Z pre-teen in a very liberal area, I wondered how "radical" my child might become--based on the never-ending cultural commentary about the "militant left." But what I see is not militancy, but how being in a certain group is a non-issue for these kids, at least in a diverse middle school of 1,000 kids. For example, he told me a friend of his is gay and that she already had a girlfriend. My first reaction, based on my 1980s schoolyard experiences, was to hush it up, protect the girl from bullies--even with my values. When I asked if she was having any problems, he said, "Why? No, people are cool." That was the point of this whole social experiment, in my opinion. If fear had not been the overwhelming reaction to the idea of diversity, none of this would be happening now.
3
Two words: Merrick Garland.
Tell me why I'm supposed to believe in the sanctity of these institutions when the people elected to uphold them clearly don't see them as legitimate as well.
4
Some, if not most of the comments you write about the "young militants" reminds me of some of the same comments that were written by current boomer students in the 60's. Remember the 60's? Some how those people managed to grow up to restrain some of their earlier tendencies. Possibly the same will be true with this generation.
1
I am over 45, white-collar, executive, big-business manager, but I am totally on the side of the young militants. All the young people I meet on the left side of the political spectrum are clever, highly educated, more aware of the world and of its true nature than we ever were, lost as we were in our chase for money and success in the yuppie years.
But they are right. The system IS rotten. Its foundations are based on privilege, wealth and exclusive access to elite institutions and to power by a small entitled oligarchy. For true democracy to triumph, this entitled, arrogant, selfish aristocracy needs to be defeated.
So I fully welcome the young leftist militants. They have all the right healthy principles. Saving the Earth and its environment. Equality. Fairness. The value and respect for life. Health care for all. A fair and humane society.
I sincerely look forward to an Ocasio-Cortez presidency from 2024 or thereabouts. Only then the world will start to change for the better.
4
The establishment doesn't last more than the blinking of an eye. With total contempt for Marxism, cultural or otherwise, I have to observe that the thesis is always in a permanent state of tension with tennsion with a naturally-arising, burgeoning antithesis.
The observation that the younger generation hews to a different paradigm is re-discovered with each passing generation. And the debate over whether there exists some form of Higher Truth that guides the process just goes on and on, ad infinitum.
I suspect that Brooks is conscientiously trying to form a method of predicting the cultural weather that awaits us, because we may find some hitherto-undiscovered capability of avoiding hurricanes and earthquakes. I seriously doubt that he is right.
Fasten your seatbelts.
The word "generally" appears eight times.
It would be so refreshing to see David Brooks write something concrete and specific, without resorting to that word even once.
5
David you are so wrong to characterize young people as "militants". Healthcare for all, equal pay, equality for LGBT people, and freedom from racial bias, are not dangerous causes. You are in the same group that characterizes the youth from the BLM movement as dangerous radicals and decries "identity politics."
Trump and his GOP enablers are the most dangerous people in our universe and it is time for YOU to realize this and use the power of your pen for GOOD.
5
Thank you for making us think about the boomers. As a matter of fact Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Donald Trump, all of them were 23 years old when Woodstock 1969 was celebrated. 1946 was the greatest year in history to be a President of the United States. Great?
We think that we the boomers had a very complicated time, as follows: The Vietnam War, The Missile Crisis, The Castro-Castrismo, The Assasination of Kennedy, The Berlin Wall, to mention a few tragedies that happened when we were young and restless.
On the other hand we won the Cold War and we had The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones, together with the wonderful group of artists that appeared in Woodstock. Great!
Thank you Sir for your comments, they always make us think. We remember THINK the most famous word of IBM, the company that launched the first PC when we were 35 years old. Good thinking!
With 38% of the country now in favor of fascism, in love with Putin, and sympathetic to Saudi Arabia, Brooks is concerned that some young people think things have gone off the rails? This poor fellow is lost.
6
Mr. Brooks, your use of the term "cultural Marxism" is disappointing. Marx never wrote in any substantial way about culture. Your use of of this phrase, which has becomes a favorite of the alt right, conspiracy theorists and anti-semites, is a failure of analysis.
5
Imagine the children of the right wing. Polluted young brains that seem to be the ones who were showing up in Charlottesville and are leading a more radical right. What about them Mr. Brooks? Seems that the floodgate on that side is wide open too.
5
Does anyone else ever feel like Generation X (my generation) simply doesn't exist or matter to the pundits? All of the Generation Wars articles seem to be about the Boomers vs the Millennials.
I guess Gen X was right to be cynical about our place in the world.
2
Unfortunately the comment by Mr. Brooks that pretty much sums up the reason why the so called “militant progressives” are ascending is the following, “When the generations clash, the older generation generally retreats. Nobody wants to be hated and declared a moral pariah by his or her employees. Nobody wants to seem outdated. If the war is between the left and Trumpian white nationalism, nobody wants to be seen siding with Trump.”
In other words no one is willing to stand up and/or push back on the bully nature of the militants out of fear. Fear of losing status, fear of losing a job, fear of violence, fear being an outcast. Fear is a very powerful tool to get what you want without having to listen or at pause to consider an opposing opinion. Unfortunately an entire generation has learned that lesson well and using it to their maximum advantage!
1
If an example of one family can be used, this column is spot on...both when contrasting my two college kids with my beliefs....and supervising a staff of employees in their 20s. The absolute absolute worst -- they believe that all news is fake....while they would never get within 500 feet of a Trump supporter, his attacks on the press have 100% worked as far as delegitimizing any reporting in their eyes...even that by the most thoughtful outlets...it doesn't matter.
It's very depressing.
1
Our youth are better educated and better informed than we ever were at their age. And they are fed up and disgusted with the fecklessness of the boomer generation's fiddling while the future of our youth burns to the ground in front of their eyes.
1
apparently there aren't too many older liberals left alive, because all the ones I know under the age of about 70 are militants and completely unreasonable and unwavering to any discussion that contradicts they beliefs.
"The cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy."
Are you kidding me? I work in a university. Not coincidentally, you could have written that in 1985, about the time you were last in school. It was an overstatement even then. But now?
I have friends desperately trying to recover and revive something from Marx. I wish them well, but like almost everyone else, I think it is a lost cause and a mistake, though in some sense on the right track.
What on Earth are you even talking about, David?
3
Exactly what, pray tell, is “cultural Marxism”?
You’re buying into and amplifying the dominant right-wing narrative. It’s symptomatic that you rely on anecdotes rather than data. But if you really look at the data, you see a very different picture. For example, around 1970 roughly 10% of college students were enrolled in business, but today it’s about 15%. Similarly, you find high shares in corporate-friendly fields like communications or computer science, which didn’t even exist around 1970, but if you look at fields likely to attract radicals — like the humanities or social sciences — their shares are about what the were 50 years ago.
So where are these radicals? And meantime all this noise about these mythical beings is obscuring the corporate takeover of our universities and, more generally, intellectual life.
1
Mr. Brooks, you and everyone else on the Right who uses the term "Cultural Marxism" seem to be unable to define what it means. Until you can, and you never will because it's a meaningless term, it's just a distraction.
3
I'm older than you and we have a grand gap between us that isn't based on generation but rather on beliefs and values. You pine for institutions that have been compromised and devalued, including our electoral system. The youth are simply doing what they should be doing, questioning authority, addressing the deficits with new ideas and looking for a better path forward. That's their job. Not sure what you are doing with your job. Perhaps trying to justify the alliance you made with a party and philosophy that has run amok.
3
At one time, it was radical to allow anyone without property to vote.
At one one time it was radical to require due process before trial.
At one time it was radical to allow workers to leave a job to find better employment.
At one time it was radical to have a minimum age for workers.
At one time it was radical to pay workers overtime.
6
I think this piece is spot on. True liberalism sees the individual as the common denominator of freedom and places this as the greatest importance. Older Democrats see the community as the common denominator of greatest importance. Younger Democrats see group identity and power dynamics as the common denominator of greatest importance.
1
An awful lot of readers here seem to be drawing from their own social circles when David Brooks brings up this discussion of this under-35 demographic, and apparently are not aware of the ideological trends that Brooks is describing.
The group of "radicals" that Brooks is describing is small, but this group is enormously influential out of proportion to it's numbers. They are over-represented on some college campuses, and also over-represented in some industries, including journalism and in silicon valley. Watch the video of Yale professor Nicholas Christakis when he tried to engage Yale undergrads in October 2015 in a discussion over Halloween costumes, and then think about the percentage of US presidents and supreme court justices who have attended Yale, either as undergraduates or as law students.
The generational and ideological divide isn't over the gig economy, or health care, or student loan debt. Rather, it's about how to have a discussion about these and other issues. Should debate be about exchanging ideas and arguing their merit, or about shouting down and ostracizing those whose views differ from your own? Is it about the idea itself, or the identity of the person espousing the idea?
2
Dear David BROOKS,
CAPITALISM is failing in the face of CHINESE Communism.
I'm 63 and I do not think capitalism works because only the great big businesses and those fully connected were able to utilize it - not that I did not try in my lifetime.
The WOKE generation does not yet understand that voting against the group that generally agrees with you will produce FAILURE on a massive scale. This is how we have tRump. I hope they wise up and do not mess up the liberal movement. Once liberals are fully in charge with House, Senate, and Presidency THEN they can raise their more radical ideas and maybe I'll vote WOKE.
2
I'm 43 and appalled by the fact that our healthcare system is so inefficient, expensive and accessible primarily through insurance plans linked to your job.
I'm increasingly unwilling to tolerate income inequality and the outsize political influence of the wealthy. They underwrite the drafting of legislation, shovel money at politician puppets and poison debates with fake think tanks.
I'm angered by the GOP's efforts to steal elections through gerrymandering and voter roll purges.
I'm disgusted that Washington can't do anything about gun control, even as the bodies of slain children pile up.
I'm shocked that we still can't banish racism from the police and justice system.
I don't consider myself radical. I just want good government and I'm tired of waiting for the people who fancy themselves moderates or centrists to do something about it. Because they aren't.
7
Brooks underestimates the change Trump is bringing about among liberals of all ages. I'm in my 50s and a classic Clinton/Obama centrist liberal, but Trump's rampant misogyny and his attacks on immigrants and people of color have moved me to the left.
I nod my head now when I read Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander. How can anyone doubt the primacy of identity politics today when the president of the Unites States practices it daily? This column might have been accurate a couple years ago, but it's quickly being outmoded by political reality.
6
"If a company fires an employee for writing an inappropriate memo or uttering an inappropriate phrase, it’s usually because there’s been a youth revolt. If a speaker is disinvited from a festival or from campus, it’s often because of a youth revolt. If a writer is fired for a tweet, or an editor has to resign from a literary review because of an unacceptable article, it’s often because of a youth revolt."
Brooks writes this as though there is something wrong with these scenarios. People and companies and universities and etc. should have their feet held to the fire now and then when they are caught up in sexism, violence, racism, or the like. And I am glad that young people are using their political savvy to do the holding to the fire. I just wish that my fellow middle-aged progressives weren't so complacent and mostly fixated on the value of our 401Ks.
3
This piece has no connection to reality. The left was much more radical in the 1970s, with 2,500 domestic terrorist bombings carried out in 1971-2 alone. Currently, the majority of extremist violence is carried out by the far right, who were responsible for 59% of extremist fatalities in 2017.
5
Conservatives love to call liberals “radicals,” but that term most certainly applies to conservatism today. Brooks calls it Trumpism to deflect, but it’s conservatives who sold out whatever principles they had years ago when they embraced economic policies (supply-side) that use big government to punish the poor and enrich the wealthy, military adventurism in the guise of spreading democracy, evangelical Christianity that subordinates women and protects male abusers in their ranks like our president, social policies that pit whites against immigrants and minorities, and conspiracies and junk science that deny the reality of climate change and the destruction of the social fabric through the proliferation of semiautomatic weapons. This country will not heal itself until the Republican Party, the most dangerous organization on the planet, is destroyed.
5
Gosh! Cultural Marxism! Should we run or hide?!
Does Brooks actually have a counter argument, or are we just supposed to be terrified by the idea that something might change? And, I'm kind of amused by the suggestion that American conservatives have actually been promoting the dream of universal democracy abroad. GOP efforts at home would seem to tell a different story.
5
The DEMS tried to talk and compromise, and the GOP adopted the Southern Strategy. Liberals talked and Newt and GOP devolved into "Win at any Cost. Compromising with Rove and the Right brought us Scorched Earth. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, disregard for the constitution( denying the "black president" the powers granted by the constitution) and the list goes on. The GOP has proven Abe Lincoln correct when he said...a true test of a person's character, is to give them power...the GOP has been in total control of America for 8 years. enough said...
5
You could probably make a case for "Conservative parents, Fascist children" as a title for a book. The book you reference was written about the children of the 60's and 70's. They turned out to be the corporate baby boomers, not eco-terrorists.
The alt right seems to take up as much or more of the news cycle than your so-called radicals.
You talk about what makes a good citizen in your column. I think the resist movement today is certainly a component of that. And I would certainly not call that a radical position.
5
Some of these liberal parents, like my son, want to be buds with their kids and never correct them. Little kids don't come into the world knowing how to act. That's what parents are for.
2
Was this generation gap driven more by so-called “liberal” parents or by increasingly greedy conservatives who have spent the past thirty years supporting ridiculously outlandish executive pay increases and hyper-wealth accumulation at the direct expense of everyone else? The racism and greed that has so openly risen to completely dominate today’s GOP says it all. It may now take more than a bit of “radical” liberal action just to clean up the colossal socio-economic mess that conservative philosophers helped so much to shield and foster.
5
Brooks has been making a nice living dishing this anti-boomer trollop to readers for years. Being a Boomer who struggled to pay for college, who got drafted during Vietnam, who built a successful business during challenging times, and who provided end-of-life care for aging parents, I find Brooks boomer bashing to be revealing. It's ironic that he leaves unmentioned the GOP lions (Nixon, Reagan, HW Bush and W) who have been responsible for never ending wars since Vietnam, multiple stock market crashes, double digit inflation, spiraling inflation and near stagflation, free market access for China, growing wage inequality, and the almost total destruction of US manufacturing. And yet during these events Brooks showed a knee jerk blind side to the GOP and all its failed policies and military adventures at the expense of the rest of us.
5
I read the Midge Decter book back in the 70's and found the argument more convincing than Brooks' today.
For one thing, there just aren't that many radical children today; no SDS...no conclaves in Tunis to plot terrorism with Fatah...no Greenwich Village bomb factories. Instead, we have a handful of single-issue advocacy groups, like "MeToo," and "BlackLivesMatter" which are based on race and gender, not age.
For another thing, I have never heard about any executive discussing anything like a "youth revolt" in their business, much less calling their younger generation of workers "Al Jazeera."
(Are you sure you didn't mean Al-Qaeda, Mr. Brooks?)
All this youth revolt talk sounds like something that might crop up at meetings of the Modern Language Association, or perhaps The New York Times Editorial Board.
Even these left wing enclaves, they do not involve actual radicals, but conventionally-ambitious Ivy League types who, perhaps, disappointed their parents by supporting Bernie Sanders over Mrs. Clinton, but never did anything risker than that.
3
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy...Society is a clash of oppressed and oppressor... People who are successful usually got that way through some form of group privilege and a legacy of oppression."
Maybe so, but somehow I doubt these young radicals will reject the massive inheritance they will collectively (no pun) receive from that legacy of oppression - bequeathed by their Boomer parents over the next 10+ years!
Oops, at 60+ I mostly fall into the "militant progressive" camp?! And I would be more solidly there if only I could figure out a realistic way to make the revolution happen (without excessive bloodshed). But even as a 20-something "radical," I believed in being fiscally conservative, though long-term. Too bad neither the Democrats nor Republicans do. Very, very few people in our government are making decisions to save our planet or be fair and kind to the people on it.
2
Not really, David. You are on the wrong boat this trip.
2
In my humble opinion, this Brooks' piece should simply be titled "Intelligent Parents, Intelligent Children." His ongoing lame ideological labelling of people based on their government policy recommendations is arrogant, lazy, and beyond tiresome. Where's the beef, David? Is shallow labelling your idea of policy debate? Surely, the NYT can find a more informative use of your column space.
5
Nope.
3
Whoa there Mr. Brooks. Don't paint young activists who are campioning good causes like safe schools, affordable college and an open dialog where they might have a voice as radicals. Shame on you. We have a radical in the White House. Take aim at him and spare my kids the kick in the face you just leveled at them. I know how scary today's young people must be to you. It's an existential battle for you - they don't buy your hooey.
The media understands them as consumers but fears them as a voting block. You should . . . the rest of us should listen more and lend them a hand. Ask yourself - Do you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? My daughters asked that of their Uncle Steve. Months later my brother gave me his MAGA hat.
From the mouth of babes comes wisdom. Now I'm growing catnip in that hat and I like to feed it liberal doses of steer manure.
Get my drift, Mr. Brooks?
3
The kids mostly ARE correct. The Corporate Democratic Party cannot win anymore. HRC proved this when she lost to Trump. Without the party standing for anything of substance...universal health care, aggressive Climate policies, Free College Tuition, a break of massive corporations...then we will continue to lose to the Trump/GOP.
I'm in my late 30's and it all clicked after 2016. Dems must change or continue to lose, and I will vote for Sanders, O'Rourke, Ocasio-Cortez like candidates.
David,
Where is your comparison to the current "conservative" movement that we are now witnessing? What do young conservatives have to look up to as an example? I agree that the liberal side of the isle needs to reassess their willingness to and need to adapt to the changing world around us but the other side of the isle has morphed into a blatant greed and power hungry machine willing to throw out all the rules and any sense of integrity out the window to win. At all costs. Their principles and true selves have been laid bare and the response from the younger generation, although sometimes a bit misguided, is a reflection to what they are witnessing from current conservatism and the lefts tepid response to it's attack on Democracy. Not surprised that you chose not to even mention it but, hey, at least you are consistent in your complicit stance supporting conservatism in regards to the current state of affairs.
1
The extent to which Brooks is generalizing is truly astounding. Young and old are fit into arbitrary but convenient categories, and then organized into liberal and conservative camps. In its own way this is as specious and dangerous as Trumpism.
Not so convinced by this one. Mr. Brooks describes the sides of some of the divides well, but oversimplifies where the divides are in the electorate. It's easy to do the over-35/under-35 thing (and various other dichotomous delineations), but that doesn't make it true.
If I were to venture an attempt at a dichotomy--not really my cup of tea, but here we go--I'd draw the artificial line that divides us based on how people get informed (or misinformed). Those who mostly learn about what's happening from echo chambers--social media and partisan news sources, especially--and tend to think more in black-and-white on one side. those who carefully consider the source, frequent a variety of sources, have fewer 'sacred cows', and see the world in many shades on the other.
Dichotomies are still not the answer, but the above divide is what I keep seeing and feeling. The former group seems to only grow, and our politics is inflamed and social fabric weakened; while the latter group becomes more rare and easier to dismiss as polyanna or "establishment" by the former, who has mostly ceased to think outside their narrow, tilted, information sources.
1
You forget this key fact: younger people are more likely to think in absolutes than older people. They are less likely to have achieved wisdom. I'm not saying that no older people think in absolutes, or all are wise. It's a matter of likelihood.
Not to mention, the arrogance of youth. Especially those who have yet to learn that they don't know what they don't know.
2
As always, Brooks thinks too much in terms of culture and not enough in terms of human reality. The Boomer protesters he compares to Millennials were driven to radicalism for a reason: the American government was sending their friends and family members to die in a war that had nothing to do with their interests. Today we have a similar situation, but the roots are economic, rather than military. The gig- and tech-based economy has eroded protections for workers, and popular programs like Medicare for All and free college tuition seem utterly hopeless with either a mainstream Democrat or Republican in charge. Additionally, economic insecurity and racial resentment have fueled each other in a self-reinforcing loop, culminating in the election of Donald Trump. Maybe it was possible for a reasonable liberal ten years ago to believe that racism and sexism were the exception, rather than the rule; this is no longer the case. One shouldn't look at the Millennials' hard left turn as a simple culture change: it's a rational response to the world around them.
This is a column (of which Mr. Brooks has more than a few) built around taking pot shots at "straw children" and unsurprisingly coming out victorious. As a liberal parent of two recent college graduates, I can confidently state that they are not nor ever have been radical in the way that Brooks describes it. They support "Me Too" and "Black Lives Matter," but they also voted for Democratic candidates. They have participated in non-violent protests, but have also worked full-time in professional jobs since graduation.
And frankly, how is this much different than youth culture in the Vietnam War era? We temporarily closed down campuses, bombed buildings in extreme cases and frequently offended the sensibilities of older liberal journalists with our willingness to toss objectivity overboard. We were certainly helped create an era of "lower social trust" (Do your own thing), "less faith in institutions" (Question authority), and "a greater awareness of group identity" (Don't trust anyone over 30).
But in fact, just as the radical baby boomers were more a media creation than a movement that could dramatically change the political landscape (Nixon was twice elected as was Reagan), the "Radical Children" of Mr. Brooks' imagination do not a tidal wave make.
Take a lesson from the Boomers, many of whom are now on a misguided mission to make America great again. Don't worry Mr. Brooks. In 3 to 4 decades your "Radical Children" will feel weak and beleaguered too.
2
Thankfully, the world is not so black and white, nor so Boomer/Millennial. Brooks for some reason skips over Generation X, people who were actually raised during the Reagan years (the youngest Boomers had already come of age by the time Reagan got into office), and, for those who went to college, dealt with an earlier version of campus radicalism in the form of 1990s identity politics. A large portion of "people over 35" managing millennial wokesters are in fact part of Generation X. Skipping over people my age seems like a big oversight, since we have the perspective of both having lived in the shadow of the Boomers while never inheriting their place in the sun on one hand, and on the other the experience of adopting and even modeling the mores and relationship to technology commonly associated with millennials while never quite feeling as empowered nor as self-confident as the younger cohort. I think if GenX's perspective were brought into this discussion, I think you'd find that we're a bit more skeptical and pragmatic about the belief systems Brooks sees as clashing: we believe in citizenship and are future-oriented, but we've also been disillusioned with the world Boomers created from the outset.
2
"The older liberals generally believe that the open exchange of ideas is an intrinsic good. Older liberal journalists generally believe that objectivity is an important ideal."
And the youngsters believe that censorship is the answer, stopping speakers from speaking and getting people fired for freely expressing themselves, which is why the radical youth movement is doomed. It is a step towards totalitarianism and flies in the face of true liberalism. American progress has always been achieved by the free flow of ideas. If they think stifling unpleasant ideas, pushing them into the shadows with Victorian diffidence, will win them respect and convince others to join them, they are in for a rude awakening. We need to make America great again in the liberal sense - America was great when we listened to each other and tried to get our minds around the opposing perspectives of other people, instead of just getting offended without even trying to understand.
1
@Samuel Russell,
You should actually go spend some time getting to know some people in college and spend time on campus. Don't believe everything that you hear or read about today's students. I'm an adjunct at two universities, one private, and one public. The current stories about student intolerance and fragility reflect incidents, not general trends. These issues are much more complex than they are portrayed in popular books and in the popular press. The students that I interact with are not only tolerant of ideas, they often have much more flexible thinking than we older folks.
But, not all ideas are created equal: while, admittedly, some of the banner incidents used to illustrate the current intolerance are an embarrassment for the students involved, other (many more) are the result of deliberate provocation by people whose entire modus operandi is to provoke. That's not the hallmark of a marketplace of ideas.
Also, you wrote: " We need to make America great again in the liberal sense - America was great when we listened to each other and tried to get our minds around the opposing perspectives of other people, instead of just getting offended without even trying to understand." This seems like a romantic notion to me. We have been a fractious society since our founding. People who are able to live a relatively comfortable life may be able to live with the illusion that they are tolerant of others' perspectives, but in reality they rarely are.
1
May be Brooks will one day write about how his beloved GOP is racist top to bottom - no generation gap there. At least the "Cultural Marxisits" (!!!) are moving in the right direction. Toward secular humanism. GOP is simply out of touch and on the wrong side of history. I will take a cultural Marxist over a neo-Nazi any day.
3
How did this guy get a job writing a column fot the New York Times? He apparently went to a couple of “organizations” in “blue states” (whatever that means) and asked the “managers”a few questions. On the basis of that he gets validation for some kind of world view about the difference between liberal parents and their children with which he fills an entire column with nothing but unsubstantiated generalizations. This kind of stuff is OK if you are Jesus Christ. We expect that we have to take him on faith. But, David, you are no prophet and without your column you couldn’t even draw a few listeners at Hyde Park Corner.
5
I literally have no idea what the phrase "cultural Marxism" means.
2
What planet is DB living on? What sort of research, other than his own thoughts, is he using. These gross generalizations are embarrassing to read and cannot be taken seriously. The most odious aspect of his column, and this goes for most of them, is the tone of supposed superiority. What a load of hogwash.
6
What exactly is your point,David?
4
Liberal white Jewish parents begat radical liberal white Jewish chiildren.
Radical black Protestant parents begat radical black Protestant children.
From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Fort Sumter to Appomattox to Montgomery to District of Columbia to Birmingham to Grant Park Chicago, black African Americans have dealt with the bane of condescending paternalistic liberal white pity and the burden of condescending paternalistic conservative white contempt. Neither accept the divesrse individual unique accountable lives of black lives that matter.
John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were my kind of white liberal radicals. There was no black Judah P. Benjamin nor Roy Cohn nor Irving Kristol nor Norman Podohretz.
4
Liberal Parents, Radical Children, Nothing New Here!
The generalizations the author makes are astounding. No data here, just pontification!
7
There is no such nonsense as "cultural Marxism." Find another name for your fantasy counter-ideology, Mr. Brooks.
3
This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read.
8
Mr. Brooks: Surely there is something worthy of commenting on. (Say the Black Friday Climate Report.) This is editorial complete drivel. Though I did get a laugh when I read "the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy." Splashing in shallow water does not become you.
2
Talk about misinformation and generalization....Let's talk about what is actually happening based on the social sciences. We are a world full of father issues as a result of horrible wages and lack of opportunity, leading to great stress in families and resulting in many divorces, which cause greater financial strain, even angrier men and depressed women...and permissively raised children - neglected due to overworked and emotionally fraught parents. Study parenting styles: a permissively raised child is going to result in a negative attribution bias (blame vs accountable frame of mind), be self centered due to lack of experience contributing to the maintenance of the household and community, and underachieving: emotionally, physically, mentally and/or socially.
That's what is actually happening. Brooks is in his head himself...hmmmm. Boys are more likely to be indulged by their parents - simply because they are so feisty. This man needs redirection.
Seriously. This man needs redirection. His lower nature is limiting his world view making him see black and white - and you all are spreading his emotional reasoning, not connecting the dots to how it effects the world. Lewin said it best, NYT B=f(P,E). It's a fallacious argument that says popular is reasonable. This man needs structure. How about you? Read about parenting styles. Reparent yourself. Yes, you can - you will always regress when stressed, but your new found grown mindset and humility will know what to do.
2
Wow, "Al Jazeera"? So now we're repeating racist taunting from middle management? David Brooks, you're a class act.
1
This article presents a vague idea with no evidence. Is this what op-ed writers get paid for?
3
I think the vehemence of radicals is driven by the urgency of the environmental crisis the planet is facing.
1
As a college professor who teaches freshmen at a progressive university, I don’t know what Brooks is talking about. My students care a lot about equal rights for all excluded groups, the environment, and especially about racial equality. But they are just one subset of a larger cohort. They certainly are not “cultural Marxists” or whatever convenient slander Brooks like to toss around in lieu of any data. The USA has moved massively to the right in the baby boomers lifetime, with historic inequality and a dysfunctional government both brought to you by Brooks’ Republican Party, whose preferred method of public engagement seems to be denying people the right to vote.
10
Is this a joke? Unbridled idealism and energy have always been part of youth. Then as age, and real life sets in, it mostly lessens. This whole essay says what everyone who has ever lived or raised children knows.
7
I'm Gen X, sandwiched between the generations. I've watched my younger friends struggle with student debt and stagnating wages. That may be why they're not meritocrats.
Since we're generalizing wildly here, I'll say that people of my generation tend to be less militant that millennials but more cynical than boomers.
2
Boomers were shaped by parents with undiagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; a natural and obvious inheritence from global wars. This made fathers remote, a society in need of gauze to blur the scars.
Children are barometers of emotional and mental illness in their caregivers. For example, bullies on the schoolyard are usually bullied at home, by a parent or sibling. A sense of emotional and real abandonment by the "Greatest Generation" after the trauma of war, left their children almost with a kind of Borderline Personality Disorder. In the sixties, the Boomers didn't know what was real, so they manufactured reality, of sorts.
Boomers gave us Earth Day and the disposable single use water bottle. They were the height of selfishness, unable to live up to their parent's sacrifice and heroics, unable to name the brutality that shaped their parents because it was so romanticized by the movies and pop culture, the youth of the sixties did all they could to fill the hole in their hearts.
In a need to overcompensate, they indulged their children. Pampered and sheltered them.
Now we have a fragile generation who will be facing a daunting future, left by their previous generations.
Sorry if they don't comfort your guilt for being terrible role models. They're too busy dealing with the divorces you had, that broke their families and left them as reluctant cynics.
At the end of this, I half expected Brooks to turn the hose on me and shout me off his lawn.
1
Conservatives believe in the "open movement of people and goods"? Where do you see that? In the embargo of Cuba? In immigration policy?
4
I don't think this a new trend. College students, and people in their 20s often take a harder, more ideologically "extreme" stance vs those in their 40s and beyond whose years have made them "soft" or "reasonable" depending on who you ask. As a "Liberal" college professor, I've seen this in my own life, and in the lives of my students.
2
A nice stab at it, David; however, you might also refer to 2 critical factors:
-The idea of Truth, which is linked to the idea of identity and power. Boomers were educated at the tail end of classical science. By contrast, starting in the 1980s, students were taught that there's no truth independent of power and identity. This is Relativism, where the thinker is really a believer. Speech can't be 'free' by definition.
Cynically, Steven Bannon embraces that and exploits it. From that comes KellyAnne's Alternate Facts and Donald's fakery.
2-the emerging female executive role. That's a long story, too long to get into, but a big factor in the 'generational gap'.
Yawn. Another exercise in bifurcation by the ever dualistic Brooks.
What is That in which we are already united?
Generational wars - just another attempt to divide and conquer.
2
I was born in 1946. When I was in college in the sixties I had my own small apartment in Providence. It cost $ 110 a month with everything. College tuition was about $ 1500 per year. I had no car but made enough money during the school year part time to keep the apartment year around. At three dollars an hour I could pay my own rent.
Millenials have got it much harder. Just look at my numbers and look at what They would have to make an hour.....
1
@Tony
We also had jobs and responsibilities far in excess of millenials today.
Although Mr. Brooks sketched a basically accurate portrait of Baby Boomers as all growed up, institutionally connected liberals, I'm surprised he seems to completely miss how radical their counterparts on the right have become. Most of the older liberals I know are pretty mainstream and sensitive to a fault, committed to process, reason, blah de blah. (That's why they're so confounded and aghast we have the president we do.)
On the other hand, most of the conservatives who used to at least mouth those sentiments have, in the age of turning a blind eye to Trumpism, Mitch McConnell denying Merrick Garland, etc., become vehement, unbending warriors for Right Wing Culture. It's all part of the extinction of moderate Republicanism, and its effects are resounding. The fact that it doesn't even get a nod here is most perplexing.
7
Classic David Brooks...
Pick something that is personally bothering him. Create a strawman using unverifiable anecdotes ("I often ask..") to make it seem like his problem is everyone's problem.
Explain to all of us underlying cause(s) of the strawman argument.
Lament the inevitability and close with a sad irony.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
5
As I read this article, I kept asking myself: Where are the data – the numbers? Do discontented younger people constitute a majority – even a numerically significant minority – or do they simply hog the spotlight, abetted by youth-worshiping journalists?
Did the so-called Woodstock Generation truly represent their generation? Many in my generation didn't demonstrate, even when they sympathized, to varying degrees, with the demonstrators. Was their silence considered to be consent?
Nixon and his allies talked about the "silent majority", pitched political appeals to them, and – *handily beat liberal upstarts in elections*! I've long wondered whether liberal-leaning and centrist journalists' (e.g., NY Times') "first drafts" of the history of those times reflects the underlying numbers (are the needed data even available?). Are today's mainstream journalistic cohorts, writing qualitative articles like this one by David Brooks, Doing the same?
Data, please!
2
I imagine Mr. Brooks' workday: wake up, have a coffee and something to eat, walk the dog and get an idea about "Everything" as a kid on a motorized scooter goes by. Begin strong, talking about other peoples subjective lives without any research. End with a whimpering Trumpian paraphrase: "I guess we'll find out!" This one in particular piqued my interest as I identify as a liberal and have kids. However, they aren't hung up on categorical leanings and are very open to various ways, so long as those ways are not racist, sexist, violent, etc. Pretty simple.
3
Bernie Sanders, who gave Clinton a run for her money, does not fall in either category described in the article. He is far to the left, definitely not a moderate, but at the same time not a militant. He offers a representation of a thoughtful, moral and compassionate ideology that is not "somewhere in the middle." The idea that sanity always resides in the middle is dangerous. We are referring to the middle of what we know, rather than consider a much wider spectrum of things that are completely foreign to the way we live now. "Somewhere in the middle" in the times of slavery would still be a travesty. Absolute equality would have been considered militant by many people. This is not to say that the categories described by Brooks do not exist; it is merely an argument against the idea that we all need to draw ourselves toward the safety of the center.
4
The first modern use of identity politics, at least outside the old Confederacy, was Tricky Dicky's Silent Majority. These were the people who were unhappy about how the Vietnam War was going but trusted the leadership to bring it to a successful conclusion and resented those who were protesting the war. The by-then-obvious course of the war showed that their trust was misplaced (there was just no way to get a South Vietnamese government that would last for long once we withdrew), but rather than admitting this and dealing with it they resented and hated those who bore the bad news and insisted on rubbing their faces in it.
The inheritor and perfecter of this resentment-based identity politics is The Donald. The identity politics of the Left is based on affirmation rather than resentment. It is a demand for fair and equal treatment rather than a demand that we deal with our problems by hanging on to the old ways, trying harder, and not knocking the greatest country in the world.
1
In this blue state, the only organizations that matter to young people are Amazon and Facebook and Microsoft etc. and the local bike shop and craft beer joints.
2
Oversimplification will get us nowhere, although I see your point WA. We ride the waves of our generation in ignorance and willfulness: enjoy youth now, as it will be our turn tomorrow... to ride out the consequences of our conditions ( that we had a fun time... just like the boomers); nothing, not Amazon or fb, or craft beer is here to stay exactly as it was conceived.
@roseberry Sounds like things have calmed down a bit since the "Battle of Seattle" (circa 1999). Amazing what a moderating effect it can be to have to work for a living.
This is rich coming from David Brooks, who has spent the past 20 years characterizing liberals as childish hypocrites.
9
David, thanks for reminding me how totally stratified - and maybe ossified - your thinking structure is. What's loud and clear in this particular essay, dearheart, is that you feel o-l-d. Get a grip. And try to remember that people really, truly don't ever fit quite so nicely into your little boxes (much as you like them).
7
I stopped at "cultural marxism", which is a sure indicator of nonsense to follow.
5
In the fiction titled “The World According to David Brooks” all you have to do is believe that something is real and – voila! – it’s real. This is a survival strategy in which one reduces complex systems to simplistic paradigms. This “cognitive simplicity” is easier for people to understand, and secondly it provides for social stability in the mind of the believer. The world is a dangerous threatening place, but if you convince yourself that its institutions are stable, then everything is ok.
All of the attributes Brooks assigns to “older liberals” – e.g. ”individualistic and meritocratic,” and belief that “the structures of society are basically sound” – are by definition characteristics of conservatism. The establishment Democratic Party has moved so far to the right that it is the equivalent of what conservatism was when the older Democrats were young. But they kept the liberal label in spite of the fact that they now act like conservatives. These are Brooks’ people; they embrace his cognitive simplicity and share his confidence that “faith” alone produces a stable society.
For Brooks “meliorism” is a pejorative and he assigns it to “militant progressives.” In a stroke of naked cynicism Brooks dismisses the idea that the world can be improved by humans, and instead praises the faith-based strategy of older “liberal-conservatives” who whistle past the graveyard with a blind faith in the stability of democratic social systems.
It’s secular religion – just believe.
3
(...Lead photo: "Protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court in October while Brett Kavanaugh was inside being sworn in as a justice.CreditCreditDamon Winter/The New York Times...") [op cit]
--
What an amazing photo!
I'm guessing that it's been heavily retouched.
It almost looks like artwork--an oil painting--depicting the latest, "rage! against the machine."
--
What is obvious in any case, is that the individuals pictured here have stopped thinking: And what apparently fills their collective mindset is, well, "a kind of dangerously pure emotion," devoid, if only for the moment, of *all* reason and judgement(!)
--
It's terrifying.
There's no discourse, not even feeling.
These youngsters, whose souls have been captured and frozen in that brief moment by a random "click" of a camera, are no longer human.
**
I remember living through, "Kent State," in the spring of 1970. Our school had shut down, like many others, for a day or two.
It was a cautionary [and wise, I think] move on the part of college administrators across the Land.
—
The issue then was Vietnam.
We, I say—that is, those of that time of all ages and persuasions—needed to “cool down.”
We desperately needed, “just a little bit of precious time, to recover from our collective void, before emerging from the opposing trenches, to begin thinking and reasoning, and talking, once again.”
**
What goes around comes around.
—
It’s not what happens, but how you handle it, that matters.
2
Classic David Brooks, "Get off my lawn!" How does Brooks still have a mandate from the NYT to write columns like this?? This activist generation is a blessing, not a curse. At a time when "educated conservatives" are still denying climate change we need all the "radical" progressives we can get.
4
Generalize, Distort, Miss and Add - GDMA. That's what David Brooks is doing in this piece. Nobel prize winning work done by Kahneman that fanned the behavioral economics movement calls this casual (vs deliberate) thinking, and describes this kind of perspective taking as the lazy controller. This is not what's needed - ever. How much is this man being paid to spread imaginary divisions.
Where is the science? You encourage lazy thinking too. You know what blue states are filed with? People from red states, especially their children.
A critical thinker defines their terms. A journalist questions their thinking.
Where is the research from parenting styles? What is actually happening, besides the NYT's permissive culture allowing a man like this to be so self indulgent? I really don't care about the opinion of someone who doesn't care enough to apply critical thinking skills.
As a social scientist who develops individuals and groups, I can only say this about this guy - he is strengthening the very issue he is missing - about the fixed mindset that is pervasive in this country and the struggle parents everywhere are having raising their children to be part of something instead of the center of it. It's a world full of father issues - and Brooks is taking advantage of it by doing as little as possible for the most personal gain. I am literally nauseous that the NYT allows such sloppy thinkers so much space. B=f(P,E). Your organization has issues, emotional reasoning is our death.
3
Never been impressed with brooks but he should really do a bit of research before he drops a “cultural Marxism” trope. I at least hope he is unaware of its Nazi origins but this reads like it was ghost written by Jordan Peterson so maybe that’s why.
2
"Younger educated conservatives are more likely to see the dream of universal democracy as hopelessly naïve, and the system of global capitalism as a betrayal of the working class. Younger conservatives are comfortable in a demographically diverse society, but are also more likely to think in cultural terms, and to see cultural boundaries."
Where are these unicorns?
4
I am the father of a Millennial and she is more politically correct than I and less supportive of free speech. The more I talk to her and her friends the more I realize that the problem is the likes of David Brooks and others who fail to look in the mirror. One only has to read Max Boot's Corrosion of Conservatism to recognize the problem. As Boot became more alienated from Trump he looked back to Goldwater and the like. He recognized the racism and bigotry built into the Republican rightwing. Those who support tolerance and fairness see the leaders of the country who have power because of gerrymandering to be hypocrites and liars.
1
@Daniel A. Greenbaum
She's not supportive of free speech but the problem is David Brooks? No no, the problem is her!
At 56, I am one of those liberal parents who scratches his head in dismay as his son (an unrepentant Bernie-boy who refused to support HRC) goes on about the bankruptcy of capitalism. But as long as people like David Brooks stick with the GOP and bronze age religious morality through the age of Trump, I have to admit the kids have a point.
285
@Don My thoughts exactly - I was about to write something along these lines, but no need, as you expressed it so eloquently and succinctly. For the record, I am 66.
25
Don. you are so right-on. Brooks will do anything to demean the left of center, the old left, the new progressives, and the so-called Socialists, while at the same time he can't apply his means to the various areas of the right-wingers.
25
@Don
Sounds like he could use a little lesson on capitalism and how it's lifted people all over the world out of poverty.
13
Gee, David, make many sweeping generalizations? I am a Liberal/Progressive, not as old as you but not a millennial either, and I see the world pretty much the same way they do. Trump not only appalls me, he sickens me to the core and I loathe him with an intensity I didn't think possible. The man is utterly corrupt, disgusting, piggish, cruel and almost certainly a traitor. But, I no longer trust our institutions, either. They are also corrupt, not in the way Trump says. They are corrupt because they have become massive tools of subjugation designed to protect the rich and hammer the poor and middle class. The Justice system, the IRS and Congress itself have in fact become the enemy of the people, and we, millennials and baby boomers alike, see the rot all around us and want no part of it. Revolution may be the only answer.
7
Saul Alinsky said it well: “Carpe diem.” Perhaps our young people will have the courage to make the hard decisions and take action instead of mincing about trying not to offend the old folk defending the status quo.
1
@Neil R I hope so!
“I guess the final irony is this: Liberal educated boomers have hogged the spotlight since Woodstock.”
This is an extremely dishonest and misleading statement. It implies a continuity with what Woodstock symbolized and our situation today. What in fact happened after Woodstock was a reaction by the political elite who thought the people now had too much freedom and democracy. Thus new policies were implemented to limit this. The increase in the cost of college with the resulting burden of student debt is a perfect example of this. It didn’t happen by accident. College graduates burdened by debt were unlikely to be radicals. The debt was designed to keep them in line. (Despite what Brooks claims, young people are rather conservative in outlook.) Young people have every right to be angry but not with those who enjoyed the freedom of Woodstock. Rather, their anger should be directed to those (probably like Brooks) who found the freedom frightening.
3
See this is where you start parroting the language and faulty arguments I would be more likely to see on Fox News. There is some bias and lack of depth and breadth in who you are meeting and describing. The Democrats hammered the Republicans this election in part of youth engagement, great laudable engagement in voting and politics, and yet you focus on the minority of "militant progressives". And honestly, isn't it odd that you use the term 'militant'. I would say the militants are those driving cars into protesters, shooting people in synagogues and churches, literally killing people. I sure don't see that from the Left. I am disappointed in the weakness of your argument, that is implied in the article title. Methinks you are in a bubble and finding reinforcing arguments for your own myopia.
2
Mr Brooks,
While I generally respect your views as a reasonable, articulate, moderate voice of conservatism, in this column you seem to have jumped off the deep end. "Cultural Marxism" is not a thing that exists, except in the groupthink of the Trumpists/Fox News conspiracy-minded segment of society. (crypto-fascists? formerly silent enablers of racism? neo-nationalists?)
When you write, "People who are successful usually got that way through some form of group privilege and a legacy of oppression," can any serious-minded person honestly disagree with this? Is this not fully confirmed by the demographic profile of past and present members of Congress, the Presidents, corporate CEOs, etc.? Is this not further confirmed and exemplified by the tradition of legacy admission to Ivy League and similar institutions? and by the total blot on humanity that currently inhabits the White House?
Geez. and I suppose climate change is not real, and that Bigfoot is. Oh, and 9/11 was a false flag operation, and Obama was born in Kenya. C'mon, please do better in your next column.
Not the best article by Mr. Brooks, as so many commenters have pointed out.
That said, he is onto something here... there is a pernicious form of leftist ideology in certain pockets of the country (I live in Seattle, so I know). I’m liberal, and have voted straight-ticket Democrat for my entire life. But, I feel increasingly marginalized by an illiberal ideology further to the left of me.
For example, if a black person is killed by a white cop, the “woke” crowd will believe with every shred of their being that it was a racist killing, without knowing any details of the case at hand. Such is the strength of their blind ideology. Should someone question this line of thinking (like me), they would be labelled at minimum as a naive bigot and at worst as racist by the woke crusaders. I’m doing so, they silence those who don’t share their uncompromising ideology (like me; I admit I’m afraid to be mis-labelled a racist). In other circumstances they actively force institutions to disinvite speakers with whom they disagree. That is why this ideology is dangerous despite its ultimately good intentions (equality, etc). That is how this fringe left becomes anti-free speech: by policing what can be said and what cannot. And they do this, despite on some level knowing that it is wrong, because it earns them prestige from their in-group. Please let’s break this cycle of weak ideology so that we can talk openly and have real discussions about the issues!
3
This entire column reads like it was written in 1968, after witnessing a draft-card-burning, anti-Vietnam war demonstration.
Pull up Billy Joel's "Angry Young Man" and give it a listen, please.
The more things change, the more they remain the same, David.
1
"The militants have more conviction…..
The younger militants tend to have been influenced by…..
The militants are more likely to believe…..
The older liberals generally believe…..
The older liberals tend to be……
Boomers generally think……..
The boomer conservatives……. generally believe….
Younger educated conservatives are more likely….
Younger conservatives are comfortable…."
I’m not sure who these people are. It would be good to better define your categories. In the age of Trump, this column sounds a lot like unsubstantiated “a lot of people are saying” type of commentary. Making it up on a slow news week?
However, I do agree with one observation: “Liberal educated boomers have hogged the spotlight since Woodstock.” I agree that intellectually and culturally my liberal sector of the boomer generation has been central to the American conversation. It is the resentment of those who felt educationally, religiously, or culturally alienated from this zeitgeist (and the use of fancy words like zeitgeist) that fueled the angry victory of our new Tea Party world.
1
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy."
"Cultural Marxism" and "elite academy"? Those are nonsense terms that serve no purpose except to trigger the conservatives trained by Fox News jibberish.
Brooks pretty much nails it. Young Liberals (L used intentionally) today gain credibility only through self-loathing. If you don't start a conversation by acknowledging your privilege, you're morally inferior. Young conservatives seem to be a reaction-formation to this; incels and 4chan addicts who seem to have trouble contributing in any meaningful way to society. Classical liberalism is at a nadir. Centrists and open thinkers are afraid to open their mouths in fear of being shouted down or shot. This is precisely what Putin wanted when he anointed his useful idiot Trump; loss of faith in openness, free exchange of ideas, rule of law and color-blind societies. He stoked the smoky fires of Old Europe very effectively.
2
As a 26 year-old liberal, I was going to write something scathing and imply that Brooks is going senile.
Instead, I have good news: five years after graduating college, I can see myself finally paying off the last of my student loans within the next three years.
I'll be debt-free by 30! Yes! What? A house? No, thanks.
3
Brooks pointed out the problem but ignored the cause. The media plays a direct hand in the radicalization of today's youth. Just look at the completely one sided coverage, even by the Times, of every article about Trump, or the Kavanaugh hearing, or the Caravans attempting to storm the border from the south. Mr. Brooks and all his colleagues at the Times need to take a good look at themselves in the mirror, and acknowledge the role they play in this fiasco.
1
This is a terrible article with more emphasis on labels then holding a mirror up to reality. How many on the left are 'militant' and how many are 'classically' liberal? What magical event happened to change opinions? Does this article have any basis in reality besides the a prior ramblings of an 'outsider' looking in?
2
Mr. Brooks, as my father used to say, is "a sophisticated rhetorician inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity." What a bunch of poppycock. The one relevant fact in his meandering column is that we live in a time of reduced trust and faith in our government and the institutions and norms of our rich democratic legacy ... all of which are the result of a Republican campaign toward that end.
So enough of the endless handwringing on the right about the failed baby boomer lefties and their angry offspring. "... culural Marxism" really you can do better than that.
5
Liberals are in the business of being offended. And business is good.
2
@Mr. Moderate
LOL. Business is certainly booming. You might even say these are the best of times.
Those darn kids. Listening to that “music”, taking those funny-sounding drugs, and “experimenting” with sex. Be afraid.
Lot’s of sterotypes and invented labels like”cultural Marxism”.
David is the “square” who “tried pot once”, resents those “hippies” on the left from the 1960s. Sometimes his convoluted apologia for the right-wing just boils down to this.
3
As Michael Tomasky said not to long ago on these pages: "You want fewer socialists? Easy. Stop creating them."
2
Just a world of caution from a Boomer to all the Millennials seeking better for themselves and those who will follow: learn from the mistakes we made. We tried to change the world, and we succeeded, just not the way we planned. Strong movements create strong backlash among the fearful, and nothing is more powerful than fear.
The Christian Right is the direct result of the student movements of the 1960s. Which group has had the greater impact? Avoid creating a countermovement by being inclusive. It's the harder path, but one more likely to succeed.
8
No wonder Brooks is an "Eventually Trumper", they share some rhetorical devices:
Trump: "People are saying..."
Jacob Wohl: "I was in a hipster coffee shop..."
Brooks: "When I meet someone who runs an organization in a blue state..."
Trump: “I love the poorly educated”
Donald Trump, Jr.: "We'll take $200,000 of your money; in exchange we'll train your children to hate our country."
Brooks: "The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy"
Trump: “I think the food is good. I think all of those places, Burger King, McDonald’s, ...The other night I had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not the worst thing in the world.”
Brooks: "Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop...I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican."
7
Getting decent pay for adjunct professors seemed to be a top priority for young liberals at my college. Radical, huh?
Please try talking to young people more. Our opinions might not be what you expect.
6
When I was young in the 1960s I thought that civil rights for all had been won and wasn't I so lucky to live in a society where everyone was truly treated equally. As the decades have progressed, I learned that this worldview is of course laughable. I'm glad that the younger generation (my children included) have picked up the torch. They inspire me every day by continuing to show up and to speak up. There is no generation gap - just new (and renewed) zeal adapted to the 21st century. Go people, young and old and all those in between!
5
What about the Times, David? I'm guessing the place is crawling with fiercely intelligent, and thoughtful, millenial interns. I've certainly seen more of this from millenials than the radicals you write about. If you go looking for radicals on college campuses you'll find them. And they are annoying. But I'm pretty sure they are actually a small percentage of students. The far left didn't even fare that well in the mid-terms. Calm down.
1
@Jeff
Radicals of all stripes are a "small percentage." Alas, they make the world turn. A little bit of cancer is still cancer.
1
Geez, Strawman much? Even I'm terrified now of these "radical children" reigning tyranny over these poor liberal grown ups. Mildly interesting to see liberal anarchy reframed as being within the Democratic party vs. against Republicans. Not sure what to make of that "innovation".
Interesting thesis. For what do you blame conservative parents?
4
Earth to David Brooks - only a microscopic number of younger people have any connection to "the elite academy." But feel free to keep us posted about the imaginary occupants of your bubble.
6
The op-ed engages in rather gross and coarse characterizations of liberal and conservative, young and old with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. I find his framing of the world absent of any nuance and the reading of society as a body of cliques and stereotyping of its members completely immature and unhelpful. It's as if a junior high school student wrote this.
Not sure what the point of the op-ed piece is other than some kind of thinly veiled critique of a "militant" left (activism and protesting is not militancy as the photograph accompanying the op-ed shows. Running people over with a car a la Charlottesville is). Not even bothering to mention the swell in the ranks of white nationalists and Neo Nazi groups and the violence it has fomented is dishonest and skewed. So no, if one wants to be coarse, I would argue younger conservatives are not comfortable in a demographically diverse society as Mr. Brooks states.
If only Mr. Brooks would stop trafficking in the same tribalism which he purportedly seems to be critical of here, maybe I'll start listening then. I don't need you to define the world for me in such simplistic terms Mr. Brooks. It is not assembled of children's building blocks and seeing the world this way only deepens the divisions and exacerbates the militancy with which you seem to be condemning.
3
"David Brooks writes something correct and interesting, I am literally shocked"-- my quasi Marxist 24 year old poli sci grad of Reed College. My 20 year old activist daughter adds: "kinda like old feminist vs. new."
He has been harping on how complicit the liberals are for years, and clarified for me that my leanings are actually Democratic Socialist. Take a listen to EL Chapo Trap House podcast if you want to hear a bright and entertaining representation of this mindset.
https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house.
Our country is in the middle of a colossal Capitalist FAIL. I'm just relieved these kids are THINKING about alternatives.
1
I would like to see the “boomer” generalization more specific by gender, income, and race. This may more accurately describe affluent, white liberal baby boomer men —who have benefitted most from the current socioeconomic power structure.
I, a not always gracefully aging baby boomer, living through the original run of the Liberal Parents, Radical Children soap opera in the 1960s. The series went off the air with the subsequent (and consequent) election of Richard Nixon. Do I have to watch this again?
2
"We live in a rape culture, with systemic racism and systems of oppression inextricably tied to our institutions. We live in a capitalist society, a neoliberal system of exploitation. A person’s ideology is determined by his or her status in the power structure."
Yes, I agree. And I'm in my 50s. And I'm not a 'militant Progressive. I'm simply a progressive and a realist.
2
Sigh...more didactic condescension from Mr. Brooks lamenting the pervasiveness of that which he has played a substantive role in creating.
7
Capitalism and democracy are not mutually supportive. Only in the ideological fantasies of of Hayek and Friedman are they integrated, and only because of the alleged primacy of "individualism." This belief leads Brooks to accept the notion that the successful "yuppies" of the baby boom did it all by themselves, without any other influences that worked in their favour: parents who could afford to send them to universities, favourable tax treatment that allowed them to have upscale houses and autos, social connections that paved the way to upward economic mobility and public policies that enabled a select few to take advantage of policy created opportunities.
The young today are increasingly interested in the relatively narrow funnel of success, how those who succeed do not reflect the composition of the American population. However, there is nothing all that new about such militancy - Bellow wrote "Mr. Sammler's Planet" a half-century ago. Political correctness is not new, although it might be more pervasive, but not all pervasive.
What Brooks has ignored is the fundamental rottenness of major parts of the American society: the racists who were Democrats before LBJ are now Republicans; the supporters of Taft-Hartley are now "globalists;" and the alleged proponents of individualism gerrymander to render some more equal than others.
In reality, it is neoliberal and reactionary parents and children whose liberalism depends on whether your views are acceptable to them.
2
David is really struggling this week to fill his column.
5
Yes, Mr. Brooks, young people are becoming impatient with older folks who have been selling conservative snake oil for decades. Young people may have developed the good sense to realize federal deficits get larger when fat cats get tax cuts. They can see climate change devastating communities while our latter-day Nero and his acolytes obfuscate and lie. They see through the thin Republican veil of false patriotism obscuring the GOP embrace of racists and Neo-Nazis. To paraphrase a former young radical - You know there’s something happening here, but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Brooks?
3
Yep, it is those young left radicals that are marching with AR15's, chanting "Jews will not replace us", killing anti-abortion "service providers", and they are the ones that are holding wages down and are anti-labor.
Thanks for reminding us.
3
Of course, Midge Decter wrote her book well on her transformation from a liberal (really what we would call today "neoliberal") to neoconservative, as she and other NY Jewish intellectuals became more and more horrified by the potential of the radicalism of their highly educated kids (already morphing, in most cases, into yuppiedom, of course) to upset not just Americdan capitalism, but even more important, America's lockstep support for Israel . Brooks' job has always been to provide a fake "moral" smokescreen for America's Wall St oligarchs and their plans to impoverish the masses by remorselessly replacing them with peons abroad and robots at home. He's like a personification for the bad faith of his entire boomer generation of meritocratic elites, its absurd pretense of being "moral" simply by embracing cost-free support for Identity Politics, while backing, and profiting mightily from, the remorseless screwing of the American working class and the explosion of American inequality. Brooks is nothing but a propagandist for the Kochs and the rest, an apparatchik of the oligarchy. To paraphrase Thomas Carlyle in a different context; "Close your David Brooks, and open your Thomas Franks" in order to face the shame of Brooks and his whole generation of sell-out boomer well-paid servants of American oligarchy, made more shameful by their Identity Politics sense of fake moral superiority.
The radical young will mellow out into liberals (or even conservatives) as they start paying taxes, raising kids, and struggling with a job, a mortgage, and a loss of certitude in their own rightness. They will realize, as the boomers of the Sixties did, that the world is made from infinite shades of grey and that the problems we face are exceedingly complex and have no clear answers.
7
@Throckmorton
If they are lucky they will also realize how good they have it and how fortunate they are to indulge in their kind of "worries" (compared to some parts of the planet).
"The boomer conservatives, raised in the era of Reagan, generally believe in universal systems — universal capitalism, universal democracy and the open movement of people and goods."
Have you been living in a cave for the last few years? The boomer conservatives voted overwhelmingly for a candidate whose central plank was eliminating "the open movement of people." And how dare you say anything about "universal democracy" when extreme gerrymandering in one state after another preserved Republican statehouse supermajorities against the expressed will of the people, and Brian Kemp literally stole the governorship of Georgia by ruthlessly suppressing black voters.
I know your job is to excuse literally everything the Republican Party does as somehow acceptable, but you aren't even good at it.
7
Yes, David too easily engages in typecasting generations and movements. A lot of truth is none the less said in this piece.
I'm one of those Boomers who, appalled by what the GOP has become from Lee Atwater, racist dog-whistles and fundamentalist religion now joined at the hip, currently votes mostly Democrat. Like many Boomers I also think most of our institutions and our Constitution can be rescued and a radical tear-down is nonsense.
The responses here range from thoughtful to disingenuous. Brooks is talking about the identity politics, gender politics, permanent victim-hood crowd. He is not talking about those who want affordable health care, a safe and vibrant planet, or economic justice and ending wage stagnation. We Boomers who are not hard left and don't want a walkout because you didn't get a so-called "trigger warning", want those things also.
This essay is so logically chaotic that in trying to tease out the knots, it reminds me of that old childhood game Pick-up-Sticks (so yeah, I'm a Boomer, am also mixing my metaphors)--just grab a handful of disparate generalizations, let them fall any which way, and try to unscramble them one by one, without disturbing the others.
As a college prof and an arts practitioner, I spend a lot of time with young people. The bullying, shrieking, ignorant, spoiled young (and the sedate, whatever-you-say-dad, young conservative) that Brooks describes bear no relationship to those I encounter daily.
For the most part, they share the energy and enthusiasm of youth and direct those precious assets to planning for their future economic stability and, equally--whether from Repub or Dem backgrounds--to determining how they can contribute to a more ethical world.
Brooks should get out more.
4
I’m sorry but I am 68, grew up in the 60’s and fully agree with the young.
The system is rotten and we need a new paradigm.
When I speak to my Trump supporting friends, and we get to the bottom line,
They agree with me.
They system is rotten and the powers that be, such as you, just don’t get it.
Our only hope is that the young figure it out better than we did.
1
I usually find Brooks measured and thoughtful, but in this he is off the rails. As I read this piece, the argument sound very much like the conservative case against marijuana: begin with marijuana, end with heroin. Or begin with liberal parents, end with Marxists. Really!
3
Yes, I think you got a lot of this correct. David Brooks is definitely a genius of a sort.
We have a huge generation gap in terms of values, goals and such.
The old complains: you have everything we ever wanted.
The young complains: you didn't know what we wanted.
What do we want? I can't speak for everyone, but I'll speak for my family:
We want family and community experiences based in cooperation and not competition.
1
Boomer conservatives believe in the open movement of people? Which people are you talking about, Mr. Brooks?
5
Progressive? America's political debate is so skewed that it cannot use the correct term "socialist" as in their tainted McCarthyist hatred of the left they always equate it with the excesses if Stalin. Welcome to the real where the idea of the commonwealth and commonweal will lead to a better society.
2
I think I would like to write something in defense of cultural Marxism. Yes, it actually exists and it means applying Marx’s theory to analyzing culture. It is just an analytical tool, and it works very well in certain situations. But the vehemence with which self-styled liberals here claim that it is a right-wing slander makes me suspect that first, they have never read “Das Kapital” (I have); and second, that they know that Marxism as a political ideology is a problem for the left. If you argue that capitalism has failed, you have to offer an alternative. Marxism is such an alternative. It was tried and failed, not just miserably but at the cost of tens of millions of lives. No left-wing critique of capitalism can be intellectually honest if it does not come to terms with this fact. It has not, and I doubt it can.
1
I used to think this was purely an academic issue with leftist professors pushing a dated Marxist philosophy. Now I find it invading my working and home life. A colleague raised in the Soviet Union is forced to go to a required "sensitivity training" and sees the group-think she saw as a child, a friend is fired without review because of uttering an unknown, obscure, racist slight. It seems many of our core freedoms are at risk as much as from the radical left as from the fringe right. And the liberal boomers are letting it slide away because of not wanting to be out of step.
Mr. Brooks refers to Midge Decter's "outstanding book" and then links us to a very negative NYT Book Review that, among other things, faults the author because "She does not condescend to provide context, concrete examples or footnotes." Much the same could be said about the current piece. Naturallly, we don't expect footnotes for an OpEd piece, but certainly context and concrete examples, as opposed to simplistic, and sweeping generalizations, would be appropriate here.
2
"Virtue involves the self-display of a certain indignant sensibility, and anybody who doesn’t display that sensibility is morally suspect."
And it is the demand that one expresses Maximum Outrage at any troubling incident in order to prove one's Good Guy progressive bona fides which explains our politics.
Fire James Damore from Google because he hurt female feelings in a memo. A Starbucks manager asks two non-paying black men to either buy something or leave (and they refuse), and it's The New Jim Crow. Assert that biology determines sex and some behaviors, and you're a hateful, hetero-normative oppressor. Destroy the careers of Al Franken and Garrison Keillor as if they were Weinstein. And on and on and on.
And do this all in the name of "progress" and "justice."
Trumpism was born of this. The GOP has been feeding off of this for decades. It is why most Republican voters vote GOP even though it means "voting against their economic interest."
The Outrage Olympics engaged in and demanded of by the "progressive" left reminds me of the reaction of villagers in Saddam's Iraq, where the men would literally cry and swoon over his visit, so utterly desperate to prove their Good Guy bona fides, lest their loyalty was questioned.
Yes, it is a form of "cultural Marxism," and it's as damaging to society and liberty. Real liberalism must fight it.
1
As so often with his sweeping and dichotomous generational generalizations, David Brooks, as the careful reader will notice, spoke to no one from this “militant progressive” under 35 cadre.
2
With the skeptical belief that this is not true, "The militants are more likely to believe that the system itself is rotten and needs to be torn down", then David, you are the frog in the pot.
Could we have some evidence please? Pew? American Enterprise Institute, Brookings? Someone who has made a serious attempt to analyze the trends--if they exist--that Brooks sees?
2
Quick summary of the young "wokesters" position, never trusty anyone over 30 - Jack Weinberg circa 1963
1
I'm 42. Mr. Brooks' descriptions for both generations apply to me. I have gained some success in life...through BOTH hard work and the advantages of privilege.
Also, Mr. Brooks is putting people into boxes that are too simple and too reductionist. People are intrinsically complex.
Also, this piece is just lazy. With a little research, he might discover the reasons why young liberals believe in a rape culture, for instance. Could it be because a lot of people have been raped? Instead he throws a familiar boogeyman (college professors) under the bus.
This seems to be a softball thrown at his base of nice, older conservatives looking for reasons to be suspicious of young people. A little more digging would bring his argument crashing to a heap.
1
Radical, hippie parents and a socially conforming, apolitical daughter - who I love to pieces. Like everything else, these cycles run in both directions.
The Chinese Communists never suspected their children would turn into Red Guards and denounce them. Today's liberals should look long and hard at the intolerance on their kid's college campus and understand that they are not immune from the radical excesses they tolerated for years against conservatives.
I just happened on an article on Vox about how Baby Boomers broke America and an interview with Bruce Gibney about his book on the same subject. Reading Mr. Brooks' op-ed makes me think that the militant millennials are the natural consequence of what Baby Boomers did with and to the institutions they set such great store by. Caught between are Gen-Xers like me who hope the institutions work and millennials succeed in making their society more equal but are cynical about both the institutions and the power of the millennials to create lasting change. I for one am relieved to have not had children. I can no longer look at babies and not think of the path of thorns their parents and grandparents are leaving them.
I'm a 27 year old former liberal turned independent conservative. My advice for young people: first step: delete your social media, second step: for every NYT article you read, read one in the Wall Street Journal. Balance is the key here. Your identity is not defined by your armchair activism. Identity politics will be the death of both parties. Start understanding that politics is 99% gossip and probably worse for your soul than most reality TV shows. Take at least 10 minutes a day to meditate or pray. Read Ecclesiastes and start to understand that 'there is nothing new under the sun.' We live in a blip on the radar, a moment in history. You are not exceptional, but you have infinite dignity as a human person on this planet. This isn't the Apocalypse, but it also isn't the Beginning. Memento Mori. Think for yourself. Know why you believe what you believe.
192
@K . Amen, and that's why I subscribe to both NYT, WSJ, The Economist, and the New Republic. I want to see more than one side.
Identity politics are the gravest threat to the American Republic yet.
24
@K well, all true, ....except that this IS the time of Apocalypse, according to environmental reports. Or do you, like trump, just dismiss all evidence that our ecosystem is being destroyed?
41
@Ernest Montague
There is no such thing as identity politics.
It's a right wing invention.
Liberal "identity politics" - find ways to help support groups who are unfairly treated.
Conservative "identity policies" - find ways to twist the liberal efforts to help into oppression for white male Christians.
It was literally invented in the 1990s, by a group of paleo conservative intellectuals in think tanks, who took an obscure Leftist term which prior to that only annoyed graduate students in literary criticism and other obscure disciplines. These far right shills for the plutocrats figured out a way to use the idea to inflame those "very fine folks" who show up at Neo Nazi rallies, and eventually managed to convince an alarmingly large number of mainstream folks to abandon all pretense of caring about real issues (i.e. destroying the climate of the planet, young people chained to a lifetime of debt, millions of people dying for lack of affordable health care) and yakking endlessly about the "oppression" of having to use one pronoun over another (Hey, Jordan Peterson has built a whole career out of this sheer nihilistic absurdity).
There is a real world and it's in flames. As the Buddha might have said, when your house is on fire, you don't stand around outside and argue about what to say about it. you put the fire out.
65
I'm sure being even a part-time radical is hard work. There's no fun factor. It takes time, energy, optimism, doggedness in spades, and inner confidence to weather all sorts of criticism.
If the world worked right, it would be unnecessary to be one.
A radical hopes to jolt people into taking notice, thinking out of the box, and joining in to improve conditions.
Ultimately, that's why an inclusive radical does it. For social betterment, just not at a glacial pace.
Generations and politics are definitely cyclical and we can see history repeating itself. It's a good idea to remind ourselves, like David Brooks has, of the past so we can avoid making the same mistakes twice. The last thing we need is for today's tweens to turn into tomorrows Boomers. Yikes. As a wise old Gen-xer, I feel like we should find our voice, preach and teach these younger Millennial's to help moderate their views instead of shrinking away and being afraid of their wrath. They need to understand the value of impartial journalism and capitalism even while pushing for progress. Sure, free college is great and so is healthcare for everyone but let's keep focused on what's real and true and what we can actually do to make it happen. Marching in the street will only get you so far. The real work gets done around a table.
"The older liberals are appalled by President Trump [but] are more likely to believe the structures of society are basically sound. You can make change by voting for the right candidates and passing the right laws. You can change individual minds through education and debate."
The self-contradiction in that one passage says it all by itself. If the structures of our society and electoral system were anything remotely resembling "sound", someone like Donald Trump could never have become President, and dangerously close to becoming a dictator as he clearly desires. I doubt that he'll achieve it at this point, but there is zero doubt that this is what he would do if given half a chance.
This is not a sound society, sorry. The younger Democrats are right.
1
This analysis falls apart a bit on the basis of gender. Even us older liberal women feel the need to radicalize given that our institutions and power structures have, for generations, failed to treat us equally. I'm in no mood to sit back and wait for change at this point of my life; my entire adult life has been spent waiting for equality. Liberal women stopped believing in meritocracy some time ago because it obviously didn't apply to us. I applaud and support the rigor, intensity and anger of the #MeToo movement and admire the younger women who have declared that they're not willing to wait any more. I'll do whatever I can to help them.
5
@Binkomagoo All the progress we made in the 70s toward equal opportunity and equal pay was wiped out by decades of Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority, and the women-have-to-be-sexy-to-make-it-crowd.
Finally young women are realizing what we've always known: feminism is not a bad thing, regardless of what the old while men say.
4
@DickeyFuller Couldn't agree more. My children often ask me, "Is everything a feminist issue?" My answer: YES!
1
Not to quibble, but from my reading of the meaning of "meliorism", I don't see how there is a difference between young and old on the "left". My understanding of meliorism is that it is a belief in changes to the human condition that will improve upon natural processes. I guess it really depends upon what one calls "natural processes".
Maybe Mr. Brooks is thinking of his own distinctions between cultural change and legislative change. By all accounts he is suspicious of legislated changes to cultural immorality like racial segregation, a pretty typical reactionary perspective commonly expressed to explain the apparent failures of certain kinds of legislation to produce obvious improvements. Methinks Mr. Brooks is projecting and not correctly observing, which is understandable because Mr. Brooks knows so very little, beyond book-learning, about liberalism. Which is maybe why he constantly is presenting paraphrased versions of books he reads as opinions.
I do not see big differences between young and old on the left. I definitely don't hear the vast majority of the young liberals clamoring to tear down the system. What I hear is don't be cynical, keep demanding to improve the system.
What are the big differences between young and old on the right? I have no idea. Those who call themselves conservative espouse so many different grievances that all seem to devolve into resisting almost all changes to the status quo I am not sure there is anything coherent to recognize.
2
I'm 66. Shortly after I graduated from High School protesting students and passers-by were shot dead on the Kent State campus. That was enough for an 18 year old facing the Vietnam draft to become radical.
My parents were both conservative. My father a moderate Republican, and my mother a blue-dog Democrat whose sided with the guardsmen.
Your analysis is too simplistic David. Events can radicalize the young even better than parents.
You should remember how things were.
6
Mr. Brooks - the overwhelming feeling I had after finishing this essay was that your reality and perspective are severely limited. The cultural forces you try to distill into stereotypes are meaningless for most of us. You need to get out of the affluent NYC-DC corridor cocoon and spend time traveling the USA and getting to know people of all ages, classes, and backgrounds from the diverse communities in our nation. Take a 12-month road trip, will ya.
8
Members of the Resistance that I know are 40 and up. You know, the women who stepped up all across America and gave the Democrats the House in such a big way. I’m so sick of these pundits over-simplifying and making generalizations from such a tiny sample.
7
Yeah, I think Mr. Brooks is out over his skis. I mean, he's coming from the vantage point of his centrist conservatism. Being highly vocal is not the same as militarism. That's silly. When I was in college in the late '80s and living in San Francisco in the early '90s, there was a sharp pro-socialist, anti-patriarchal, strict politically correct atmosphere. It's cyclical in our universities. And the loud liberal vocalizing becomes even more strident when a Republican is president, or when Congress has gone power-mad. But kids grow up, the real world intervenes, you come to realize that you can count on some institutions and you can fix things without sounding like a petulant idealist. Whatever it is, being loud isn't being militaristic; speaking up is better than being silent, and the Congress and the President need to be dialed back.
3
There's nothing I enjoy more than another factually incorrect characterization about the monolithically leftish Boomers.
Who were so liberal they voted Reagan, Bush, Bush II, and Trump into office. And voted for Republican congresses and statehouses for most of their adult lives.
I expect NYT OpEd to be fact-based. I'd prefer fiction be labeled correctly.
4
I am so proud of myself. I'm a liberal old guy. I was once a liberal young guy. Vietnam and Karl Marx opened my young eyes. Prior to that I was a devout Christian - never more. Because I possess the liberal compassion. Trump Christians don't have enough imagination, apparently, to be capable of compassion - or wits enough to be honest with themselves. They have been manipulated to vote against peace, against justice, and against the environment - in order to protect their tired old religion. They have become the Judas's of the modern world who routinely vote to crucify the Christ.
3
My family, yes, in a nutshell.
2
Unabashed propaganda piece. The hard core right takes every progressive meme, whether it be PC or woke, and once it enters the cultural mainstream weaponizes a value centred idea to their own violent ends.
3
The radical children are a generation that was raised, even indoctrinated, with the views that every environmental claim is true, that corporate greed is an environmental toxic danger trying to poison us all, and that prejudice of any kind, be it sex, race, sexual orientation or income disparity, are moral stains no less evil than the Holocaust. To challenge any of those truths is an admission of evil beyond redemption. It's like the boomer generation being asked to opine about the Inquisition.
Add to that the sheer thrill of being right. It is endlessly empowering to know that the enemy is either evil or deluded beyond remediation. Against those sorts of foes, any extreme is justified, any anger is righteous, any sense of superiority is obvious. There is no more need to compromise or cooperate than there is to compromise with smallpox.
1
@nub
The sins of the parents...
Brooks seems to be talking mostly about employees of tech companies located in ultra-liberal coastal cities. And he seems to be specifically talking about the political activism fostered by the leaders of those tech companies, as they seek to turn their businesses into drivers and influencers of culture, and not just of profits.
Forget the discussion about Trumpism at the end of this column, that's a whole different issue. The culture at these mega tech companies is something new and worth a discussion all its own. Because these are the would-be drivers of our whole culture, and they operate exclusively in a mono-culture of the far left that actually defines itself based on its politics.
In most of the rest of the country, politics generally stay out of the office, or are restricted to the water cooler. People of genuinely differing views actually get along. If you are among the 95+% of us who live in that world, you know plenty of Trumpers and Bernie-Bros alike who manage to get along with others just fine. You might not agree with one or both of their political bents, but that doesn't prevent you from working with them. There are no inter-office political memos or politicized firings.
Maybe the true threat here is the mono-culture. Because differing political views have been shown to co-exist just fine in this country for many generations.
2
There is too much attention paid to "generations," a manmade construct that ultimately means very little. The decade in which you were born does not and should not define you. Everyone is an individual and pretending that everything is predicated on your age is yet another divisive tactic. Journalists/columnists should do better than continue to mine "the generation gap" for material. Enough already!
133
@atb -- Consider me fully opposed to your comments on generations. We may be individuals, but we live in a social setting that changes constantly. Generations may not be the product of some monolithic overlay, but they are affected by the times in which they live. Gen-X came of age under Reagan, and tend to be Reaganesque conservatives. Boomers came of age in an era of moral strife and lost faith, and split strongly into two opposing camps. GIs, on the other hand, suffered through fiscal strife, and tended to be FDR Democrats.
I would be surprised if it was otherwise.
7
@atb There is, however, something to be said for being a certain age through a certain time in history. I agree these labels are lazy and often inaccurate but there is enough anecdotal evidence to make it somewhat valid. I do, in this case, believe David is exaggerating far more than is healthy but that is what conservatives do particularly well and it has served them over time.
9
@atb I bet you're one of the younger militant generation that Brooks is referring to in the article.
This article generalizes to inaccuracy, and I am not really sure what the point of the article is other than to fit David Brooks' world view? I am a boomer who grew up in an on-again, off-again welfare family, got hired into a career job about age 30 as the result of an EEOC case, then earned a PhD and went into white-collar work. I ended up with two pensions in addition to social sec, so I am pretty comfortable - all earned by hard work, including severe harassment when I was an EEO hire. And I am a Democrat. I have thirteen nieces and nephews, and a few grand-nieces/nephews. Their politics range from moderate GOP to marxist/socialist. At our family reunion this summer the older and younger generations spent time eating, gossiping and taking group pictures. I am proud of our younger family members for working their tails off and succeeding, regardless of their individual political beliefs and whether I agree with them or not.
3
Entitlement is generational. Parents who feel entitled to outrage and denial of elections, say, are going to produce outraged children who also deny based on disapproval.
1
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy."
David Brooks is always good for a laugh -- this was by far the biggest one today. It's funny because it's a ludicrous caricature of reality.
In reality, most of the young progressive economic/social agenda is basically saying "Many European countries have a strong social net, guaranteed medical care, free higher education and a more egalitarian society. And yes, it's all supported by higher taxes. Why can't we have that here too? And not in 50 years, but now?"
And that, in Brooks' mind, and in the mind of much of the right-wing, is what passes for Marxism.
That, and a willingness to require all people to treat other people w/ the same decency, respect and fairness that they want themselves. The vast majority of young progressives don't want to tear down institutions to live in anarchy -- they just want them transformed so that they implicitly don't favor rich white men.
Again, how radical.
If Brooks ever wants to be anything other than a joke, he should actually talk to young people -- not just recycle the same stale talking points & stereotypes that he's been repeating for so long.
3
I'm over 35, work in a Fortune 50 company, have "some" seniority, and I have NEVER heard anyone refer to younger workers as "revolutionaries." There IS a generation gap but no one I know uses terms like these to refer Millennials.
Fake news, Brooks.
3
This is a pretty weak sauce opinion. Brooks, you apply far too many labels without the real curiousity to seek what motivates these young “militants” to organize against the old older.
First of all, they are simply people, young people who have been raised far better than any generation before them: with less child abuse, less bullying, less racism, and far more reading. They are resisting the old older because it has largely failed, and given the right’s alignment around an amoral demagogue, it is also an order which shows slim chances of being up to the challenge.
The challenge: save the natural world. I don’t need to look any further to understand this movement than my six year old daughter. Imagine the state of the world throughout her natural life. By the time she is 40, there is a real possibility that there won’t be enough fresh water for her drink.
2
The progressive caucus in the incoming house includes about a third of the caucus and although has a younger age on average than Mr Brooks, it is quite diverse.
Mr Brooks might not care about climate change, Mr Brooks might not conclude that racism is a problem and black lives actually do matter, Mr Brooks might find the harassment of women to be fine, and that a glass ceiling is preferred, Mr Brooks might also be more comfortable with a party where other people’s religions define your personal medical care, and other people’s bigotries decide whether tou have access to a bathroom.
These are not terrorists who run people over with cars, shoot them for being black, or kill them in their synagogues for being jewish. They are not separating families or firing tear gas at children. That would be the aming the right, not the left, if Mr Brooks can’t tell the difference.
It appears that Mr Brooks is ok with voter suppression and gerrymandering as a systematically fine thing.
To be blunt Mr Brooks might not use a bullhorn for white male nationalism, but has we see in this column he will defend it withhis own vigor. Mr Brooks will write about morals, but he is incapable of using them, or holding thise responsible when he can attack the women and minorities for wanting a place at the table and protection from abuse.
Mr Brooks doesnt see these as problems or bugs, because for him these “problems” are a feature that benefit him. Exactly like Trump.
3
I've seen and heard these radical children when their unicorn world gets messed with they suddenly shift to the fascist-right faster than greased lightning.
When everything is rainbows and unicorns they are with the Antifa, but when their comfortable "white life" is threatened watch out - They make Bill O'Reilly look like a leftist.
1
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy."
I'm in my early 40s and am employed as a an academic in a philosophy department at a liberal arts college. Cultural Marism is the lingua franca in the elite academy, you say? I have no idea where you are getting this from, David. Because at the philosophy conferences and in the philosophy classrooms, this is not the case. It certainly isn't the case in economics departments. So is it History or English? Really, I call bull on this claim.
5
Who is David Brooks talking about? My daughters are millennials at 25 and 27, and most institutions they interact with are broken, if not outright dysfunctional. They face burdens that, for me, were unimaginable growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s. I was taught to have faith in our institutions and the ‘social contract,’ and I evolved into a (now recovering-former) moderate California Republican. Their experience with broken institutions has led to the cynicism that accompanies being deceived, tricked or misled. They both are attracted to very progressive policy ideas and candidates, and tend to dismiss establishment politics as worn out.
Once burned, twice shy.
2
Nothing in this column reflects my experience as a liberal parent of a 23 year old son. Nor does it reflect the experience of any of my friends who have children of a similar age. I know that there are millenials who fit this description. They are very loud. They are also few in number.
3
Wow, classic David Brooks. Attack those who see the writing on the wall and are working, if somewhat vehemently, but still almost exclusively non-violently, for change. There is no sign that in the current situation here that the meek will inherit the Earth.
But where is Brooks condemnation of the violent right? Or even young guys who tear up the towns after football games?
When I watched a million self-congratulatory women in pink pussy hats think they were doing something by taking a stroll in DC AFTER the Trump inauguration, I was not impressed. I mean, really? But when I saw the young people from the Sunrise Movement asking for a green new deal, sitting in and getting arrested at Nancy Pelosi's office, my heart soared.
I am 71, by the way.
Go young people, just temper your anger with love.
205
@Miriam Warner . I'll pass. I live in Oakland and have seen the violent left (where Occupy morphed into Antifa and Black Bloc) destroy buildings, start fires, attack police and other citizens, block freeway traffic at rush hour, and commit assault and battery freely and often.
You can have it. When I see that, I remember the Weimar Republic and the armed militia from both sides fighting on the streets.
2
Mr. Brooks:
While I admire your efforts to made broad statements an synthesize information and trends into truism and learning opportunities, this is one, among many, in which you significantly miss the mark. You have painted millions of young, and older, people as being of a cloth.
They/we are not. we are each much more idiosyncratic and subtle than you paint us.
Back to the drawing board, please
1
Somebody needs to get those damn kids off Brooks' lawn.
7
Being from the middle of the Boomer generation, and seeing what our generation has done to the economy, housing, civil rights, health care, education, the climate, immigration, racial equality, women's rights, voting rights, government, and the general condition of America while it's been under our care and direction --- if it's a clash between us and the radical progressives, I say get the hell out of the way and give somebody else a shot at it.
1
I am so tired of Brooks and his gross generalizations without one support for his claims of even having real conversations. He is conflating and simplifying to ridiculous degrees. “Militant” youth, who exactly are you referring to? “Older liberals”as if that group has one unified view. Please stop!
2
The headline LIberal Parents, Radical Children conveys causality, and in this political climate, disease--as in the disease of liberalism is that it worsens when it gets to their kids. I can see it on alt-right websites already. Another good reason to hate liberals? Very unfortunate. This column rests on no factual basis, is not social science, despite its genre imitation. Before he unleashes more unnecessary hostility on the world, Brooks should read some of his better columns, such as last week's on the spiritual void. This column is no way to fill that void.
Yet another Brooks column based upon poorly defined conservative categorizations that are not supplemented by facts, references, data or even the slightest attempt to ground an argument in logic. For Books everything is a pseudo philosophical sociological conundrum whose answer is to be found in a bible.
3
When the big banks get off Scott-free, people working full-time in America need food stamps, and tens of thousands of children have been dying for years in Yemen with almost no media coverage (that includes you, NYT), one would be a fool to believe that the structures of society are basically sound.
Mr. Trump responds to a detailed, specific, reasoned report concerning climate change with a mere four words "I don't believe it." No evidence, no facts, no reasoning, just a statement of faith that can't be bothered with evidence, or facts, or reasoning.
This essay by Mr. Brooks falls into the same camp. It presents no evidence, no facts, no reasoning.
Mr. Books claims, improbably, that "When I meet someone who runs an organization in a blue state, I often ask: Do you have a generation gap where you work? The answer — whether the person leads a college, a nonprofit, a tech company, an entertainment company or a publication — is generally the same: Yes, and it’s massive." This passage would not be accepted by Wikipedia because it contains so many weasel words: "often", "generally", "massive".
Come on, Mr. Brooks: How many people who run organizations did you ask in blue states? How many in red states? What percentage said "yes"? What percentage said "massive"?
This essay is nothing but fluff. Like President Trump, Mr. Brooks is saying what he wishes were true, not what is true.
4
A fascinating essay, that sheds considerable light on Mr. Brooks's thinking -- or rather the lack thereof.
This essay includes no numbers, no support, no facts, no arguments. It claims without irony that "cultural Marxism ... is now the lingua franca in the elite academy" despite offering no evidence nor even a definition of the vague terms "cultural Marxism" or "elite". A claim so vague fits into Wolfgang Pauli's category of "not even wrong".
I teach at the Physics Department of Oberlin College, regarded by some as an "elite academy", and I don't even know what "cultural Marxism" means, so it can't be a "lingua franca".
In this essay Mr. Brooks demonstrates his blinkered, binary worldview. He should learn about probabilistic thinking from Ángel Pinillos's essay "Knowledge, Ignorance and Climate Change" in yesterday's NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/opinion/skepticism-philosophy-climate-change.html
to find out just how juvenile his essay is.
2
Looking forward to your next column on older conservatives and their generational gap white nationalist conservatives....
1
What a long-winded bit of tripe that was. Here, I fixed it for you:
Young liberals are angry because they're smart enough to see that the rapacious capitalism that's made the baby boomers rich is destroying democracy and the world.
Honestly, they probably should burn it all down.
5
Speaking of Liberal Parents, Radical Children, have you and Michelle Goldberg ever discussed genetic testing? Your columns today could have been written by the Liberal Parent and the Radical Child. While they are different on the surface, they are complementary and when read together provide insight into our current political malaise.
2
It has been ever thus
2
Really profound piece.
Not.
In fact, the amazing grasp of the obvious.
1
There are greedy and power hungry people in every generation, and in every age group. There will always be playground bullies and cheats, and to think gen x or millennials or boomers are any different from each other in that regard is a mistake.
There is an ebb and flow, and currently, for whatever reason, the bullies are on the rise, so yes, there is a higher degree of alarm among those who see a move towards fascism as a bad thing. Most worrisome is the shift towards racism and misogyny among the conservative youth. Our progress towards a better world will be slowed much more by young rednecks than it will be by young snowflakes.
1
I think I finally realized that David Brooks is a Putin/Trump envoy. He will write anything that will divide democrats, especially progressive ones. No wonder there's always a bitter taste in my mouth after I read one of his OpEds.
2
Yes. Nothing is familiar to the liberal relics at the Thanksgiving table anymore. Trumpian types do not resemble country club Repubs of yore. Yet. College kids tilting at anarchical socialist windmills sure don't seem like any of their Ivy League parents either. It's a new wave. Neither red nor blue.
Generationism worked for about one cycle and then that Who tune moved off the top 30. Now it's just a tired op-ed writing device, beat to death by those who don't get out enough to mix with people in different generalizations who defy categorization (fortunately.)
Wait until the children have to walk the talk.
We had the kids of suburban liberal sweep down upon our neighborhood in Detroit. They pointed to our neighborhood watch groups as proof we were al racists. We were just lower middle class folks trying to survive in our own neighborhood.
It wasn't long before the firebrands moved on to safer pastures (Bernie, can you hear me?). Meanwhile we were busy learning how to be Republicans.
Never regretted growing up and living in our near east side Detroit neighborhood (Chene Street area). I saw firsthand why neighborhoods decay and die - it's due to the people that live within them. Sorry.
Very interesting article. I see a lot of comments here from folks who profess having no idea, but perhaps as an outsider looking in, I see it more clearly. I am older (Gen X) but align much more so with younger conservatives - comfortable with diversity, but with cultural boundaries.
As I read the article, I was reminded of the situation in China through the late 60s to the late 80S - starting with the Cultural Revolution, inspired by Mao but carried forward by the young, and ending with the Tienanmen Sq massacre, where the older generation with memories of the erstwhile era fresh, crushed the idealism of the youth under tanks. It will be interesting to see how history plays out here.
Being one of the last of the liberal boomers, I hope the young left will prevail over the "cultured" right. After all, society become more accepting of differences after the 60s, and Reagan and the 80s stopped that progress.
And I see my son acknowledges that he is where he is not only because of his hard work and the hard work of his Hispanic immigrant parents, but because his parents are educated and nurtured him in ways that others can't, Hispanic, Black, White or otherwise. So the young lefties are right, the structure should change.
An awful lot of Boomers were considered "radicals" by those in power in the 1960's and 1970's. We struggled to change the world, with some successes and more failures. This seems to me to be the way each new generation perceives their role, and as a Boomer I find it refreshing and applaud their efforts.
3
"Plus, the militants have more conviction. In the age of social media, virtue is not defined by how compassionately you act. Virtue is defined by how vehemently you react to that which you find offensive. Virtue involves the self-display of a certain indignant sensibility, and anybody who doesn’t display that sensibility is morally suspect."
This is one point where you have made a sweeping over-generalization and drawn an incorrect conclusion as a result.
For progressives like myself, virtue is still defined by how compassionately you act. It's how you respond on behalf of the marginalized in the face of their marginalizers, the oppressed in the face of their oppressors.
Vehemence is a valid response in the face of rampant unfairness, but it is far from the only measure--and in and of itself, it does nothing. We are grateful for the problem solvers in our communities who work to fix the damage and prevent it from happening as much, as badly or as often.
As for less faith in institutions, it doesn't help that many institutions shot themselves in the foot and declared it to be a fashion statement when called on it. We used to have belief in corporations being part of the public good, until many corporations went from community partners to bottom-line feeders. We used to have more social trust until we saw how many people were left out in the cold, and why.
When nothing meaningful was done to address these, people lost faith. Conservative society is reaping what it sowed.
4
Like many of us, I am so tired of the pundits' placement of people into convenient categories for punditry fun. Liberals go into this test tube. Conservatives into that one. Don't forget a special category for millennials! We are not different species to be analyzed zoologically. All of this profiling separates people further and further, which furthers our superficial obsession with politics and sports: who will win, who will lose?
The struggles of millennials that David Brooks cites are responses to social conditions. These conditions are also faced, less directly, by the conservative relatives of those millennials. Instead of separating us into generational or ideological tribes, we should pose questions that can provoke a unified cultural response. Why are healthcare and college and housing unaffordable? How can we have a united response to these problems? This is what the heavyweight pundits should be taking on. The real task at hand, today more than ever, is to blur lines of division, not exacerbate them.
3
The issue here isn't so much that younger "liberals" are more militant, but that younger "conservatives" aren't.
How can that be? That's the story.
2
@Dean Bingo Dean, that IS the story. David missed the point completely.
You're spending too much time at universities. Interpreting the passions of the young being exposed to the broader world for the first time as some sort of radical trend really misses the big picture.
4
"The boomer conservatives, raised in the era of Reagan, generally believe in universal systems — universal capitalism, universal democracy and the open movement of people and goods."
This does not sound like the people who voted for America First, tariff loving, border closing Trump.
4
It's a good thing. Maybe they can actually change the world. It's dying: the oceans are full of plastic, income inequality is growing, fascism is STILL a problem... It seems like people haven't been radical enough. Socialize businesses, nationalize airlines, healthcare, and other "big" things, regulate Wall Street, ban plastic & phase out non-renewable energy ASAP, change funding of schools so they are equal and not based on property... we have a lot to fix and if we have a government that actually represents THE PEOPLE—who are the real stewards of this country—we could actually do it.
2
"Boomers generally think they earned their success through effort and talent."
Absolutely. I can't stand anymore those urban wealthy parents who are sooooooo proud of their children who worked soooooooo hard to make it to a 4 years college degree. No, they didn't, they were born with 99.99% of chances to make it.
Any working class or working poor kid with a decent SAT score deserves 100 times more to enter college than any upper middle class kid who attended the best public high schools.
1
"Boomers" meaning how old, what age group? I am 59 and I did earn every single thing I have. My parents didn't help. I had student debt and worked my hind end off to pay it off and stay afloat. I worked and was as single mom who received zero child support. I paid into social security with money I earned, NOT that I am "entitled" to. Nothing was easier for me than it is for young people today except that global climate change is more pressing and their beloved technology has taken some of their jobs away. I love young people and will be in the streets fighting with them. My home is only as good as the way we treat others and Earth. But I did not have any easier time of college and adult life than they do. I didn't inherit like my parents did. All the money went to assisted living in their old age. That didn't happen for them. I have nothing easier. Who are the boomers you speak of in this article???
2
@RCJCHC And we had no word processors, internet or cell phones! I sometimes wonder how we made it through college.
1
Not to get hung up on one small detail here, but what is "Al Jazeera" supposed to connote? Unlike "resistance" or "revolutionary" Al Jazeera does not connote a struggle or holy war (that phrase would be "jihad"). Al Jazeera is an esteemed, international news organization that often runs afoul of ideologues of pretty much any persuasion. Who is conflating these two? And why would you perpetuate the conflation?
3
@Muni - Al Jazeera is hardly NBC. It gives voice to the Islamic fundamentalists of the middle east. It is not esteemed, and in the U.S. is associated with terrorism and jihad.
We need a Radical Pride movement! I’m 73. I’m with these young people. And it’s not militancy they have. It’s sanity!
Let’s take Pride in a National Healthcare movement. Pride in saying our environment. Pride in making sure everyone votes and every vote is counted. Pride in caring for the homeless and those with food insecurity. Pride in making sure everyone has a living wage or some govt subsidy that brings them up to it. Pride in putting the welfare of all over the welfare of the wealthy. Pride over paying taxes. Pride over progressive taxation. Pride over sitting on an equal footing among the community of nations - instead of throwing our weight around or imagining our rights come before theirs.
I could go on and on. There’s Gay Pride and every kind of pride. Can we please have pride to be called radical - when it’s simple sanity to my mind.
6
Come on, David.
My class of '68 college friends were mostly quite radical in our 20's -- there were good reasons then; different ones for those who are young now -- and have mellowed somewhat over the decades, just as our parents predicted we would.
Plus ça change.
5
@GPS - plus ça reste pareil, mon ami
Well, yeah. You've pointed out that the generation gap has always been the case in the modern US. The upcoming generation will calm down once they have kids and put down roots. For now, they have the time to be active and personally engaged. You overstate things by calling them militant (why make them sound scary? Kids scare you?)
I'm excited for the generation coming up. They are engaged, vigilant, and with their experience protesting (or "resisting") is only going to help them-- once they grow up they WILL use the "system" to make the changes they want to see happen. And I applaud them for it!
2
"Identity Politics" is actually very simple: "leave no man [human] behind". It comes from the realization that we are in this together; if we allow one group to go down as a result of our intent or negligence, we are ultimately dooming ourselves.
The same outlook views ourselves, our air, our water, our food - and the beings and life systems from which these come - as a whole. It's about having the courage to face facts: that (i) we are interdependent, and our earth is finite; (ii) humans, through ignorance, are now enacting a mass extinction, which could include humans; (iii) we must realize this and change, quickly, and if the systems/beliefs/philosophies that caused this situation cannot change quickly enough, they must be torn down.
This isn't radicalism, and it's not ageism. It's pragmatism, and it's more truly "conservative" than Trump or David Brooks, whose labels and attempts to divide we must reject. It's about "conserving" US - our lives and those of our children and grandchildren.
2
beware of any "us vs. them" mentality..this just further promotes oppression of both and distracts from what is real
2
This is perfectly said. I don't experience the same generational gap in my workplace, necessarily, but this piece perfectly describes the dichotomy in the left over successive generations.
As a (older?) millennial at 30. I identify with the "radical" liberal ideology; but for us, we see it as the ONLY ideology that can work. It IS the only ideology that can work! Each of these 'boomer' and 'radical' liberal ideologies serves the purposes of the respective group. Older liberals want to preserve the status quo so as not to rock the boat during their twilight years; considering their personal interests, this seems justified. However, my generation has (God willing) decades left on this planet and is more focused on intergenerational well-being and prosperity. As such, we realize the system is has to be torn down and rebuilt in order to do more than skate by for a few years until the system implodes
Sorry, please correct.
Hurrah for the young for without them we would have NO future.
3
Is Mr Brooks aware of the anti-Semitic connotations of the term "cultural Marxism"? This is a favorite term of the alt-right and white nationalist ideologues.
6
Read up on Chairman Mao and the cultural revolution in China. THAT'S cultural Marxism. No Caucasians necessary.
Wow you are wrong. You are talking about an office full of educated mostly white middle class people. Try looking at an office full of mostly working class people. You will not see young radicals. You will see young mostly apolitical people who might vote but they don't have time to protest and they need their jobs too badly to question management style. Get a reality check Mr Brooks
1
David,
There isn't a youngster I know who could quote a line from Marx, and "militant" is a word you should reserve for actual militants--those tiki-torch marching thugs who run over people with cars, and those actual "militias" who carry assault rifles to political rallies.
6
@Mjxs - when I see the black clad antifa people trashing and running around, that looks pretty militant to me. As much so as the tiki torch white nationalists.
Someone sounds scared that his inappropriate words or deeds is going to attract unwanted negative attention.
I know, says David Brooks, I'll write a column bashing liberals and somehow blaming them for it and simultaneously declaring their ascendance is over!
Classic Trump distraction move, Mr. Brooks.
What are you so afraid of?
2
As an educator, in contact with 18-24 year old
I see few "militant progressives". The great majority of young people worry about getting a job in a society increasingly is to be "dog eats dog" in the age of global competition. A job that pays enough to live in a City like NY
The few militant progressives that I see, are either the children of affluent parents, able to be radical basking in the security of inheriting money , or the poor for whom "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose"
4
What an odd column, Mr Brooks. The younger generation isn't radical at all... they just haven't bought into the racist, homophobic, anti-climate change mentality of the GOP. Furthermore WHO are the moral conservatives you are referring to anyway? In the Trump tsunami, they were washed away long ago. The middle that used to be an alternative in politics just isn't there any more.
2
Maybe, David, the new generation has watched with astonishment as adult enablers like you created a world where someone like Donald Trump can be elected President of the United States. In that context it's easy to believe that things are rotten at the heart of America and that drastic action is required. You and your ilk have counseled patience and restraint, while like Nero, you watch society burn down around you. Anyone who believes that things are better for the poor, the disadvantaged and minorities is also probably shocked by the reaction of people who can see that just isn't true.
3
Writing from Seattle, I have to tell you, the new identity politics and "intersectionalism" is real, and it promises to sabotage all possible progressive collective action.
Want to do something about climate change? Sorry, unless the solution is rigged to primarily address income inequality and advantage people of color, we don't want to hear about it.
Want to do fight back against the 40-year war that has been successfully waged against the American worker? Sorry, anything that might protect American citizens from the vicissitudes of the race to the bottom that is the globalized labor market is by definition racist and it is beneath us to do anything that might benefit working-class white people since these people are apparently, by definition, racist.
4
Correction. I got my lingo wrong. When I said we can't do anything about climate change unless the solution "advantages people of color," I should have said "addresses systemic racism."
Thankfully, it looks like the incoming influx of Democrats into the U.S. House is not so inclined to respond to Trumpian tribalism with tribalism of the left. I get the sense that they're an unflappable bunch of pragmatists.
1
@Mitch Gitman - I agree. Want to raise the gas tax to encourage alternatives? Sorry, that will burden the poor and minorities to a greater extent and is therefore racist...
1
Just about everybody mellows with age.
1
The planet is on fire, a few people have hogged all the resources while others starve, the world's only superpower spends all its money and expertise bombing third-world countries, the US has more of its people in jail than any other place on earth and more black men in jail now than were enslaved during the Civil War (and we use those prisoners to try to put out the fires caused by global warming).
Gee. I wonder why the younger generation has had it and thinks the system itself is broken and rotten. Older liberals have profited from all this death and destruction and so, of course, are invested in the status quo. It's not the younger generation that is deluded.
4
One of my son's friends used to protest, yelling loudly about animal cruelty in front of a fur coat store, every Saturday until it closed down. He's now a successful veterinarian.
One of my colleagues was in the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) a group considered radical and dangerous. He is a graduate of Yale law school and has been practicing family law for many years, with a family of his own.
I could go on and on, with lots of, in fact, most, kids from both generations becoming adult change-agents, doing their best to work for a better world.
Most of my son's friends went to public universities. They were often protesters or at least highly aware of problems in the world.
You would be proud of them, all of them finding their way in the world--they amaze me!
My son is a millennial and an environmental engineer employed in a firm of scientists of three generations. He went to a state school and has no school debt.
Why are both generations so vilified in wide sweeping generalizations?
This article is disgusting! There are nasty, greedy people in the world. There are vapid, ridiculous celebrities and corrupt sorts of all stripes. There are many who are not privileged and who need our help. But think of all of our doctors, nurses, teachers, environmental scientists, immigration lawyers, people who deploy to war-torn sites to help the injured, veterans, great artists. . .
I swear! I will never read Brooks again!
4
The younger generation has often been more liberal throughout history, holding the older generation's feet to the fire. That can spark progress to make the world a better place. But Mr. Brooks refuses to recognize that these protests have value - instead, he whitewashes the character of the neo-Nazis and conspiracy terrorists that liberals young and old protest speaking on campus when he writes "if a speaker is disinvited from a festival or from campus, it’s often because of a youth revolt."
A Milo Yiannopoulous, an Alex Jones, a Richard Spencer - these aren't mere speakers, sir - these are hate crimes-inducers who sow terrorism in their wake simply for the sick joy of watching our constitutionally equal, multicultural society come apart at the seams.
The question isn't why young liberals are protesting so often, the question is why aren't you protesting to protect our society from terrorists too, Mr Brooks?
3
Stereotyping generations is stupid. The boomers were always more ideologically diverse than the media portrayed them. The small Midwestern college I attended in the late 1960s and early 1970s certainly had antiwar radicals, black militants, drug users, and couples who lived together off campus without marriage, but it also had Young Republicans Inter-varsity Christian Fellowship, an evangelical group, and the timeless phenomenon of the jock who parties when he's not at practice and pays as little attention to academics as possible.
I recently got back in touch with my high school class Again, we are a diverse bunch, but a lot of us have never lost our zeal for social justice and have never voted for a Republican. Some are very affluent, while others have never even come within sniffing distance of the local median income. Meanwhile, there are the current Trump voters, mostly people who were not too bright and/or bullies or mean girls in high school.
The millennial do have it rougher than we did in many ways. Free-ride college scholarships, something I benefited from in my last two years, have nearly vanished. When I was just out of college, the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour, or $256 a month, but when you rented an apartment, you figured $50 to $75 per bedroom in most cities.
Try to find something comparable now.
3
Another silly oversimplification by David Brooks. For example, young people are radical because of Marxist influences in Universties. No, David, young people are radical partly, because they are young and idealistic, and partly because their futures are limited by a system which concentrates wealth at the top.
4
What a bunch of hooey. My undergraduate students are hardly militant. If anything, they need to have their eyes opened to what is going on in the world. And I am tired of the bashing of the academy. I am a liberal, but cultural Marxism is hardly my lingua franca. Mr. Brooks needs to get out more. In fact, I hereby invite him to my campus for a visit.
2
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy." Um... Which academy are you visiting? In my experience Marxism is so far in the past that no one, no professor, goes even close to there. Marxism has so utterly failed that it would be a joke.
Mr. Brooks, are you perhaps trying to create yet more both-sides-do-it here? Trying to balance the gangsterist lean of the GOP with a supposedly Marxist lean on the left? I don't buy it.
5
I'm wondering if Brooks will ever take one of these lazy over-generalized looks at the political right.
4
Militant progressives? Seriously? How about progressive change-makers? Or how about reality-check progressives? Or maybe wake-up-and-smell-the roses progressives? Thank god there is some sort of progressive youth movement. To tag them as militant instead of passionate does them a great disservice!
3
Sometimes if you're professional writing a biweekly opinion piece, I imagine you may just dial in some of your essays.
Weird foundational fallacy to the description made by David Brooks here. Conflating 'liberal boomers' with liberal Gen Xers is pretty intellectually sloppy. That is, anyone over 35 who's managing younger 'radicals' is not a boomer. More likely their Gen Xer. And way different from any boomer or millennial in outlook. If you're going to differentiate the view of young people, then you probably should also pay attention to your specific generational layers.
And younger people are more radical and believe the system is entirely broken? That's news? I think we can probably go back to early Neanderthals and see the same 'trend.'
Please, Mr. Brooks, don’t add to the frenzy over so-called “cultural Marxism.” As readers of this paper know, a favorite right-wing conspiracy theory absurdly holds that the Frankfurt School planted the seeds of “political correctness.” Critical theory has nothing to do with the mindset of the ostensibly progressive movements you mention. Horkheimer and Adorno would be appalled by both sides. If by “cultural Marxism” you mean Marxism that wants to break down capitalist society by covertly using culture, it doesn’t exist. Plus it seems undeniable that the few remaining marxists in the academy—dwindling in number—are mostly baby boomers.
2
Has Mr. Brooks spent serious time reporting his views on income inequality in the past decade ... or is he yet another elite divorced from the startling lack of social mobility largely due to income inequality?
1
The most radical group in our country now are Trump supporters. Climate change denial, turn back women’s rights, racist etc etc etc
3
"The boomer conservatives, raised in the era of Reagan..."
Does Brooks have a clue what years of birth define Boomers?
Does he know what 'raised' means?
1
If, as you say, this youth revolt is typical and cyclical, why call it "militant"? That's just right wing media playbook nonsense a la "mob--you know, demonize people for vocally rejecting unacceptable or anti-democratic behavior? Way too loaded of a term for what you're trying to do here...wait, what are you trying to do here?
Not to worry, Mr Brooks, a lot of companies have been laying off boomers or quasi-boomers to make rooms for their children. Of course, their paralegal department, a.k.a., the HR department, denies it. But how many out there lost their jobs in their mid 50s? So it is the children's world now, except we have a bunch of draft dodgers still running the White House
As a demographer, let me remind Mr. Brooks: the baby boom lasted from 1946 to 1964. Everyone born in America in those years is a "boomer." We are now 54 to 72 years old. We are an amorphous group. Among politicians, Donald J. Trump, George W. Bush, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are boomers--a wide range of personality and political outlook. We are not all white, not all educated, not all well-off, and not all current or former liberals or radicals. Most of us have not been covered by any media.
As our country becomes more ethnically and culturally diverse, it becomes quite clear that the notion of coherent "generations" doesn't fit our history. A little sliver of the baby boom has caught media and popular attention over the decades. That sliver doesn't bear much resemblance to the actual people born during those years.
2
The generation gap has not returned in terms of the long view of human history. For eons the range of possibilities open to the younger generations was very limited. This is why social change was minuscule from generation to generation. From about 1850 on, some say the birth of the modern era, societies generally saw the younger generations changing their mode of living from the old norm much more radically. Possibilities never existing before now came into being more and more. Now we walk into the street without even looking up from our cell phones and wearing sound devices of all sorts in our ears as well, as just one example. More madness will arise but how exciting will it be to experience the changes. At 87 now, I can only imagine them and mourn somewhat that I must give way and expire.
Beware of placing the militant tag solely upon the left.
A college graduate saddled with heavy debt and few job prospects isn't much different than a blue collar worker watching their livelihood and opportunities slip away.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if the establishment fails to act, they may see this militancy spread.
1
@JDeM Yes, the different reaction to each shows considerable hypocrisy !
I’m 16, and after some long consideration on this topic and other related things, it’s time to adress the elephant in the room. Poor parenting. These *ahem* “Trumpians” as they’re called, are more than likely the cause of generation gaps, or overall poor child behaviour as the topic needing discussed. In the case of Mary Ellen in 1874, she was severely abused by her foster parents, and hence started the child abuse rules and regulations. The parents nowadays pamper their children into thinking that they’re entitled to everything and therefore the children treat themselves differently than others, usually resulting in thinking they are higher in society than anyone who doesn’t agree, however there is a line that NEEDS to be drawn, and that line is disciplinary action. If I were to misbehave, I would have gotten the belt, from the age I was 5, until the day I move out. I know how to, and how not to act in public places, such as a workplace, park, restaraunt, on other persons house. Kids nowadays that aren’t subjected to discipline believe that the world owes them everything, despite the world telling them that’s not how it works.
Seeing other similar comments, I don’t understand how it isn’t world news, that the younger generation is devolving, and it will collapse even harder if no action is taken. Come to your senses, and realise the bigger picture.
Major thanks to those who have seen the problem as a whole.
But this is just the start of the REAL issues needing addressed
Brooks loves to set up straw men who are more than a little to the left of reality and then to tear them down. Yes there is a gap. Maybe it is very slightly to the left of past gen-gaps. Seeing how little good past progressive generations would up doing, it is no wonder that more action is wanted.
I'm not sure I know what David Brooks is talking about. There are no large swathes of young radicals shouting to tear down the system. If anything, that dynamic, loud and ill informed, exists mostly among resentful Trump supporters and they by and large are not young. Perhaps David is talking about the sixties.
The 'liberals' are the middle aged children of 60s radicals. More traditional than their parents, they frequently had relatively unstable childhoods. So now these stable parents, children of radicals, have spawned a generation of radicals, who mistrust their parents' very stability (and affluence) as being a cop-out. Bernie Sanders is just the right age to be a Pied Piper.
2
Part of the cause of this supposed divide between the liberal boomers and the youthful left is that the later have not been allowed to participate in the payroll of the “top jobs” (or just more equal pay) due to the greed of the boomers at the top. If the young get better pay from the system (rather than being loaded with debts, fees and costs), this gap might close rather quickly.
I was surprised to see Mr. Brooks depart from his standard "on the one hand there's the other hand" formula in which he always finds a liberal analogue to a conservative fault or failing. Is it because he'd have to acknowledge that the closest comparison would be "Rightwing Parents, White Nationalist Children"? Liberals may go may carry water for their own set of dubious causes (like anti-vaccination, trigger warnings, and Jill Stein), but at least our kids aren't carrying Tiki torches in the streets.
I would like to see the studies that support all of the ridiculously broad generalizations Brooks attempts to explain. Many Trump supporters are raised during the Reagan era, but many others are Boomers and raised during Nixon, Ford etc. They are not (or no longer at least) liberal in any way except for possibly social issues like drugs (lots have weed prescriptions now for "pain"), and are not explainable by Brooks theories. Trump supporters are ultimately selfish, as they are focused on making sure other people (usually of a different ethnic group or orientation) don't get a chance to get a piece of their accumulated wealth (through taxes, for example) even though most of them don't really have that much compared to Trump and the elite who are really cashing in right now.
I am tired of being infantilized. I was born in 1980, which makes me 38 years old. Perhaps not technically a millennial, but I have many friends and co-workers in my age group and younger. We are not naive, entitled children. We are adults. We are educated. We are hard working. And we are struggling against the fallout from a system that has been collapsing and eroding since Ronald Reagan took office.
Mr. Brooks, you can try and blame "liberalism" as much as you like, but it's Republican policy that has destroyed this country. The GOP, with their love of unregulated capitalism, gutted the middle class for the benefit of the wealthy, and allowed our infrastructure, healthcare, and education to both erode in quality and explode in cost.
Noticing systemic racism, misogyny, homophobia, and massive income and wealth inequality present in many social and governmental systems in our country is not "hysteria". It's finally seeing inequality for what it is, and has been for too long.
Finally, we are a generation that will have to deal with the worst impacts of climate change. This reality has been known for decades, yet older Americans scoffed and sneered at the science, and then went and bought Hummers and SUV's. The situation, and necessary solutions would seem less radical had your cohort taken this seriously, dispensed with your greed, and started acting decades ago. Instead, you've been atrocious stewards, and we are stuck cleaning up the mess. You want thanks?
2
"But now events are driven by the oldsters who fuel Trump and the young wokesters who drive the left. The boomers finally got the top jobs, but feel weak and beleaguered." Boo-hoo for the Trump supporting "oldsters." Ye gods Mr. Brooks! The young liberal "wokesters" are politically involved and driven by the idea that it might just be a good idea to preserve a planet threatened by climate change which will make it unlivable, (even the wealthy won't be spared) that having healthcare that is actually affordable is a good idea (what on earth is wrong with that). They are fighting against college debt that is daunting and threatens their ability to ever get ahead in life. They are fighting to have a workplace devoid of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia (again, what is wrong with that). This old liberal supports them in their causes.
If the young people of today have less faith in institutions, it is because they do not "see through a glass darkly". They are "woke" in part, because their lives have been forged by school shootings, and in the aftermath of those shootings, adults refused to make them safe. Why would they have faith in institutions which failed to protect them?
1
Of course, if the modest liberalism of Boomers hadn't been an abject failure in addressing racism, climate change, economic dysfunction, gun violence, sexism, and rapacious capitalism, the younger generation wouldn't have any need to be radical.
As a 67-year-old flaming liberal social democrat graduate educated white male boomer (yes, clearly privileged), I routinely read Mr. Brooks’ opinions. And, no surprise, rarely agree. Using pejorative terms like “cheer all the proper causes,” “cultural Marxist,” or “militant progressive” is a facile choice to dismiss the target groups as lacking critical thinking ability or legitimate objection to our current political, social, and economic systems. Mr. Brooks uses a wider that usual brush stroke to characterize the militant children I raised. I guess living in a red state makes all the difference.
Both my sons are vehement in their support of Mr. Trump and his cadre. One makes many of the older conservatives seen at Trump rallies seem downright centrist! We do not discuss political issues – ever!
Militant? Yes. Progressive? Hardly.
Maybe it's a generational thing, as my father was a Rockefeller Republican? No, wait! Any remaining Rockefeller Republicans are now centrist Democrats (Something about goalposts comes to mind here…). Accepting my guilt in using pejorative terms myself, I am much more concerned about our future in the hands of “young militant conservatives” than the progressives Mr. Brooks derides in this piece.
“Boomers generally think they earned their success through effort and talent”. No, but we worked hard and, unlike most in the younger generations, can speak English and write cursive. We protected democracy and expanded opportunity as best we could. Democratic greed and self-destruction. It turned out the species was too flawed to save.
Another week, another alternate universe postulated by good Republican Party man Brooks. Once more he gives a cartoonish characature of the left built around party talking points. Then follows a description of right-wingers that no one with their eyes and minds open recognizes. Republicans in general, and Trump cultists in particular, detest democracy and the free flow of people and ideas. As for capitalism, their notion of it is “grab everything you can from everyone you can” just like their cult leader. The right is becoming increasingly desperate and dishonest in their every statement and act and Brooks is no exception.
The "radical" young people on the left are simply the most visible. while some may be "cultural Marxists", most are not. The oppression that they see is not just economic; it's the treatment of the LGBT community, gun violence, racial issues.
It's just too neat to claim that they are the children of old liberals run amok. No different than saying that conservative parenting spawns fascists.
I don't find that these observations are particularly interesting or useful. What Mr. Brooks sees as radical, mostly political correctness, may not be radical at all. It's contesting subtle and not so subtle misogyny and bigotry in the corporate world.
1
David Brooks's broad-brush generalizations do not jive with my experience. I am nearly 60, so I am a boomer, yet I am a militant progressive. My kids and most of my students are apathetic and apolitical. They are understandably anxious, pessmistic, and even cynical about the future. Perhaps the young people at elite colleges and universities, corporations, and in publishing that Brooks has met fit his description. The young people I know do not.
1
I believe that what we are really seeing from these militant progressive types is exaggerated false outrage.
Like people on youtube who go into a rage against so-called cultural appropriation when a white person wears dreadlocks, for example.
And I think it's a consequence of a psychological trait where anger is consciously suppressed in some contexts (let's say, when dealing with a new acquaintance or a boss) and exaggerated in others (say when commenting online or when participating in a larger group of ideological peers at a political rally or confronting a politician in public).
In fact, it's probably another symptom of the echo chamber. While hanging out at university after your class on Critical Theory, the psychological barriers to say yelling at and shoving a Trump supporter seem to evaporate. Same thing when commenting online on Buzzfeed or Vox or The Root.
In the past, younger people's radicalism was tamed when they learned how to deal with the "real world", where your boss or co-workers might not really care to hear your opinion on the use of gender pronouns. But as safe spaces expand to the workplace accommodate aggressive PC policing by progressives (like at Google, for example), young progressives feel emboldened to express anger and outrage at trivial sleights.
The interesting thing is all this rage can be consciously dialed up or down at will and so is arguably duplicitous. You can learn a lot about a person by how (and when) they express anger.
2
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy."
I am not sure why Mr. Brooks has decided to channel Jordan Peterson, but the moment I saw the phrase "cultural Marxism" I knew this column would be bunk.
Did Mr. Brooks interview anyone between the ages of 18-25 for this article? Did he consult the findings of any polls to glean insight into the thoughts/behaviors of young people? Or was it easier to make sweeping assumptions and group everyone into these massively generalized groups like "boomers" and "militants"?
Seriously. Go out and talk to some young people. You are likely to find a very diverse set of opinions, and very few people with any interest whatsoever in burning the system to the ground.
2
@David Brooks. This is one of your worst columns EVER. I thought you were anti-labels and generalizations, but you sure ignored that when you wrote this one. Maybe you should read Michel Goldberg's column. There are moral, immoral, amoral and BAD people in every group you could label. So maybe the youthful "radicals" that you denigrate in this column are really just people who care about (and act on) their judgments about good and bad, moral, immoral and amoral and don't just believe (naively) that the system will self correct. Parts of it may, but parts of it need dramatic change. And that change only comes when people act from a basis of morality.
I'm disappointed in the (my) Boomer generation. We were once the young, liberal educated boomers working for change. Then we sold out to the intellectual bankruptcy brought by the "Reagan revolution" because it was easier to accept the fruits of trickle down (and we didn't do much trickling).
Remember, age is only a number. Young, old and in-between radicals can still make a difference by not accepting the easy way of compliance and conformity and occasionally bemoaning the loss of the good old days. We will still resist and push with every tool we have.
It's possible to be socially and culturally progressive, and economically conservative. Think Jeff Bezos, who opposes unionization with a passion but at the same time promotes diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace. A softer flavor of it is in control of the Democratic Party today and it looks like with Nancy Pelosi as the soon to be new old speaker this is not likely to change anytime soon. After all, as long as expensive advertising is crucial to win elections, corporations heavily favor these politicians.
It's equally possible to be socially conservative, or at least neutral, and to be economically progressive. In fact, it may be the key to winning back the deeply Red States (as opposed to the suburbs) where change happens at a slower pace. Bernie Sanders comes to mind, but many of the younger people who are now often lumped together in the same "Progressive" corner are socially and culturally much more progressive.
1
It might be helpful - prior to one of these columns that predicts the decline of civilization because Middlebury College students rudely protested Charles Murray's visit - to spend a few hours listening to what tens of millions of Americans hear and watch everyday in the Fox/Limbaugh/Hannity bubble. In this peculiar universe, the Obama presidency and the potential for Clinton's re-election spelled the end of the republic as we know it. It is hardly an accident that Hannity's radio program begins with this call: "Welcome to the revolution." Sadly, these are the people who inspire the radical right of Charlottesville and who have the ear of the leader of the free world. Our college students mostly talk to one another, their sphere of influence limited to their friends on social media.
Our idealistic youth - calling for universal health care, a response to climate change, and common sense gun control legislation - seek solutions that are part and parcel of almost every Western democracy, except our own. Maybe they just want to restore some semblance of sanity to our nation. However, if you're really searching for people who want to "burn it down," your local Clear Channel radio station is on the air, serving up a daily diet of hate and vitriol.
3
David Brooks: "Liberal educated boomers have hogged the spotlight since Woodstock."
Born in 1952 (solid boomer territory) I was roughed up by the Secret Service when I attended a Nixon campaign stop in Ontario California where Nixon flew in on Air Force One and held a rally right there at the airport. I was wearing shoulder-length hair, a surplus US Air Force overcoat, with a McGovern button on the lapel. While we were trying to hog the spotlight, you may recall that we lost the election. "We" won in 1976 and didn't win again until 1992 with Clinton. That wasn't much of a win as he destroyed welfare as we know it and raised the incarceration rate of black males on the way to the astronomical rates we see today.
Your quote above reminds me of the statement that while the Right has a lock on the corridors of power (cf. Merrick Garland), the Left has a lock on the English department at UC Berkeley.
High school mates of mine died and were physically and psychologically maimed for life by service in the US military in Vietnam. That was the defining event of my late teens and twenties. There's much debate about the "lessons of Vietnam" in GHW Bush's phrase. My lesson is that the president, his advisors, the CIA, the military, and the State Department lied just as assiduously as the Orange Rug that currently occupies the White House. They were just a whole lot more skilled at mendacity than is the current standard, but the stage was set.
"Whether on left or right, younger people have emerged in an era of lower social trust..."
Well, we got here because of what came before. We were misled and ultimately lost The Vietnam war. As that debacle was winding down, Nixon manifest himself as a crook, his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. Throw in the Arab oil embargo, the runaway inflation of the late '70's, then top it off with Reagan's "mantra" that "government is bad" and is it any wonder belief in a stable social structure evaporated?
In the vacuum that emerged, retreating to one's "tribe," was the only logical choice. The end of the Cold War had diminished a sense of national purpose (fight the Commies). 9/11 showed us that isolation isn't what it was believed to be. Throw on more years of war, the worst presidential campaign between two of the most despised candidates in 2016, and here we are.
Against all this is the relentless turning of the wheel of time, where the youth bask in their naive idealism. We were, in one form or another, against "the Establishment" of our day, just as these are against what they perceive "the Establishment" to be today. We may or may not live long enough to see it, but someday too, they will themselves become "the Establishment" and the youth of some future will protest THEM and what they've become.
1
This column reads as though its author just reached into a grab bag and started tossing stuff around. First, it is impossible to put people from "generations" into boxes. Boomers started in 1946 and ended in 1963/4. The youngest boomers have very little in common with the oldest. Then there are differences of class, race, gender and geography.
Additionally, I've taught at various universities for almost 30 years. In all that time, I've met a handful of "Marxists," even though Brooks states that the "academy" is full of them. Sure, most of us in the humanities are various shades of liberal, but we're not Marxists--whatever that means--by a long shot.
Finally, many educated members of the younger generation are rampant capitalists. Yep, even in SF and LA. They spend lots of money at restaurants, clubs, sporting events, etc.
Painting everyone with the same brush is not helpful, nor is it intellectually sound.
David Brooks casually uses terms like "left," "militant progressive," "liberal," "cultural Marxism," and "meritocratic" without really defining what they mean. I don't let freshmen get away with this sort of vagueness.
3
I guess the most galling irony is this: The radical, broken party that is today's GOP would rather strip millions of health care than work with Democrats to improve the decades overdue ACA (which is based on Romney Care), rather give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest than help young Americans build a better future, rather aid the donor class in the destruction of the planet than cooperate in creating a cleaner, safer environment, and rather turn a blind eye to an unfit, criminal, racist president than stand up for ethics and values.
Maybe the young people are more onto the truth than we are. Despite the Civil Rights movement, Woodstock and general realization that Vietnam was a big con, here we are, with higher inequality than ever, college and health care increasingly out of reach, and angry old white men dead set on destroying the planet these young people will have to live in. Can you blame them for wanting a revolution?
1
I'm a boomer and was a lefty radical as a kid in the '60s and am still a lefty radical. There are aspects of some of my younger comrades that I disagree with -- for instance I loathe political correctness. But I still believe that society's institutions need to be radically overhauled in the name of justice for all.
David Brooks seems to have gotten his notions from a facile reading of sensationalist incidents. Where are your statistics, David? Or any proof beyond cliches? Sure -- young people are often self-righteous -- I was when I was younger. But they also have the energy that my prosthetic hips and bad back won't allow for.
More power to the youth everywhere who don't like the greedy, unjust world they're inheriting and are doing something about it. As Pete Townshend wrote many years ago, the kids are alright.
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy. Group identity is what matters. Society is a clash of oppressed and oppressor groups. People who are successful usually got that way through some form of group privilege and a legacy of oppression."
Rather
"The younger militants tend to have been influenced by the politics of lost privilege that is now the lingua franca in the echo chambers of right wing media and a well funded propaganda machine begun in the 1970s. National, racial, and religious identity is what matters. Society is a clash of oppressed and oppressor groups. People who are not white and successful usually got that way through some form of group privilege based on affirmative action as a response to a legacy of 'oppression'. Also they believe gunning people down in their places of worship, education, and celebration is a legitimate form of redress."
There, fixed it for you.
And really, 'cultural marxism' ? Did you not read Samuel Moyn's piece? Do you really want to traffic in what is very close to an anti-semitic dog whistle?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/opinion/cultural-marxism-anti-semitism.html
4
You're saying the twenty-something children of mainstream liberal parents are likely to be radical militant Marxist nihilists? Personally, I don't see it. Tell us, Mr. Brooks, are you expressing your disdain for some group of "unreasonable" youngsters you have had to deal with personally or professionally, or do you actually have some data to back up your hypothesis?
2
These kids never worked a day in their lives...
As one who was active in the anti war movement during the War in Vietnam, I can say that it was difficult to get many people to attend a peace demonstration after President Nixon ended the draft. The students at elite universities, who had been highly visible in the anti war movement, returned to their studies, and to looking forward to the solid gold future a fancy educational background virtually guarantees.
The people who still showed up for the demonstrations were usually the failed professionals who joined organizations like the Socialist Workers' Party, and street people These were teenage runaways. Those who had belonged to the Harvard chapter of the Sudents for a Democratic Society discovered that capitalism was not so bad afterall.
Today's young radicals on the left have learned that a college degree is more likely to lead to unpayable student debt than a middle class job. Many have seen their parents lose professional positions and take low wage jobs. Like young radicals threatened by being forced to fight in Vietnam, they have personal reasons for rejecting the American system.
Apparently Mr. Brooks missed the 1960s, the anti-war movement, all of that. More of those then rebellious young people probably vote Republican/Trump now than not. Those who were on the left before the war and after the war remain liberals.
In any case Mr. Brooks misses the point entirely by ascribing the political gap between parents and children to the moment. It is and has been ever thus. As usual, he overthinks the obvious.
1
Using words like "militant" and "Marxism" is a regular Brooks/conservative ploy to discredit much-needed idealism.
I am a child of the 60's and view the mass drift from radical to "liberal" as a major disappointment. Too many of my peers just lost conviction or compromised along the way in order to make some money or gain some status in a fundamentally flawed system.
Many young folks recognize that capitalism is just a political name for what is not capitalism. We live in a oligarchy which is only a distant relative of capitalism. "Free markets" is a euphemism for "We can do whatever we want."
The so-called "militants" do indeed believe in systemic oppression and the toxicity of privilege. They believe this because the evidence is irrefutable. Brooks disbelieves it because he is so fully advantaged by the system of oppression and his unrecognized white, male privilege.
1
I think this mirrors the split between the Bernie Wing and the Hillary Wing of the Democratic Party. I also think it reflects the idealism of the young, unhindered by experience and (eventually) tempered by time.
1
Despite having been around a long time, I have difficulty in dividing people up into age-defined "generations", however convenient for punditry that may be. Rather I see a continuum of populations (Is that the right word?) that deal with circumstances that are mostly inherited. At any point in time that population is diverse with a broad spread of political and social views that are influenced less by age ("generation") than they are by family and friends (e.g. wealthy vs. poor), location (e.g. south vs. north), and circumstance (e.g. Great Depression vs. post WWII). Individuals of each succeeding population, whatever they may be labelled (e.g. Boomer), must deal with ever-evolving conditions as their own circumstances allow, be they young or old. Thus, the "generations" might better be delineated by what at any given moment most needs fixing (e.g. civil rights, Vietnam war, etc.). In each, it's likely the young will think they can "fix" things, whereas the old accommodate themselves to what has yet to be "fixed".
In this age of Trump, much needs fixing, and that has little to do with one's age or "generation". We're all in the same boat.
FDR proposed a Second Bill of Rights. They included:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
It seems to me David Brooks that you consider this to be a militant progressive agenda, and thus FDR would stand with the militant progressives.
Personally I stand with FDR.
3
Although I am conservative and by fate alone a Boomer, I think that young people should be a lot angrier than they are. When we were school age, we were well fed and provided with all the tools needed to learn. When our time came for college, tuition was relatively cheap. So much so that I could easily raise enough money with a summer job to pay my tuition at State schools without the need to borrow. My post-graduate degree was slightly more expensive so I had to borrow, but nothing like what young people have to borrow now. I probably would not have had to borrow as much if the education industry had not lobbied to have the limits on what you could borrow lifted so they could raise tuition. We also made sure that we will be taken care of as we age by making sure that Social Security and Medicare provides us generous benefits.
What did we give our children in exchange for our good fortune? A 21 trillion dollar deficit, a deteriorating infrastructure, a dangerously warming planet, poisoned oceans and water, exploitation of the earth's resources to the point of the extermination of some species of life, and a lie that higher education was the key to success. So based on the belief that higher education was the key to success, they took on usurious and crippling debt in pursuit of it and many still had to settle for less. They delay marriage, buying homes, and having children because we did not care enough about them to give them the same chance at life that we had. Shame.
1
The frame that Brooks imposes on this generational divide is more of a philosophical difference between conservatives and liberals than a generational difference on the left. Conservatives tend to believe we live in a meritocracy where individuals have agency (an internal locus of control). Liberals tend to believe outside forces thwart prevent individuals from having true agency (an external locus of control). I don't see these frames as a generational difference on the left, though I would agree with the idea that some gap exists in the degree of change required to give people agency. In my opinion, we will be best off if the social institutions operate assuming an external locus of control (healthcare for all, education that results in equality of human capital at age 18, systems to counter systemic racism and misogyny) while individuals operate with an internal locus of control (working hard to make the most of whatever hand we've been dealt, and believing that our effort does move the needle some).
1
Younger conservatives are comfortable in a demographically diverse society, but are also more likely to think in cultural terms, and to see cultural boundaries."
This baffles me. I have family and friends who fit into this "younger conservative" bucket and I wholeheartedly disagree. My "younger conservatives" live in largely homogenous communities and go to school (high school and college) seeking like minded and similar looking people (to themselves.)
They come to visit me in DC an visit my workplace and marvel at the diversity. They comment on the different types of people and say things like,"Your kids go to school with Muslims? Are you okay with that?"
Unlike Mr. Brooks, I'm not making it up.
2
@Kelly
Indeed. Bias is not inherent in any one person, and is promoted from within whatever sheltered community - and in particular from peers/parents.
The sooner we diversify from a young age, the greater the chance of acceptance of anyone that goes up exponentially.
A good thing.
1
Woodstock? My son’s frat brothers returned from Woodstock-2, complaining about the crowds of unpaid attendees, expensive food, insufficient toilet facilities, commenting that it wasn’t like mine. I was working 7 days a week, putting myself through college when my friends wandered into my home on Sunday night in August 1969 complaining about those same details. Woodstock in a modern myth. The movie was a hit, so it was both a hit and a myth.
Those same Woodstockers went on to a variety careers and are now in their 60’s and 70’s. We are the oldsters and are no more uniform in our beliefs then we were then. Enjoying the same great music makes for a poor social glue. Writers should refrain from treating today’s boomers, yesterday’s Woodstockers, as if they speak with one voice.
The part that is often missed in this argument is that the "boomers" have a misguided belief that they have earned their enormous entitlements. They have not. The pension plans have not worked out, medical expense has exploded and was nowhere near paid for by those retirees. The youth are now expected to just go to work and pay to cover these gaps and not protest. Until these aged people realize that their leaders (who they elected) have failed them, the battle will only grow. The leaders stole from them to give tax cuts, lied to them about their motivation and are at the heart of the problem. But, the problem is still the same. The older Americans need to start respecting the efforts of young Americans to remedy the massive mistakes the self-indulgent and often naive older generations made. This begins by getting the aged out of positions of power in our government. They need to let those who are being forced to pay for everything have more control.
This piece is just bizarre. Brooks warns that the "cultural Marxists, (as if that were actually a "thing") are the new "danger" (Fox news anyone?). They've displaced "the liberals", who have always been the bad guys and still are according to Brooks and FOX.
So...who is left standing? Trump voters? No--no good. I guess all we've got are the "true conservatives" like David who despise Trump and everything he stands for but "love what he's doing"? Oy.
1
It is instructive that David Brooks, of the right wing persuasion, chose to opine on the generational gap between liberal parents and their liberal children. Seems an odd, pointless non authoritative undertaking. So I looked for more.
And I found it; the subtle branding of GOP non-believer young people as liberals, militants and Marxists along with their odd fit in a capitalist society.
David Brooks is nothing if not reliable.
2
David Brooks declaiming on generational liberalism is like a 50s crooner trying to explain R&B and hip hop.
Brooks will do anything to avoid exploring something he should know about: The role of the establishment conservative media in enabling the rise of Trumpist populism. This silliness is Exhibit A.
1
Extremism most definitely exists. These denials remind me of the situation with high school Queen Bees. No mother ever thinks her daughter is the Queen Bee.
Honestly I think pearl clutching articles like this do the very best job of anything at highlighting how out of touch older generations are with the desires of younger people. A lot of us just want a chance to afford a house, find someone special, leave a positive imprint on the world, and be happy.
We don't have the luxury to enrich ourselves at the expense of future generations like they did. Now we have to find a way in a world where most of the nation's wealth has already been divided up and the channels where new wealth flows have already been carved out leading directly to the people who already have the most. If you're not lucky enough to be born to a family that already has a big chunk of that pie, your options are to fight for crumbs or redistribute the pie. This behavior is just the obvious sociological reaction to decades of mismanaged wealth distribution.
2
@Someone
Well said. I think (quite soon) we are going to do away with the concept of money altogether, as society grapples with how to save itself and the planet.
When civilization's flame is about to be extinguished, then the idea of more decimal points in one's bank account will seem antiquated.
1
Mr. Brooks observes the enormous inequalities in today's United States and makes superficial comments involving young and old, classifying them to make copy, and ignores what is essential, that we are living in a period of enormous inequality, one that grates on the sensibilities of both young and old, of enormous poverty and increasing division in our society of rich and poor. 250 % of the increase in income has gone to the top 1% in the country, while that of the middle and lower classes stagnates. Why doesn't Mr. Brooks write about that?
1
It speaks volumes about how frayed the "American dream" has become that wanting to be able to afford a house, wanting a job in the field in which you incurred hundreds of thousands in college debt and wanting decent medical care without risking bankruptcy are considered "radical" demands.
But that's okay. Things in this country have never changed in any meaningful way when people politely ask for it. That's not how our society works. It only has a hope of changing when people demand it.
While aspects of radical progressive dogma are quite one-sided, it is also clear we face urgent problems that our current institutions are unlikely to solve. Hence radical perspectives cannot be dismissed as merely strident and irrational. To have any hope of tackling our problems without general erosion and, quite possibly, society collapse, we will need a new synthesis. Soon. This will require greater maturity than either the younger or the older generation is currently displaying.
1
To achieve a more equitable society means embracing moderate values like very good public schools, decent and affordable healthcare, comfortable retirement for those whose days have passed. It requires a commitment to The Commons-- good public transit and shared public spaces, safe neighborhoods, clean air and water. This will require that society steps back from the aggressive militarism our last great GOP president (IKE) warned against. that's a massive shift nobody is talking about. Ignoring this topic is why our country's best days are behind us.
3
David Brooks never quite gets people on the far left. I'm 50 and was once a young radical (in the 90's). Today, I run a nonprofit and, out of necessity, navigate a spectrum of ideologies on the left to sustain my organization responsibly. At heart, I'll always be a radical in my world view. In practice, I'm constricted by a capitalist system in which I live and work and will, someday, retire. Being a young radical is nothing new. Maybe we have more of them today, like we did in the 60's. That's a good thing. They will more likely be committed to justice and fairness in the organizations and businesses they eventually lead.
3
While I regard this column as of a piece with much of what David Brooks writes, that is to say simplistic in both its means and its conclusions, I will grant one thing: the young are not to be trusted. Not because they are dishonest, but because they are naive, untested and inexperienced. Yes, some of them possess an energetic idealism, but it is often unexamined. Mine was too, at that age. Those who are going to get their act together usually do at around the age of thirty. I'll put my faith in the seasoned and the reasoned.
2
@glen
It is usually the ''seasoned and the reasoned'' that have too much to protect (in their eyes) and are too selfish (mortality creeping into their psyche) to offer a more diverse solution to society's problems. - hence continuous tax cuts for themselves, while pushing the effects and the bill(s) onward.
Not working mate ...
1
This, like most David Brooks columns, speaks to an elite, professional class that did, indeed, mostly garner its wealth through cultural advantages inherited at birth. And I say this as a 50-something who also had these advantages: it’s not a good look. Especially when a sizable chunk of our population is suffering the results of unfettered capitalism. Personally, I believe the Millennials are right, and I cheer them on with full-throated enthusiasm. Our Generation X and the Baby Boomers did a very poor job stewarding this nation. I look forward to all the change the younger generation seeks.
5
@Frances: so you will willingly give up your privilege -- your inherited wealth -- property -- good job and health care -- so that all the poor folks can have more of it? and pay 3-4 times higher taxes?
How evolved of you.
1
"In the age of social media, Virtue is not defined by how compassionately you act. Virtue is defined by how vehemently you react to that which you find offensive. Virtue involves the self-display of a certain indignant sensibility, and anybody who doesn’t display that sensibility is morally suspect."
I may be in my own little bubble here--but literally every single person that I have spoken with about Twitter, Facebook, etc, are extremely weary of the platforms. I haven't had any serious conversations with young teenagers (13-16 y/o), but I'm not particularly worried about 13-16 year olds redefining what "Virtue" means for the rest of us. Maybe they'll do that when they're a bit older and less naïve--but I have a feeling that they'll mostly realize how they perpetuate toxic behavior, just like the rest of us have.
It could be that you were speaking with hyperbole, so if I'm reading too much into one paragraph, I apologize. I've just heard from too many people (like those on the "Intellectual Dark Web") that panicky SJW's are ruining "The West," and I just don't see it. I think the concern is overstated.
Ask yourself, seriously: Are SJW's really that big of a deal?
And the followup: Are they really worth spending energy on over the other problems that we face?
Maybe it is simpler than that, follow the money. The over 50 crowd, whatever the political stripe have more money, the young have nothing, and see a grim future (hello AI and climate change). Cultural marxism has been around 30 years, but it didn't really mean anything to now. 30 years ago wages stagnated, unions collapsed and globalization took off. The liberals and universities did nothing about that, their struggle was over (still is sometimes) the definition of words. Mr. Brooks looks at today's youth through Berkeley shades, but those days of self-referential gestures are gone, or should be.
I think David Brooks has captured a real phenomenon here. t I'm a slightly pre-baby boomer and a lifelong liberal. From my perspective, Donald Trump and the current Republican Party represent the same selfish, wealth and business-oriented evils and disguised racism that I fought against since the 60's. But my fight was always to both get the right people in office and to join demonstrations to make issues more prominent in the citizenry's mind. Free speech, even espousing views I despised, has always been sacred. The answer to our biggest social problems has been government run programs that worked if congress funded them adequately. Militant foreign policy always needed to be curtailed and was always suspect as serving corporate interests and violating our values (especially if the CIA was involved). I always thought the mechanisms of government could work if we could only get the influence of big money out of our decision-making. But more radical progressives than I appear to disregard free speech guarantees and regard saying something that disagrees with them as deserving to be squelched. They identifying suspect statements and minor slights, and regard calls for balanced discussion as giving support for the enemy. I agree with nearly all progressive programmatic proposals, short of anarchism, but many young progressives' goals and tactics appall me. Particularly, aiming their ire at liberal colleagues or working only outside the policial system seems counterproductive.
1
Interesting essay. I may be in my early 70's but I see both sides of the liberal/radical generational divide, especially the excesses of American style capitalism and the pervasive racism of the US (especially in much of the older generation who profess their liberalism but reveal what they really think in their conversations).
Where would this country be without youthful idealism and ideas.
As for the "Al Jazeera" nickname "for the younger set", get real. It may be reviled by much of the brainwashed US and the "older people" as you put it, but in my recent travels to Amsterdam, Iceland and Montreal it's on cable systems right along side CNN International.
2
Liberal educated boomers invented rebelling against the Establishment.
Weak? We may be getting gray hair and bad knees, but we're energized by the kids and are the ones in the back cheering them on and making sure everyone's hydrated.
We are happy to relinquish the spotlight to this, the Courageous Generation.
Meanwhile your barbs against liberals grow as wearisome as a Trump rant.
3
@Nancy
Sticks and stones indeed ... Now if we could only reduce all of that plastic for the water bottles, aye ?
1
@Nancy: speak for yourself.
I may be older, but I am not dead, and bad knees don't keep me from having an opinion -- or a VOTE.
I'm not giving up any spotlight until I am six feet under.
Boomer here, left leaning. Somewhat set in my ways and have never been one to engage in protest and marching. So I'm glad for the young people (and boomers) who do, thank you all. I don't feel a gap separating me from the more activist, in-your-face young progressives. I support them. I cheer them. Someone has to raise the ante, if you will, and actually be Anti-Fascist in a public way and take it to the next level when necessary. This is what did NOT happen in Germany in the 1930s and that situation spun out of control, we can't let that happen again.
3
@Bailey: the simple fact you are reading here, in the free (if very slanted partisan) press -- a newspaper viciously opposed to the elected government -- and your posts are printed, along with thousands of others -- without government censorship at all -- that you can criticize Trump and mock him all day long, without repercussions....is absolute PROOF that this is not a Fascist nation and your claims are bogus.
1
From the article. The militants are more likely to believe that the system itself is rotten and needs to be torn down.
Gee I wonder why they feel that way since the NRA holds the country hostage over sensible gun control.
I forget did we outlaw bump stocks yet?
3
@Peter: so it is all 100% about gun control? and only millennials are in favor of that, and all old folks oppose it?
That's awfully simplistic.
I’m 59. My children are of this “new” generation, but we share the same values, what I call “God’s Top 10”. We are liberals all, but with different amounts of energy left to practice what we preach. Their activism inspires me to be a better, more involved person. They are not militants or marxists, but they do believe we all have the right to live in a just and fair society, one that values the content of ome’s character over the color of one’s skin, one that puts people before profit. And so we all march. We are stronger together, and we know it.
2
Pity us Baby Boomers! We have been and remain the authors of all the evils in American society since the 1960's. Or so they say, older and younger, doesn't matter. And now we are apparently the pathetic victims of Trump's oldsters on the Right and of our children's children on the Left. Somehow it no longer matters that we are educated and extraordinarily productive and have largely moderated our tastes and views as we grew older. Indeed these traits label us as unfit for a world that has either pushed us aside or left us behind. Nothing is left to us now but to get old and die. Time will take care of that, of course, but what to do in the meantime? Sit on the sidelines and watch the mayhem unfold? Perhaps. I have been working and fighting for my entire adult life, and it seemed that the time had come to lay my burdens down. Laugh at me. Once again Baby Boomers are the culprits. It will end only when we are all safely in the grave.
1
@John: as the largest generation in history (until a few years ago, when the millennials -- full of illegal immigrants! -- surpassed us)....we've been targeted since we were small children! and both fawned over and attacked/dismissed....as a boomer, I've read this junk since I was a kid in elementary school and now i am pushing SS age and I still read it. I guess it won't end until the last boomer is dead, around 2060.
1
I realize that this article is not based on fact but opinion. David, you see only through your own lens without opening up to the larger society and what is happening with social media, the conservative senate and the House of Representatives that have distorted the meaning of Congress, the corporations that care not about their workers and so on.
Will you ever recognize the systematic destruction that your Corporate Republican Party has done to our country?
Stop the blame game and do some introspection to get real perspective.
1
Brooks should have no trouble understanding why the young feel as they do. As a big supporter of the Bush administration and the Iraq War, he is one of those responsible. He can hardly be surprised if the young have less faith in institutions after a war was fought over WMD that didn't exist. And after an economic disaster that happened because the leaders he supported did nothing as it unfolded during 2007 and 2008. The young feel that if people are successful it is due to group privilege? Just because Bush became president (just like he avoided service in Vietnam) due to his family's connections? That is what is missing from this column - an acknowledgment that the radicalism of the young is caused by the greed and stupidity of Brooks' generation. I wonder why that is not mentioned.
2
@Mrsfenwick: remind me again what the liberal Democrats, including EIGHT YEARS OF OBAMA, did about that war fought over fake non-existent WMDs.
Oh right. Nothing. They continued the wars which are ongoing today.
My cousin's husband, a career military officer, is on his 5th tour of Afghanistan. That did not start under Trump.
1
Somehow, I have the feeling that Dave has trouble with the coffeemachine filter in the breakroom. The writing strikes me as weak, not taking the extra steps to give more credence to the statements. Already too many comments.
2
This is ridiculous and just plain wrong. Boomers caused every single problem David lists, obliviously the younger generation is going to find solutions to those problems that don't involve re making the same mistakes that the boomers brought us. If the the boomers faith in meritocracy, capitalism and neo liberalism brought us climate change, income inequality of staggering levels, decaying infrastructure etc...then maybe those ideas aren't all the great? And the younger generation needs to make the changes and solve the problems that the boomers are too lazy, incompetent and complacent to actually tackle. And good riddance to them if they don't want to adapt their approach, cause its clearly not working.
--
Nope.
You've described the loudest millennial leftists reasonably well, but, outside of Instagram comment sections and cherry-picked videos on Fox News, they do not represent a substantial portion of this generation. Sorry, but your vague anecdote about people who run organizations is not just unconvincing - it sounds downright apocryphal.
Here's an idea: stop being distracted by the people on the authoritarian fringes (they've always been there), and start actually looking for and talking to the democratically liberal progressives and democratically liberal conservatives.
2
The single most dangerous aspect of extreme liberal politics is this quote from the article:
"... systemic racism and systems of oppression inextricably tied to our institutions..."
This is the age of Trump and his extreme politics of hate, which is just what Republicans have done for decades, but more so. The naïve and simplistic reaction of many people is to take up the idea that racism is virtuous, good, and politically correct *as long as it targets "white" people* with phrases like "white privilege" or "white fragility."
That's not just wrong, it's dangerous. Racism just creates more racism. It feeds Trump and his followers, and helps create the fascist, authoritarian state that Trump wants.
2
Brooks is 100% correct. They might take the name "Liberal" but none of its beliefs. Open dialogue? No. Seeing freedom of speech as no different than freedom to think? Yeah right. And it's true, despite possibly being based on compassion, more likely resentment, they act without any compassion. They only react to what offends, even if that which offends are tried and true facts. I run a business, and the youngest employees are frightening. They are so in favor of big government, they have not the slightest care about ideas of freedom and liberty. It is a scary time. The colleges are mostly to blame for their radicalization. It's pathetic that tax dollars fund it at state schools.
2
This kind of political labeling is rather antiquated, positional, rigid!
We live in time of great complexity which arrived quick and took most by surprise. To be "nationalist" or "populist" is to to fixed and rigid on a few simple ideas - whether religious or political- thus take a stance that is as dumb as it is simple, simple! To be a "liberal' or "elite" is to claim humanistic sentiments and act with presumption that you are somewhat superior but not managing reality with objective eyes, calling the 'simple' "deplorables"...
What is shaping is a new class of young, global minded and affected youths who sense a reality that is both grossly unfair and the sense that existential threats are creeping up while the political heads and structures do not respond properly - hence the 'revolutionary' label!
Runaway capitalism and vicious violence that is eating the soul of America is abhorrent, turning the simple into tribal hordes responding to pernicious (often far right) dogmas, while the liberal minded haves are cashing in and patronizing the 'bumpkins'...
In this systemic entropy and chasm betwixt the aforesaid labeled, the youth with the sense of existential threats act with a degree of anarchy that is poorly understood.
So what to do?
Politics as we know them are Dead!
We need to switch to a knew kind of human management, one that is predicated on social management. Existential fears must be mitigated by addressing the climate change, economic justice, human rights...!
The kind of shallow characterizations Brooks uses here for large groups of people are silly and do nothing to solve or illuminate anything. People are complex. Their interactions are complex. Reducing them to simple young and old, right and left groupings is pointless.
The younger generation clashes with the older one with different ideologies. Wow.
Everything old is new again.
2
From my perspective here in North Carolina, in a small light blue liberal city surrounded by bright red Appalachia for miles in every direction, reading this column I was struck by the ignorance you display about who the offspring of Trump voters are. Many of them may not be voting, but I can see how they have reacted to the election and ensuing events, with the help of the Fox News soup they all swim in. This is about the triumph of the white Christian male to them. And rational argument is increasingly unable to reach them, because public education has been underfunded and politicized for years, so that basic civics has not been taught. I see at least as much passion nationally on the right among the offspring of Trump voters as I do on the left, and I can't forget Charlottesville. Demonizing and laying more blame on one side than the other just shows that you are in a sheltered place, talking with young right-leaning people who have gone to college and grad school and are in the general vicinity of your career--not the young people I've seen here who perform displays of triumphalism with Confederate flags, are intimately familiar with firearms, and generally absolutely would terrorize me and my liberal ilk if things got too out of hand--as I am now continually a bit trepidatious that they will given our president's love of riling up his base.
1
It’s nice you have opinions Mr. Brooks, but where is the data and facts to support those opinions? The impression you get from your random encounters maybe are not true on a wider basis, right? And militant? What’s militant about being further left of center in your beliefs?
1
No story here. Was true when I was young - I’m now 57.
1
But, they still don't vote...this is a generation that finds it hard to have cereal for breakfast.
Shaking my head again Brooksey. Your off in conservative La la land . Rationalizing a conservatism since Goldwater that has no ethics or common sense and blaming Liberals. So tacky without mentioning the great collapses of Reaganomics or the Wars of spite around the world. All caused by Republicans.
Trump is the result of Newt and the Bush’s and the horror of a corporate community that lacks any sense of the common good.
The big tell: conservative anti abortion republicans, save the child, let die the mother and let the child wander in the world of meritocracy (no education, food stamps, foster homes) where one man can be on target to be a trillionaire because he found a way to avoid paying TAXES!
The stain on the sixties generation was reneging on the promise of equality to eventuall become the liars and grifters of the 21st Century.
1
The main problems we have are :
1. The throw away economy which has breaking points on everything to insure nothing lasts very long and has to be tossed, a terrible, criminal waste of finite resources,
2. TV and social media which reduce everything to the lowest common denominator and dumb down the public when they need their wits about them..
3. Trump, who tosses out lies like bait.
4. A fixation on money and power in the face of things more important like climate change, education and health care.
5. Political gridlock, which may be easing.
6. Several crucial environmental emergencies which are mostly ignored by Trump, probably because they draw attention away from himself.
This is all improvable, given time and poliitical will. Pay attention.Encourage the young to pay attention. The tide will turn.
2
I wish Brooks has his tongue in his cheek as he wrote this, but of course he didn't. We have ALWAYS had radical extremes but most of the folks he's targeting aren't in that extreme. Now, he sounds like a trump adviser on parenting. Sad.
2
What forces emerge here to divide the left?
I'm a member of the "elite academy." I must have missed the meeting where we decided that cultural Marxism is our "lingua franca." But please enlighten us, Mr. Brooks. While you're at it, could you also explain why conservative pundits are the only ones who use the phrase "cultural Marxism?"
2
Surely you could have framed the position of "young radicals" more charitably.
The Boomers were born into a game of Monopoly that was still a game when they were coming of age. Many rode a wave of generational opportunity that allowed them to claim individual credit for situational success.
The younger generation was born into a world where not only was the Monopoly game basically over for the prior generation, the "winners" of the past game were able to dominate so thoroughly that they could eat the future.
They are still eating it. Crushing student loan debt, unaffordable housing and healthcare in the 21st century, non-living wage jobs, communities and the environment destroyed for "shareholder value", technology that has been used to destroy the lives of the many for the benefit of the few.
These were not and are not inevitabilities, but rather political choices made by the old and wealthy, to eat the young and poor.
There are stupid people in every generation, but it's not all reactive identity politics (which are a predictable but maladaptive response to genuine economic oppression anyway.) It's just that it's typical and self-serving of the Boomer generation to punch down by casting the younger generation's views in the most uncharitable strawman terms, because the truth is just too unflattering for the Boomer egos built on the false idol of "me me me."
1
Trump voters also believed that the system was rotten and needed to be torn down. They elected Trump to smash a system that was not working for them at all.
You know NOTHING about liberals and the left. This column rings completely false and fantastical.
Throughout the ages, youth have introduced creative thinking and kept us older folks honest. The language of the woke youth of today is perplexing to you, but not to those of us who work side by side with them.
Get a grip and turn your attention to examining your own "house" - the right wingers who got us into the Trump disaster and continue to enable his dangerous agenda.
1
What are 'militant' progressives? Progressives who do more than send in comments to the NYT? Like the 3-4 million Americans demonstrating in the Women's March in multiple cities post-Trump election with support from groups as diverse as Amnesty International, NAACP, League of Women Voters, AFL-CIO, and Oxfam. Or Black Lives Matter, active since 2013.
Not that the system needs to be 'torn down' as Brooks hyperbolically states, but radically changed-from voting laws, to gerrymandering, to tax laws, to a Federal minimum wage that is unchanged at $7.65 an hour since 2009!
"... boomers have hogged the spotlight since Woodstock". Really? Since 1981 Republican Presidents 22years, Democratic 16 years, Senate Republican controlled 18 years, Democrats 14 years, House-18 for each.
Finally, bringing in "Marxism" in the context of the article can only be taken as a sign of how weak Brooks' argument truly is. Like patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Marxism is the last refuge of a weak argument.
1
Despite the turbulent protest movements of the late 60's in civil rights, rage against a senseless war, awareness of the excesses of capitalism, we got Nixon, then Reagan-Bush. Two more stupid wars. Gross inequality. Racial and cultural division. Despite historical evidence that a mixed economy helps promote prosperity, equality, a cleaner, safer environment, we have big money trying to preserve a tilted status quo with unfettered capitalism. Mr. Brooks it's time you shed your love for universal conservatism and enlighten you readers on the benefits of a mixed economy. Doesn't have to be radical. Just common sense and an accounting of history.
1
Well this explains some of the conversations over turkey this weekend with my 20 something. And retreat, I did!
The radicalization of the youth is on you, and conservative economic policy, not me as a parent. In fact, your suggestion offends me deeply and has convinced me to never make the mistake of reading you or taking you seriously again.
Once again, Mr. Brooks becomes an apologist for the right, and contrasts the "boomer liberals" and their progeny as "radicals" who" offer legitimacy to people and structures that are illegitimate." He follows this up with the assertion that "conservatives" raise less strident children who "see the dream of universal democracy as hopelessly naïve." Therein lies the rub.
Mr. Brooks is disingenuous at best in mouthing these accusations. What "illegitimate structures" does he mean? A prison system that incarcerates people of color at a rate of 5.1 times that of whites? Denying Medicaid to poverty-stricken people who don't work for their benefits, despite a dearth of available jobs? Lobbing tear gas at families legally seeking asylum?
On the other hand, does Mr. Brooks believe deliberate institutional deconstruction & the enormous spike in hate crimes by alt-right/neo-Nazi groups been given validation by the "the old Trumpians" who represent conservatism now? If these young conservatives believe that "universal democracy is naive," what prevents them from craving a system that is authoritarian in nature?
This is just another of Mr. Brooks' constant diatribes against the idealism of the left. He really should consider that being outraged at injustice is much preferable to being "comfortable" with demagoguery, while our country is being maliciously torn apart. Our youth is our future, and as a "boomer" I sincerely hope these "younger militants" may be our ultimate salvation.
1
If Brooks wants to write about these generational divide, he should use more neutral language that "Cultural Marxism" and "militant." His generalizations too sweeping and insulting. Why not invite someone from the progressive left so we can hear how they define this generational divide?
Whatever hand 'parenting' has in creating that gap, chances are that 'hand' is secondary to what Mr. Brooks call "the lingua franca' at America high education institutes, demonstrated to be 'orchestrated' by professors who're keen on 'opinionating' their students rather than educating them. When 'push-comes-to-shove' professors may be unconsciously seeking to be 'loved' by their students .
From that point on, as Mr. Brooks aptly noted, the major cohesive parameter among the 'young' has nothing to do with truth or fact but is strictly 'social', wanting to 'belong' with the majority.
If David Brooks must write articles like this, wouldn’t it be a better use of his conservative insights to have him write about the children of the Trump worshippers? From what I’ve seen, they pose more of a danger than ultra-liberals.
2
Maybe the truth is that the system your generation created is indeed rotten and needs to be torn down and replaced. Maybe the solution is NOT to vote in more Democrats who are just as corporatist as any Rep but hide behind marriage equality. Your Boomer generation MESSED EVERYTHING UP. And now you want to blame American youth for rejecting you wholesale? You can argue with methods and details but not with the basic premise that American society and govt have been fatefully corrupted and piecemeal solutions are grossly inadequate.
Hopefully, these "radicals" will grow up and move beyond this phase in their lives. Actually I don't understand their problem; I don't understand what is driving them. The radical movement of the 1960s had real meaning, driven by the Vietnam War and Civil Rights, issues of life and death. I don't see anything going on today that's comparable. All they have is a bad taste for Donald J. Trump. Political correctness and diversity are not worth the same fight. Moreover, these radicals come from comfortable middle class and upper class homes; they have the resources to "rebel," and rebel they will until it will be time to settle down and get a real job. The radicals of the 1960s, especially the African Americans, did not enjoy such means. In fact, the radicalism of the black community probably has more in common with the 1960s, as many of their problems have persisted since then. Who is their Mario Savio? They don't have one because they oppose free speech! Who is their Tom Hayden? They don't have one because their movement lacks an organizing manifesto! 1960s radicalism had an intellectual force behind it that the current radicalism lacks. Social media is not the same! What a shame. Thank you.
1
A nice piece of 1980's analysis. Find a different question, David.
I'm a Boomer and I'm "appalled by President Trump, alarmed by global warming, disgusted by widening income inequality,". I also "believe that the system itself is rotten ... We live in a rape culture, with systemic racism and systems of oppression inextricably tied to our institutions. We live in a capitalist society, a neoliberal system of exploitation."
I'd like to see you back up your theory with some facts.
2
It all sounds familiar. The progressives are just kids being kids. They all know more and better than anyone else. And are ready to scream it out. We did the same thing when we were their age.
"The boomers got all the top jobs?" This boomer never got a top job, and most of the boomers I know do not have top jobs either. We are lucky to have any job (I am doubly lucky to be a union member), and we are supporting our woke kids the best we can. We are "liberal" because that is the only alternative available to us. I would gladly chuck the Democrats and join the Socialists but where are the socialists? They were all blacklisted before I was born and the only ones who hold any jobs that can support a middle class lifestyle have been herded into academia where they can write papers and hold conferences about desconstructionism and whatnot but never accomplish anything in the real world unless they work with the establishment through groups like the NAACP, the Sierra Club or the Union of Concerned Scientists or something. A young man I know harangued me one day for being a "bourgeois neoliberal" -- right after hitting me up for some cash -- and I could not stop laughing. I told him that when he and his friends lead the revolution I'll be right there waving the red flag -- unless they march me off to the guillotine -- but until that day, somebody has to go to work for the man and pay the bills. That's just life.
Describing the feelings of others is not an intellectually honest way to make a living and betrays the art of letters.
What's more alarming isn't the reaction of youth, but the mindless complacency of the rest. Cultural Marxism? Generation gap? Sorry, Mr. Brooks, your analysis is neither original nor on point. Your pre-2016 election predictions were wrong as wrong as your post-election analysis. If one of my students had concluded their essay with "I guess the final irony is this:" I'd have returned it, sans grade, and requested a more evidence based and more carefully scrutinized assignment. If I were your editor, one of us would be looking for a new line of work.
1
"In the age of social media, virtue is not defined by how compassionately you act. Virtue is defined by how vehemently you react to that which you find offensive."
It is shocking that David only sees this as problem for young liberals. He apparently doesn't use Facebook.
1
I think your generational math is off. People 35 or so usually have children who are 10 at tops. Their "youth revolt" must consist of refusing to get off their cell phones for dinner or not finishing homework. Hardly the stuff that causes cosmic political changes.
1
This is a classic David Brooks column: broad, sweeping generalizations supported by nothing more than a few vague bits of anecdotal evidence. Brooks' arguments are so vague and slippery that you can't really even get a good enough grip on it to begin to refute it.
However, I'll try my best with a couple bits of inconvenient facts. First, based exit polls so far, voting among 18-29 is up from both 2014 and 2016. If these are such radical revolutionaries, what are they doing playing by the rules and voting? Shouldn't they be blowing stuff up and setting buildings on fire? Second, these "revolutionaries" are running for office. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a prominent example, but Katie Hill and Josh Harder are both under 35's who flipped red districts to go to Congress. This is not even mentioning state and local government. Tell us, David, what are these little Fidel Castros doing running for office instead of armed insurrection?
Seems to me, these young people lean farther left than David Brooks likes. So he labels their youthful idealism as dangerous radicalism.
1
Mr. Brooks, your ecumenical slip is showing in your denigration of liberals. Not only are liberals bad but their children are worse? I wish you would define "liberal" as you understand it. And I will try to understand why you are moving slowly but surely to the arms of the ecumenical click. Rupert and the Koch brothers will find satisfaction in this column.
1
Academia has become toxic (I was in it, so I know). The whole thing is built on and thrives by resentment. Combine that with overparenting and you get Millennials. By the time they're in power they'll have us marching in unison like North Korea, and starving like Venezuela.
As for"the young militant progressives",I'm with them and I'm 61 years old.
1
Mr. Brooks, at some point it would be most instructive for you to clearly and specifically state exactly which concerns and causes of "the left" (climate change; great income inequality; pervasive racial, gender and LGBT discrimination; voter supression; disdain for scientific method and research, etc.) you actually agree with or share, and which ones you don't; and in the latter case, clearly explain why.
Until you do so, I sense that you and other serious conservative pundits quietly acknowledge the objective reasonableness of most "leftist" concerns and causes, but feel too embarassed to admit it.
This seems to minimize the alt-right, many of whom are young and are a reaction against the young progressive left. Is there no generation gap here?
2
We have tried civil discourse for decades, and nothing ever happens. The fraud that is trickle down economics and climate change denial continues to be pervasive on one "side of the aisle" while the "other side" continues to lie down and engage in this earnest debate. "Militant" progressives are merely getting wise to the fact that in this "earnest" debate, only one side is trying to be earnest while the other side exploits it to their benefit. You have forfeited your right to civil discourse through decades of persistent unwillingness to engage in a real discourse, merely pretending to while going about your merry way. Now that people are actually demanding that they be taken seriously, and that this discourse be translated into tangible action, and that you can no longer just give us the run-around, you consider that "radical" and "militant". Also, interesting that you only consider that young people are losing faith in institutions at face value, without considering why. This piece is a great example of how boomers just don't get it, and are clueless as to their role in creating the generation they constantly criticize.
1
Like David described, I'm a liberal parent with four radical children. I played by all the rules and achieved a certain level of comfort and security as I approach 60. None of my children, all under 24, see that as likely to happen either for themselves or their cohorts. What they do see is a system utterly incapable and unwilling to address what they see as existential threats to their future. Climate change being number one, but followed closely by corruption of the justice system, government capture by corporate and wealthy entities (thanks Citizens United), and massive wealth inequality. They are horrified by all of this, and see the capitalism as merely a system designed to perpetuate power for those who already have it. They see the Triangulation of the Clinton years and Obama's efforts thwarted by the right (Obamacare being a capitulation to the original Republican/Heritage Foundation plan) as failed attempts to play nice with the existing power structure.
They're an angry bunch. I can't say that I blame them.
2
" Virtue is defined by how vehemently you react to that which you find offensive. Virtue involves the self-display of a certain indignant sensibility, and anybody who doesn’t display that sensibility is morally suspect."
This is the fuel of the hyper-partisan culture wars. Find offense at the slightest thing --> Acquire respect from peers who laud your progressive sensibility --> Be stared at with incredulity and disdain by people outside that group (conservatives and older liberals).
"Boomers generally think they earned their success through effort and talent."
– David Brooks, b. 1961.
And this is a big part of why we can't have nice things in this country.
2
It has always been the children of professionals who have led the way for needed change. Those are the young people who have the education and the money and security to have time to work for what they believe to be a more just society. In the current situation the very planet depends of the the radical youth for it is they who will inherit the mess we have made. The US is not and never has been a Democracy. There are serious changes that need to be made lest we all burn or blow up the planet. The Senate is anti-democratic and so is the Electoral College. The Democrats have won the vast majority of votes for some time but we still have a Senate that follows our unhinged, corrupt President. If the young voters do not wrest control of this country from the war profiteers, the fossil fuel corporations..all the corporate entities who care only care about profits, then we are all doomed. Until 1973 health care was not-for-profit. Young educated people have read "The Shock Doctrine" and "Democracy in Chains" and they know how to look up facts. If they do not take control of our government the whole planet will burn up.
1
There's a lot meat in this article, but the core is quite simple, and quite accurate:
A lot of young adults are questioning the healthiness not of political policies, but of the system itself. They are looking at the tree, and deciding whether the shade it provides is worth the rotten smell emanating from its trunk.
Do we take the tree down now, and plant a new one? Or enjoy the shade as long as possible, while risking its fall at an unknown time?
It's not a new analysis. Thing is, times have changed a lot since 1775, the 1800's, the 60's, 70's. Maybe it is time for the "militant youth" to use their chainsaws.
1
All the fault of the “elite academy”, says Mr Brooks. I’ve been teaching at an “elite university” for over 30 years and have a hard time believing that those who have passed through got their political views from my peers and me. Nice try, Mr Brooks!
1
It’s a great delight to see the Boomers, who got their start in their unexampled generational narcissism and totally undeserved sense of unique “greatness” (just as phony and ludicrous as the boasts of the generation’s narcissist-in-chief in the White House) by claiming to be so morally superior to their Greatest Generation parents, now getting their comeuppance from their own kids. Their kids have correctly seen through their yuppie Boomer parents’ absurdly hypocritical betrayal of any youthful idealism they might have once had. The progressive kids rightly see their Boomer parents’ meritocratic neoliberalism as grotesque hypocrisy in which “social liberalism” (meaning cost-free support for Identity Politics) has been a pathetic fig-leaf unable to hide the Boomers’ more basic value of greedy, materialistic “fiscal conservatism,” hardly distinguishable from that of outright Republicans. The personification of this supposed Boomer “social” idealism masking simple on-the-make greed and selling out for it have been the Clintons. Bernie’s progressive kids, like the genuine Boomer progressive, Susan Sarandon, easily saw through Hillary’s pretence of being a crusader for social justice, when she was, in fact, simply a well-bought servant of her paymasters at Goldman. No wonder she was the most despised nominee in Democratic Party history. Let’s hope the young progressives, more and more numerous than the dying Boomers by the day, will compkete Bernie’s revolution in 2020 for good.
This one is full of generalizations.......I'm a boomer who tends toward the liberal side of things, but this is not my observation.
1
This essay is so ill-conceived. A gap would exist if liberals raised conservative children, not radical children. If this columnist is to be believed, the United States is on the right path, which is to the left. Somehow I don't think that's what this writer meant to say.
1
As I always say, Mr. Brooks' columns read like a forward (or afterward) to an interesting book you'd like to read. Although Mr. Brooks has not hidden from writing about the turmoil in the GOP - this topic of the liberal community and their children seems like a shadow of that drama. Those who support Trump have been much louder and more effective in making their voices heard - and in getting electoral results (until, perhaps, this past election) than have the young liberal voices of the left. however, what Mr. Brooks describes as the discontent of young liberals appears to be focused on several of the same targets as Trump supporters - just with different political window dressing.
Brooks, you are panicking. Your depiction of the actions and motivations of the young progressive Left--repeating the PC/trigger warning tropes--is lousy writing at best, insidiously fake at worst. And you paint another caricature--of a cowering old liberal Left. After I looked it up, I agree that where the generations meet is 'meliorism.' We in the Left do think that we can make the world better, and we are coming together to do just that. We will support both noisy demonstrations and progressive candidates; we will work together to advance cultural norms and to pass the right laws.
1
Dear Mr Brooks,
Tread carefully -- "cultural Marxism" is a fascist dog whistle. You should know better.
If young people don't trust institutions, perhaps it is because they have failed so many times in recent history that the system's legitimacy is in serious doubt: Bush v Gore, WMD, Too Big to Fail, LIBOR, Panama Papers, Fake News, FAMGA monopoly, 1% oligarchy, etc, etc.
2
I like how Brooks just writes off the radicalism on the right. Hey, no big deal and the Trump guys are old.
Except when they aren't ... Stephen Miller anyone? The young khaki clad guys chanting "Jews will not replace us" are just dismissed in an aside?
Radicalism and youth go together, and if we can make an argument that progressive radicalism tends to be moralistic and punitive, let's at least agree that on the right it leans to fascism which is a lot worse than annoying self righteousness.
Brooks isn't usually so blind a cherry picker. Sure, the college kids are annoying. But none have shot up any churches lately either. I'll take annoying over lethal hatred any day.
2
Another socio-cultural fault line for political exploitation and development?
Trump brought the life blood of Birthers into an anemic Republican Party, a movement that combined anti-immigrant and traditionally racist attitudes. Mix this with a bit of Tea Party populism and resentment for Cocktail Party Ivy League Global Elitists and, Presto Chango!, you have the New Republican Party.
There's is gold in them thar cultural fault lines if you know how to mine 'em. The best tool, modernized by the Russians, is "active measures." It is really great in consolidating your base and angering your enemies. Cuts both ways. It gets your some of your foes so worked up that they can't see straight.
Are we headed for a new two party system? The Fascist Party versus the Anti-Fascist Party, both dangerous? Too strong?
If you drive a wedge in a socio-cultural fault line for your benefit, you are in effect manipulating both sides. This is where the current political landscape is broken. We have fault lines. The broken is the cynical exacerbation of these rifts.
Well, Mr. Brooks, you have focused on another. Let's keep an eye out for the use of active measures in making it worse.
Where in the world does David Brooks get this stuff? I know both generations of liberals described. (I fall in the middle generation.) I don't know any who match the descriptions. Is there a study? Poll data? Something?
1
Again, Gen X is nowhere to be found in Brooks's portrait. Including us would undermine his assertion about the divide, because we tend to straddle that divide--we see the value in existing structures, while also being well aware that these structures are riddled with worms and rot. We tend to be more thoughtful than both the "burn it down" and the "patch it up" camps.
It seems from non-mention in this column, that the separation of ”church” (in the general sense of the word, ie, not necessarily Christian) and state in America at least, is so thorough that humankind being creatures of God doesn’t come into picture in considering social situations, especially their failures. And given the “pitch” of the so-called “Evangelicals” so enthusiastically supportive of you-know-who, this non-mention is probably for the better in the interest of having any readers at all. Leaving “God” ... not religion, please! ... out of the picture however seems to me to be problematic because this is tantamount to the practice of arrogance ... one side or other, if there are only two, claiming what is right. It seems from long history that humankind, generally speaking and left to themselves, don’t know or dare practice the way of what-is-right, ie, real justice out of goodwill/ peace/ shalom. How to be properly humble and not a push-over, may be the important topic to consider and apply. There’s been enough fighting about who’s “right.” The “zero-sum” game is not the truth of who we, as human-being, are.
I believe we are all products of our environment, and, until we have the chance to expand their cultural experiences, we will have similar beliefs to those around us.
I fall right in between the two generations described, so maybe it's easier for me to see both sides, but my view is that Mr. Brooks sets up a false dichotomy. Why can't both the "individualistic and meritocratic" belief system of the older generation, and the youth awareness of inherently unequal systems be true? The two worldviews are layered on top of each other, and both can be valuable.
It's myopic to deny the ways in which the legacy of racial oppression, or the unequal distribution of capitalism's benefits, contribute directly to economic and sociocultural outcomes that favor some groups over others. But it's also painting with far too broad a brush to say that these realities affect every member of a given group equally, or that individuals can't succeed in spite of these systems with the right combination of luck and hard work.
My sense is that Mr. Brooks, despite an admirable attempt to understand the youth set, fails to give them their proper due. His worldview needn't be wrong for others' to simultaneously be right. (Let's not let Trumpism reduce everything to a zero-sum game!) I think because the *tactics* of youth activism make Boomers uncomfortable (sometimes for good reason, in my opinion), they are less willing to recognize some of the uncomfortable truths of systematic inequality and oppression that underpin those tactics.
Times they are a changin', Mr. Brooks. Did you not get the tweet?
Ha!
David - brilliant.
I deal with these kids at university every day.
When you are arguing with someone and they honestly seem to believe that basic sentential logic is patriarchal plot then you know we are all doomed.
1
Every now and then I read one of Brooks’s columns and wonder who he is talking about?
The millenials I know (that would be my children and nieces and nephews and their friends, ages 21-33) are just trying to find a place for themselves in a really broken world. They want health care! And some freedom from burdensome student debt! And jobs instead of ‘gigs’. And housing they can afford. And to be able to have children without thinking that the world will end before they can grow up.
How radical.
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@Karen absolutely correct. I retired recently from college teaching. Nothing I saw in 30 odd years resembles Mr. Brooks's argument, which of course as usual focuses on a small minority.
I also have children aged 28 and 30, both working in the environmental field because they are rightly terrified by a system that has sadly ignored reality for 50 years. If their support for a Green New Deal is radical, I'm on board.
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@Karen But what you said agrees with the article. To worry that there won't be a world for your children to grow up in is a new and radical worry. Perhaps, when your children and nieces see that their student debt won't be forgiven but the big banks will be rescued again and again, perhaps then your children will take to the streets. I hear the bugle of revolution and the death of human life on Earth is leading the call!
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@Karen Yep. Thanks. Your post confirms the article.
1
Yes the kids can be a bit self righteous at times but their elders has seriously failed them. The bennies that previous generations had like an actual job, reasonably priced health care, affordable housing and higher education, not facing an environmental apocalypse, and not having craven lunatic for a president. They would be stupid not to be concerned. Not exactly spoiled. Some of the most “spoiled” people I know are from the generation who shall not be named and for whom the above listed “rights” were a given.
Mr. Brooks goes to great lengths to tell us that young conservatives are good, while young liberals are bad.
3
It's really disappointing to see a New York Times columnist use a term like "cultural Marxism," which has no meaning except a pejorative used by the alt-right to describe any desire for economic, environmental, or social justice or equality. The radicals of the Sixties, whom Midge Decter and her neo-conservative cohort disparaged, pushed society to be fairer and more equitable, with some success. That's what today's so-called "radicals" are pushing for. And, evidently, that's what scares David Brooks and his right wing cohort.
1
Notice that David Brooks—a Baby Boomer born in August 1961—divides all of humanity into two generational groups:
"The Boomers" and "the Young."
Really? These are the only two generations walking the streets of America today?
According to sociology, the "youngest" Boomer alive is 55 years old. Most Boomers are 60 years of age. But, in Brooks' eyes, there are no generational cohorts of importance existing between "The Young" and "The Boomers."
In his bizarre interpretation of American society, there are no Gen-X'ers, no Millennials, and no Zetas. It's just Baby Boomers vs. everyone else. This op-ed encapsulates classic "Boomer Paranoia" at its best: "It's just us—the Boomers—and everyone else is a young kid out to take what we have."
When David Brooks is 100 years old, he will still be dividing the world into "the Boomers" and "the Young."
1
As the Liberal daughter of Conservative parents, I can see both sides of this. After leaving my home state of Nebraksa for college, coming back to visit with a liberal arts degree involves numerous eye rolls from my mother and barely-polite discussions with friends and neighbors.
But the same happens with my even more progressive college friends, and we swap eye rolls here and there. The values I learned growing up in a small-town swing too Conservative.
To them, I’m a generation behind. To my friends and family at home, I am too far gone.
Will my children continue the pattern, becoming progressive and militant? I don’t think that will be a bad thing in the eyes of their mother.
Regardless, I hope they feel strongly and are passionate about a variety of topics, but are still able to educate themselves and see all sides.
1
Let's call it bad child raising. I was raised in a very liberal family in the '60s-'70s and was naturally, liberal. It was only with a lot of self-education - you can't get it in school - I became moderate. The far right and far left both want to control us. They believe with great fervor that they are right and their opponents evil, stupid or immoral. What scared me when young - because of my upbringing - were Nazis, KKK - the far right - b/c Communism in America seemed was far less powerful. That was then. In time, the Fed. govt mostly defanged the far right. For all the exaggeration of the media, they are relatively few. In fact, when they protest, they are greatly outnumbered by radical counter-protesters. What is scary now is that those who were raised liberal to some degree support radicalism now, at least implicitly - that is, they ignore the excesses. So, media like the NYTs virtually ignores the fascist activities of groups like Antifa or BLM. Its okay with many on the left (and otherwise nice, decent people have told me this) that their radicals use violence and intimidation to get their policies in place - so long as they are on their side, of course. Much of radicalism, in my view, stems from feelings of victimization taught by parents and inflamed by the media and educators. So, now we have masked protesters with weapons, rioters, screamers at hearings, scratchers at doors. And many more on the left are tilting to the extreme. There is usually a reaction.
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@DHEisenberg - " masked protesters with weapons"
I have seen plenty of these on the right. Where, pray tell, have you seen them on the left?
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@DHEisenberg Radicalism is stemming from our youth believing there won't be a livable Earth for them if they don't stand up now and be radical. We can't afford to be laissez-faire so we can be seen as "tasteful".
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@DHEisenberg: What extreme left? Have you really heard somebody saying we should nationalize the oil companies, like Venezuela did under Chavez? This is a red herring. These Millennials you refer to as "far left" are really just facing a system that was corrupted and broken by their parents and grandparents. I struggle to understand how people can face this national disgrace then attack Millennials for their warranted criticism of the current version of the status quo.
And as for "de-fanged" conservatives, political scientists after political scientists has shown that the GOP has continually drifted to the extreme right while the Democrats have more or less stayed as center-left. Evidence? Wasn't Obama denied a SCOTUS nomination, contrary to the Constitution? That's extreme. GOP free market fundamentalism, where checks and balances are consider swear words, is extreme.
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Teaching in a red state and seeing young people here, I note that the same gaps exist on the right: youth who really admire President Trump and heroes in Conservative media, who are immunized to meaningful discussions on race or the environment.
Where, in your analysis of generational activism, do you place the increase in numbers of young right-wing radicals (white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites) whose parents are often mainstream conservatives? Those angry young men who think the system as it is now must be violently destroyed?
3
The comparison lacks nuance but generalizations are rarely subtle. This comparison in particular struck me.
"Boomers generally think they earned their success through effort and talent."
"People who are successful usually got that way through some form of group privilege and a legacy of oppression."
I would agree with first statement: Boomers tend to view their success as meritocratic. The second statement though? Not so much. Young activists don't view boomers as oppressors. Group privilege is at best a mis-characterization of their sentiment. Allow me to explain.
Millennials and younger see Boomers as privileged in the sense Boomers rode the biggest wave of economic prosperity in world history right into the technological age. There were plenty of tense moments but on the whole: They got lucky. That's fine. No one resents Boomers for their good fortune. The problem is Boomers used their ascendancy to selfishly and repeatedly enhance their own prosperity at the expense of future generations.
If ever there was a sacrifice to be made, Boomers did not make it. Tax cut after tax cut. War after war. Dismantling labor protections. Dismantling financial protections. corporatizing everything including citizenship.
The problem is not the Boomer's success. The problem is their stewardship of the future and the generation they raised in the interim. The youth believe in meliorism too. Why else would they protest? They believe Boomer's meliorism changed the world for the worse.
1
I appreciate Brooks outlining views of "militant" progressives, but not really explaining why those views are wrong, or not deserving of moral recognition. If anything, these ideas began with the older generation, but now we have the political momentum to enact these ideas into policy.
1
Why are people between the Boomers and Millennials always left out of these conversations? We exist, you know. When you consider what many younger people found when they entered the job market and now the ascendency of Trump and his desire for autocracy, it's not surprising that people would recognize that the system isn't working correctly.
1
The people referred to as radicals are really realists. They understand the necessity of a more egalitarian society where everyone can expect to have a place to live, enough food to eat, a good educational system, healthcare for all and a progressive tax system. They want to see an end to racism and an end to women and LGBT people considered second class citizens.
I am at the young end of the silent generation and I have always wanted those things and worked for them when I was young and full of energy. I was disgusted to see too many baby boomers, who said they wanted all those things, put on suits and join the establishment. They went along with the Neo-liberal agenda and worshipped at the altar of people like the Clintons.
The millennials understand the necessity of immediate change. The incrementalism spouted by Hillary Clinton won't work. Working against climate change should be in the forefront and everyone should have access to affordable healthcare. They want a social democracy like those found in the Scandinavian countries. They are not raving marxists or socialists. They are realists and pragmatists. Most of the people running the show today are not.
2
If Brooks thinks the older conservatives believe in democracy, he'd better take a look at what the older conservatives have done in voter suppression and gerrymandering. It's not democracy.
8
Conservative Children, Radically Conservative Parents. Brooks is one of these; he speaks of the left, which is out of power, as radical. The right has put in a RADICAL Supreme and Federal court, RADICAL appointments in Zinke, in DeVos, in Kuschner and the president's daughter, in Whitaker, in so many appointees and actions, in pulling out of the Paris Accords, which were non binding. , the Iran deal, in Steel tariffs that are causing GM to cut jobs 15%. Whenever this happens, this guy points to the party out of power, how their imaginations are all wrong-- to put us on the defensive, while the RADICAL RIGHT pushes full steam ahead.
5
"Militant" progressive here. I fail to see the radical concept of universal healthcare or access to higher education for a reasonable cost. The fact that democrats call these things radical is part of the issue the American left is having with unification. To use these ideas to say that this generation is not 'meritocratic' is bizarre to me.
The phrase 'cultural Marxism' here is sort of confounding. I think most within my generation (born 1980s-2000s) hold individualist values. Marxists tend to reject identity politics on the basis that aligning oneself with any identity other than 'the citizen' is subversive to the cause. Identity politics is a small piece of modern American leftism, and exists because no one outside of a given group's identity seems to care about protecting said group, so they're organizing around it. Its easy to disdain the reactionary SJWs who appear angry and uncool. But generally speaking, their goal is to protect marginalized groups, which is something that should be supported, no? Again, I'm not sure how radical that is. Perhaps there would be less youth revolt if the standards weren't so low in the first place.
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Their parents, the 'liberals' who are also interested in identity politics, which is cost free if you're an affluent professional. The kids aren't affluent, so they're into left economic politics as well as identity politics.
5
@Emma Agreed. It's a vague and confusing phrase designed to do little more than convey something like"those heretics."
But I guess if you can't out-argue a viewpoint rhetorically, you name call.
BTW David, someone should really have told the Founders that peacefully exercising one's freedom to assemble or criticizing controversial government officials is somehow "radical."
15
@Emma you say
""Militant" progressive here. I fail to see the radical concept of universal healthcare or access to higher education for a reasonable cost. The fact that democrats call these things radical is part of the issue the American left is having with unification. To use these ideas to say that this generation is not 'meritocratic' is bizarre to me."
Want to know why those ideas are "radical?" First, "universal healthcare" means "socialized healthcare" and socialized healthcare is awful. Why? Because to have "universal" healthcare you must fix prices. And when you fix prices, shortages occur. But to understand this, you would have to have studied microeconomics, and most militant progressives haven't and never will. I bet you haven't.
Second, the reason that educational costs are not "reasonable" is that (1) administrative costs have ballooned out of control (what with diversity deans and provosts) and, (2) ironically, that fact that education is "subsidized" through easy loans. And when you subsidize something, it gets MORE expensive. And (3) add to that the top heavy nature of faculty -- expensive research faculty who do little teaching and lots of low paid adjuncts who do a lof of teaching.
So, yes, the ideas are radical. It's why they fail.
10
One thing is certain, Putin and other such autocrats are successful to tear apart the faith on even established democracies like the US, by virtue of its constant propaganda aided by few alt-right politicians like Trump. Many liberals or progressives often forget that alt-left is no less destructive.
2
@Bonku What alt left? It's almost non existent.
2
Even if this gap were as stark as Brooks claims, he offers only two causal factors to explain it. One is just the anodyne idea of generation gaps: they always happen. But that doesn't explain why younger people would go in a left direction, rather than, say, moving to the right.
The second factor Brooks offers us is "cultural Marxism," a scare term that comes directly from Breitbart and conspiracy theories on the right, and that bears very little resemblance to the actual ideas of the European theorists who developed different strands of cultural Marxism. Scapegoating Jews from Europe and American professors is lazy and dangerous.
More telling is that Brooks never asks out loud if younger people might have rational *reasons* for distrusting the claims of traditional liberals. And yet asking that question is the only fair way to try to understand why many young people have lost faith in liberalism.
Mr. Brooks, why not talk to them directly, instead of older, safely salaried liberals who have retirement accounts, or to rightwing conspiracists?
2
Bottom line-- I agree with some others here, it is economics, and no young people of liberal parents are generally educated, but not wealthy. They see opportunities are not there for them in this country. So I guess if you are a conservative who feels that Trump will keep your factory job going, maybe you are a conservative? I am not so sure. At the end of the day, the opportunities need to be there for the next generation and they aren't. Blame the boomers, blame the conservatives, definately blame Trump, not defending the environment here and globally will all our youth their future. So conservative or liberal sort of misses the point-- jobs, opportunities, and the environment. It isn't so complicated and I think the young people understand that the older generations, especially the conservatives, are not acting in their interests. Sadly, David, you just don't get it.
1
Reading these comments by the self-righteous and ever offended liberals is fascinating. They wouldn't know truth and honor if they were ever in the company of it as they only spend time with their own. Shamelessly blaming others, they are the worst of the worst offenders of all they claim to abhor. It is they who are intolerant haters, dishonest, mean and devoid of compassion for anyone close to them having concern only for those they do not know and would absolutely never associate with. Others who do not ID as liberals or progressives are busy doing the heavy lifting in silence for the human race on a much more personal level, caring for those who are neighbors, family and fellow citizens. Something entirely foreign to a liberal progressive who often seem to hate their own families and have so much trouble living anywhere except in a compound or gated community working in a government job or endlessly re-elected to "office". They only live for their politics and to force it on others, they do not value another opinion and seek to harm those with lies or distorted truth who do not feel as they do Always in pursuit for a "cause du jour" to complement their politics without thought or care of how it will impact society. They celebrate every originally worthy cause to extreme, morphing it into absurdity and even deviancy. I wonder how it got to this. It's sad. I used to be a Democrat but what has happened to this party?
1
David, you should not stoop so low in your writing as to use lazy language like cultural Marxism, which is a completely phony idea created by right wing conspiracy theorists. Generations of youth for time immemorial have felt they are different and called to change the natural order of the world. None have succeeded yet. And don't expect this generation to have much more than glancing success either. Still, good for them for trying. The tragic trajectory of our world is largely past influence at this point. Technology might save us, but it's more likely to be our downfall. Take some time to enjoy what we have. It will always beat the alternative. Write us more pieces about character, about what we admire in people, about love and caring for our fellow citizens. That's when we listen best.
1
Way to go! Just blame and focus on the liberals, young and old. What, you had a half dozen sentences on the conservatives? Really? What you actually know and “get” about liberals could fit inside a thimble. Liberals, young and old are angry, and we are together on the issues of the day. The young may have a bit more energy, but we are in sync. I’m almost 70 and campaigned for the first time to get Andy Kim to kick out the disastrous, Tom MacArthur. And sling side me were hundreds of young democrats, all fighting for the same thing, democracy.
If I were you, I’d stick to analyzing your own party...there’s plenty there to critique.
3
Is healthcare part of this "radical" agenda?? Clean air and water? Sane leadership unlike the guy at the helm right now who lies every day to the American people??
For all the questioning Mr. Brooks does, I keep feeling that he simply cannot hear what people are saying anymore.
2
Great post. Any pundit who uses the phrase cultural Marxism except with a satirical intent, is no longer listening, and may be post-peak in his reasoning skills. I found this column sad; and David in need of editorial intervention.
2
Young people want what your generation had, Mr. Brooks, good paying jobs, affordable healthcare, education, homes, possibility of a retirement someday, fairness and social justice, clean air and water, etc., also known as, the American dream. Because the youth also want the elusive American dream and are vocal about it, conservatives label the youth as lazy, ignorant, entitled, and "militant".
I just can't wait for these "militants" to take over and throw out the so called "conservatives" who are actually anything but conservative in a fiscal sense. It can't happen soon enough.
1
Where is David Brooks running into all of these radical children?We were moderately liberal parents and have moderately liberal children.However, the grandchildren
1
David, thanks for painting with such a large brush.
2
"Boomers generally think they earned their success through effort and talent."
Ah, so that's why they're entitled to destroy the world!
When you see a young person, or any age for that matter, who is angry and dysfunctional to a degree, you might blame some of that on an untrustworthy social media that reinforces lies and anger and conspiracy theories, hosts Russian bots, gives lies and truth the same visibility. A good education helps people to think critically, places these things in context and lifts awareness to a point that they are less likely to be decieved and more confident of their ability to rise above the swamp. A poor education cannot do this . We need to value education as a society because it is the way out of many of the modern traps. Without it, you have no complete structure to hang lifes knowledge on, and you are much more subject to not knowing a lie from the truth.
When you use a phrase like Cultural Marxism without a second thought, almost as an offhand insult, without knowing (or perhaps with full knowledge?) that it's used by fascists like Bolsonaro to justify violence, it's hard not to think that the young are right.
Maybe the real difference is not between age and youth but between those who drank the Kool-Aid, believed in the myth of the end of history and those who see the empire for what it is: a system of extraction that's brought our species close to the end of its journey.
There's nothing more boring than a smug, self-satisfied and well compensated member of the ruling elite who thinks he is Socrates returning from a consultation with the Oracle of Delphi.
4
What an odd column.
Multiple paragraphs devoted to a caricature of what "woke" Millennials are like. (It's just this side of an SNL skit) and two throwaway sentences on what younger conservatives are like. (And *why* do they believe "global capitalism"—whatever that is—is a betrayal of the working class?)
Could you not find an equally outrageous caricature for them? The AltRight would certainly seem to offer much fodder.
2
When Midge Decter wrote "Liberal Parents, Radical Children," guess who the "radical children" in the title were?
Bingo, the Baby Boomers!
Yes, we, the Baby Boomers, that colossal generation, supposedly spoiled rotten by indulgent parents steeped in the "permissiveness" of Dr. Benjamin Spock. We who so shook up the white-gloved respectability of our postwar childhood with our draft resistance, our antiwar marches, our long hair and granny glasses and hedonism and sex and Woodstock and drugs and the Summer of Love.
And now, 50 years later, David Brooks (who is technically a Baby Boomer but, born in 1961, pretty much missed the boat of full-scale Boomerdom) has had an original thought!
He has noticed that young people just coming of age, especially in unstable times, tend to be impatient, idealistic, outraged, and angry, and sometimes express these feelings in strident, doctrinaire ways.
He even noticed that this pattern replicates that of 50 years ago, but with the Boomers on the other side of the equation.
And he illustrates this hypothesis with ... anecdotes and sweeping generalizations, all seen through a curmudgeonly glass. Just like the way the "Greatest Generation" tut-tutted at us, the Boomers.
Wow! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Some of us, though, can remember well enough how it felt to be on the other end of the generational divide, and do our best to listen and learn, without fear or judgment, instead.
2
Fascism is a bad thing whether from the far left or from the far right. Populism is rarely done well, except in the textbooks. This little experiment we have been conducting in America is just a little over 200 years old. Given the behavior of humans for the past few thousand years, I am not optimistic we have this all worked out yet.
1
Quite a bit of generalization here. And by the way, was it really 'radical' to protest Kavanaugh?
4
@Michelle E.
Agreed. These are the policies many young liberals favor:
* education and programming to protect women from sexual harassment
* accountability and moral-social responsibility as a standard by which we should measure business and political leaders not only the little people
* environmental sustainability
* expanding (not destroying) the literary canon
* social policies that promote equality of opportunity and thereby meritocracy and innovation
I don't see how these ideas are radical or Marxist. Maybe talk to some young people before you caricature our views? It's always easier to argue against a (not very well-defined, even!) straw man than to address the actual moral and social concerns that motivate our politics.
It would not be wrong to say that it's mainly Reagan who initiated the gradual decline of American society and capitalism, by massively deregulating American corporations, helping rich people more, and more importantly destroying public education (mainly by infusing Christian fundamentalism there). Tea Party and Sarah Palin's rise is an important milestone that paved the way for Trump. It's also the start of decline of faith on institutions and democracy by younger generations.
Reagan's policies gradually gave rise to the politics of appeasement- in terms of "minority appeasement" by Dems (who increasingly became dependent on immigrants and minorities), and also initiated gradual shift of GOP towards white Christian fundamentalism. Still largely uncontrolled Social media (and tech industry in general) and massively deregulated corporate greed (initiated by Reagan and then strengthened by Bush, and exploded under Trump) made the situation far worse (and anti-democratic) by foreign powers in Russia and China. Ideology generally do not survive for long if it's not supported by actual role models in real world. USA now severely lacks clear headed role models in almost any field. Mediocrity and cronyism has taken deep root here in the US.
2
Brooks seems to be missing the data that shows so many young males joining the far right or alt right. I guess facts don’t matter too much these days. Let’s refrain from so many simplistic generalizations.
1
"Militants"? "Elite"? "Cultural Marxism"? David, you either woke up on the wrong side of the bed or spent Thanksgiving losing arguments with too many liberals. This article is so full of dog-whistles that I felt compelled to write.
Yes, we perhaps do hear more from "woke" young people today. That's not necessarily a result of liberal parenting but the times in which we live and the reality of communication as younger people know it. In your own words, "In the age of social media, virtue is not defined by how compassionately you act. Virtue is defined by how vehemently you react to that which you find offensive." What, and who, do you think Trump's base is? He tells them what's offensive and they follow along. Group think, other side...
The herd mentality seems rampant. It appears to be greatly transactional and much is instigated by what, and whom, people read, or "follow". How is this "radical" expression of ideas any different from that of the 60's and 70's? People are frustrated and some truly have new ideas that they share. Some believe, and some follow. It is just easier to get the message out quickly to more people today. And easier for more people to notice - and label...
And your comment about the generation gap on the right being less dramatic? Perhaps the younger generation with GOP parents is more "woke" than you'd like to imagine and they are quieter because they don't really care to support, or believe in, the Grand OLD Party!
The young are just following the Boomers lead. It was the Boomers who marched against the Viet Nam war and it finally ended.
The younger generation has it right in these times. The disparities in our country's thinking and actions are not due to the attitude of our younger generation. It is because the Boomers got fat, dumb and happy. They forgot the sense of Justice that once moved them.
The younger generation, like the Parkland students and the newly elected diverse, younger Congress members are our hope for the future.
Let's support them.
1
Wow, a lot of blanket assertions, dusty rhetoric and warmed-over boilerplate without any citations, references or examples ...
I've worked with young people for roughly thirty years as a High School teacher ... they are not "Marxist" ... but they are Communitarian ... meaning that they don't hold the same ideological or moral objections to investing national wealth in broad-based social welfare programs (e.g. health care, education and other community investments) as their more Libertarian parents ...
As a generalization, I'd say that the youth of Generation Z are far more generous of spirit and sober of mind than any of their predecessors ... and they feel compelled to look out for each other because, really, with the structural disadvantages and disinvestment in opportunity they now face thanks to the selfishness of their elders, no one else really is ...
2
Gen X'er here. Back when my generation was young, there was plenty of hand-wringing from older folks about our cohort. Slackers. Cynical about - and detached from - the "system." And even back then, there was a general freak-out from older folks about radical PC culture taking over campus (people tend to forget that this isn't a new argument - it was taking place 20 years ago).
Sure, there was no social media, and the internet was in its infancy, but the concerns about generation gaps were raging in their own way.
And now most of my professional peers are safely ensconced in middle management jobs at Raytheon and Pfizer and Amazon. I'm betting millennials are headed the same way. Same as it ever was, as it were.
I fully acknowledge that I was very lucky to have been born into a family in the professional middle-class, and that being a member of that class daily provides a myriad of benefits denied to members of some other classes, and even that some of the benefits I receive are only possible because those or other benefits have been denied to others.
I also acknowledge that there are times that a Manichean phrasing, such as "clash of oppressed and oppressor groups", is useful in bringing an issue into focus and even may be necessary to inspire action.
But following Edison's dictum, inspiration is only 1%. You then have to commit to the 99% perspiration. Changing the culture, structure, and dynamics of an organization is hard, detailed work. Much more so when trying to change a whole society.
Further, my understanding of large systems indicates that however radical the changes, however fundamental the restructuring, the new system will have power dynamics and inequalities in wealth and power.
Reducing inequalities is not a one-time task, it's the ongoing work we have to commit to. Keep sweating the details.
"Indignant sensibility" does indeed seem to define the modern youth movement, linked to the electronic media phenomenon. But it still comes down to a massive amount of shallow thinking. That is not good for individuals or our country. Maturity and depth of thought, prudence and humility are what we need to navigate the modern world. For example, who among the millennials thought and spoke about the economic problems of the industrial Midwest in 2015-2016?
I find some of David's generalizations hitting home -- as an old boomer with triplet 23 yr olds who are highly progressive -- and when reading several readers I agree with most of them (!). The deeper issues, of course, are far more complex -- yet perhaps more simple.
Despite the essay's surface observations, we know the real wealth, the real power, is deep, hidden, and "sub-political." The forces that drive America have been and will remain a largely invisible -- yet relatively small -- number of obscenely wealthy, white, privileged families. They shift the economy, influence decisions, drive political outcomes, and determine how capitalism will continue to favor them and affect the rest of us.
Whether we or our children are radical, conservative, or whatever mostly does not concern that sliver of a tenth of a percent. This is not conspiracy theory -- a reading of history, literature, and a smattering of related fields will reveal just how much fate has rested in the hands of those with deep wealth and true power. For the vast majority of us, they are names and faceless. Ask about any American about the Koch brothers -- many of us will reply, diet or regular?
While agreeing to some parts of the formula of the new generation gap, I think that conservative politics have gotten the better of Mr. Brooks's argument when it assigns the rising attitudes of younger people to "Marxist culture" almost exclusively. Some of the collectivism is not exclusively cultural Marxist (an easy characterization). It may come through other recognitions of human solidarity, a kind of social mysticism (as espoused by Teilhard de Chardin) and other modern mystics. There is religious conviction among many, elder and younger, not driven by failed revolutionary passions of the 20th c. but by hope. What I argue for is less oversimplification in characterizing reactions of young people. Many of those you refer to are themselves a privileged minority while others live in a more complicated world, in the flesh and in their hearts.
@J. Goodmann ...and the enfleshed complications extend, not a little, from the growing indebtedness of the next generation, souring their attitude toward many institutions, public and private. It's not for want of good will but for a feeling of having their backs against the wall and disinherited or being made to walk a hazardous economic path that has many alienated. Explore the roots of disillusionment.
When did the memo about "cultural Marxism" start circulating around the right-wing intelligentsia? I hear it mentioned frequently, but rarely is it explained. Indeed, if pressed I'd wager there is no coherent definition, because the term itself is meaningless and meant to encourage resentment towards young liberals. Now, I'm the first to admit that some leftists are going a little crazy with their absolutism, but to think that the far left influences our culture is absurd. The right has been hegemonic in this nation since 1980. Yes, Obama was somewhat progressive theoretically, but his policies were center-right. True too with Clinton before him. Yes, movie stars talk politics, but let's admit it: no one cares about their opinions and I doubt they have ever changed anyone's mind. So lets all focus on what is really going on here: Brooks-esque conservatives don't like change because it threatens their gilded position in society. They focus on meritocracy, but do not care that many are born into situations where they can never prove their merit. When forced to explain this hypocrisy, these conservatives hide behind the jejune, banal insult "Cultural Marxism!", because we all know that Marxism (read: equality) is theoretically good but practically bad. It's the boogeyman, and since they're afraid of it, you should be too. They attempt to obfuscate the true problems but focusing on the leftist fringe; all the while true liberty is being threatened by fascists on the right.
6
It would not be wrong to say that it's mainly Reagan who initiated the gradual decline of American society and capitalism, buy massively deregulating American corporations, helping rich people more, and more importantly destroying public education (mainly by infusing Christian fundamentalism there). Gradually Tea Party and Sarah Palin's rise is an important milestone that paved the way for Trump. It's also the start of decline of faith on institutions and democracy by younger generations.
It gradually gave rise of the politics of appeasement- in terms of "minority appeasement" by Dems and gradual shift towards white Christian fundamentalism by GOP. Uncontrolled Social media and massively deregulated corporate greed (initiated by Reagan and then strengthened by Bush, and exploded under Trump) made it more corrupt (or anti-democratic) by foreign powers in Russia and China. Ideology generally survive for long if it's not supported by actual role models in real world. USA now severely lacks clear headed role models in almost any field. Mediocrity and cronyism has taken deep root here.
2
Older liberals learned about Soviets and what happens when so called Communism, which turned out to be socialism dictated by politicians, takes over countries. Disaster. Older liberals got the message from The Beatles' Revolution. The younger generation didn't learn the history lesson that the older generation lived and read in the newspapers daily.
I am 68 and believe the structures of society have not been sound since the first slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619 and the 2nd amendment of the Bill of Rights became the law of the land in 1791. Racism and obsession with guns are this country's original sins. As long as they permeate American minds, our society will never be sound.
3
In the Trump era how can anyone trust in anything.? It is a pretty demoralizing world out there with questionable right to health care, public schools unfunded, people in desperate straits because of climate change catastrophes that don't even get a nod from Trump. Children in cages for setting foot on US territory , children murdered because Trump won't turn away from the NRAs support of assault rifles in civilian hands and a constant stream of falsehoods, misrepresentation and deliberate lies from Trump. No wonder the younger generation are disgusted, they should be. I dont remember Obama having this problem.
However the wide spread disgust at what is going on in the Whte House, as well as Republican cowardice ad submission, are enough to turn anyone off this kind of politics. The end is in sight. People don't want to live in a ugly, uncaring, angry and dysfunctional society. They will turn away from these non values and nihilistic life and rediscover a better, healthier way to live. It will not take long, Trump is on the way out. Goodbye and good riddance.
1
The "radical/marxist" 20 something's I know have spent their young careers at not for profits, doing things like providing prenatal care to young mothers, setting up schools in places like Bolivia and Guinea, and trying to convince village parents to send their daughters instead of marrying them off at 13 or 14. Radical man. Their husbands and boyfriends work in banking or tech in the city. The divisions you speak of happen in The NY Times. You travel far and wide to seek them, you find them, and write about them. Facebook and The NY Times reflect fringe behaviors. That's what you write of. I don't think the vast majority of us are drawn to the fringes at all. Try as you might to paint someone like Bernie Sanders as a fringe candidate, he's just not. He's mainstream. Just a bit ahead of the curve.
2
At least the “radical children” of the liberal parents are not in charge of the government. On the right however those who are in charge are in great measure fanatics, extremists, demagogues, and just plain lunatics, in the mold of their Leader.
Which group present the actual menace to America, Mr. Brooks?
4
Talk about your broad brush. Referring to Midge Decter? But there is one kind of oppression all young people face -- they will live with the effects of climate change that so many old people refused to deal with.
1
You leave out one striking point: these kids were born during or directly after 911. Such a horrific mile marker will transform a generation and deem the prior ones irrelevant
I read all of your opinion pieces and find them interesting and informative. Your comments today,however, are somewhat of a disappointment. Because you have not given specific examples the article comes across to me as more of a rant......the cry of someone stumbling in the dark, and perhaps not as well informed about our society as one should be. There certainly is food for thought, but not much depth. Hope you or others will eventually pursue /re-examine the generation gap and what it means for the future of our country.
The more time passes, the more out of touch with reality David Brooks becomes. This November, the American people overwhelmingly voted for decency, for women, for minorities, for candidates who stand for universal healthcare, for affordable university education, for defense of voting rights, for women's right to reproductive choice, for the requirement that all insurance policies cover people with preexisting medical conditions.
But in response, David Brooks descends to red-baiting: "..younger militants tend to have been influenced by the cultural Marxism that is now the lingua franca in the elite academy."
Did anyone talk about Marxism in this past election? Did anyone stand up against Trump on the foundation of Marxism? Of course not.
David Brooks just refuses to acknowledge the simple truth that the American people are disgusted with everything that Republicans represent.
6
As you point out Mr. Brooks, a similar gap opened up in the 60's---I experienced this gap first hand with my parents---It missed a generation for me, where my children are a bit more conservative than their liberal Dad and Mother. I understand you like to examine these cultural shifts as evidence of your conservative belief in community and faith. I tend to look at youth rebellion as a natural phenomena---part of growing up. I also view the anti-institutionalists bent of these rebellious youth as a healthy check on institutions that become too comfortable with playing by the rules when those rules are clearly not working for large segments of our population. Having said that, my Dad, a blue-collar worker, probably had the best philosophy on youth rebellion when he commented to my Mom in one of my Marxists moments---"well a job and kids will snap him out of it."
The use of the term "Cultural Marxism" must be called out before it is accepted like propagandist terms of the RIght like 'Political Correctness'. Whatever the multi-cultural Left is one thing it is not is Marxist. Marx argued that all demographic categories outside of class were evaporating before capitalism. He would have been the last to find a superimposition of multiple oppression, rather he would, and later Marxists did, argue that all oppression can be reduced to variations of class oppression and that the end of class would result in the end of racism, sexism, etc. I mean we get it, Brooks detests the multi-cultural Left and Marxism is a bad word and so you put them together and you get positive comments. But we can see, like the Third Reich's use of "Jewish Bolshevism" that charlatans like Jordan Peterson are using this term to create a scapegoat against which he can construct his vision of male supremacy. I suggest that Mr. Brooks avoid helping him.
1
A lot of the Bolsheviks were from wealthy families. I think some of these guys are from wealthy families and realize that the easy way out is to give up. They are afraid of failure. Easier to revolt but drive daddy's Range Rover home from the demonstration. Charlie Manson's followers, most from wealthy backgrounds, There is a lot of wealth out there, and it affects people in different ways, usually not good. But then my college professors used to take such delight in saying we are headed towards a service based economy-great. Let the Koreans build the cars. We are too busy serving Vende coffees. I think I hit on all the bases-and proved nothing.
1
Mr. Brooks was incisive in this column. I hope he gives more attention to these issues, and to the conservative side of dynamics. I also hope he explores reasons for these developments and their implications, without slipping overly into generalities. Hard data and research is welcome to fill out our understanding, because anecdotes only take us so far.
If the "structures of society are basically sound" then what Mr Brooks is saying is: let them eat cake.
3
The most important question implied but not answered in this column is: how did we get to this point? These mobs on our college campuses are a very small minority. But the spineless appeasement of University officials only encourages them; their intellectual abdication invites them to take over & cause havoc. They don't respect our most cherished rights: freedom of speech. Freedom of speech means freedom from interference, suppression or punitive action by student protesters. Students can't use physical force or coercion; they can't censor or suppress anyone’s views or publications. Freedom of speech includes the freedom not to agree, not to listen and not to support one’s own antagonists. It doesn't give these SJW the right to threaten a professor, occupy the college President's office or shut down an entire school. There should be zero tolerance for these actions & there needs to be consequences for those that break the law. Permanent expulsion would be a good start. Criminal & civil prosecution if they violate the law. It's outrageous that we have allowed a minority of progressive fanatics to bring us to this point. It's time to push back. This entire movement will collapse overnight if someone would simply enforce the rules. There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues, on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction. These entitled wanna be fascists are out of control. It's the job of adults to set firm boundaries.
2
And so it goes....
It will continue to go as long as parenting and schooling are largely and solelly liberal, progressive and radical.
Those voices crying in the wilderness, where falling trees make no sound, keep uttering the collective wisdom of mutual respect and political accord.
Parenting is disappearing as fast as the non-liberal parents. If one is looking for accord, give and take, and negotiated results, harken back to the days of our firmer bringing-up. We learned then that if we want to go along, we have to get along.
Let's talk to our grandparents. They know better what works better.
2
@Lake Woebegon
Our grandparents could not parent now. They are too old.
They have set up this world for us to parent within. And from what I see, most parents are doing a pretty fine job. Our job is simple. House, clothe & feed. The nonsense about schooling, which school, public school, private school, home school....none of it really matters. We tend to think we have more influence on our children than we probably do. My parents had 9 children. The first of which became a physician. Does that mean they were successful with the first and then failed with the other 8? Or should we simply just give credit to the 1st born, who decided on being a physician, and went out and did it? He certainly owes much to my parents....they did house, clothe & feed him.
Parenting is not disappearing. If you want to look back and see the better days of parenting, you have to look back completely....some of those parents owned slaves, voted for Jim Crow, segregated their children from other children.
Look back? Sure....just don't elevate one generation over another....it's a failed argument.
1
@M - Ah, my dear M, many of us are old, but still capable of sharing the wisdom we learned, from what worked and what didn't. What's happening today is largely what didn't work and still doesn't.
As for success or lack of it, it lies mostly with the learner and the doer. The parent can encourage and guide, but the trail chosen and getting there is our own domain.
Failure doesn't lie in a generation. It lies in the lap of those who will not stand up, face their challenges, and serve the common good.
Some generations did fail: Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah's neighbors who didn't help with the boat, the citizens of Pompei, the silent Germans who joined the Nazi party, and more recently, the many vocal malcontents. Their right to pleasure and subordination swamps helping others off whom they can make a buck or subject to abuse.
It's called the "Me" generation.
1
We don’t change people’s minds as much as we simply change generations. That’s rooted in reality. Technology and people’s awareness constantly change and the upcoming generation fights to implement the upcoming reality so they can survive – and perhaps live better.
Lingua franca refers to the common language used by two different groups – not the isolated language of one group – the academic elite stereotype bias you implied. The Millennial generation and boomers near retirement were royally screwed with dismissive, condescending, arrogance by the predatory corporatists so they could maximize their profits from the Great Recession. That, Brooks, is the lingua streeta, to emphasize the common street language understood by the mass of Americans intentionally screwed by America’s predatory corporatists and corporate-biased courts.
To internalize what they’re living with, and to earn yourself some facts so you know what you’re talking about, go get a job as an Associate at Walmart or as a stock picker/packer at Amazon. Do it for six months – and actually live on your wages – no going home to your mansion or dipping into prior savings. Then, with your age on display, go get a gig job as a publicity writer, since that’s your marketable skill, and try living on those wages and with that hand-to-mouth anxiety.
Rest assured, the PR hacks for the predatory corporatists, banks, and courts will also call “radical” your descriptions of your exploited existence.
3
@Liam Jumper
bingo.
The more things change the more they stay the same. As a young adult in the sixties it was obvious to us that the very core of the establishment was rotten. A war in Viet Nam killing and maiming thousands was being fought to protect the political lives of our leaders.
Racism was rampant not only in the Old South but in our big cities of the North. Sexism precluded women from upper management and from professional schools. The Ivy elite were in charge and running the country into the ground.
My parents who were smart, very nice people and politically involved really did not comprehend what I was so upset about.
So today the income gap is increasing, our climate is in free fall, sexism and harassment still exist, the Catholic church has been shown to be corrupt, Evangelicals support a philandering liar, no one has job security, health insurance is not affordable and college tuition is beyond the reach of too many.
I might be close to eighty but I agree with the "Radical" children.
3
When I was a kid my mother prefaced every discussion/argument with the qualifier, "They say..." Who was "they''? She never got around to saying.
Reading David Brooks today, I'm convinced he's channeling my mother's spirit. Start with an idea (however preposterous) and then layer your argument with input from non-existent people or groups (blue state "managers", older "people", "militants", etc.). Eventually, he circles back to his thesis: young people today are dangerous...because their beliefs are different than my own.
The "liberal, educated boomers" who have hogged the spotlight?
Clinton and Obama got to the White House from single-parent upbringings; the well-scrubbed Ivy Leaguers Bush 43 and Trump are the ones who were born in the spotlight they couldn't give up or live without.
4
I'm glad to see the younger generation everywhere. I'm a Gen Xer, and it's liberating to me after be surrounded be people who spent a good amount of time telling us we were lazy and unfocused. You go, gen gap!
1