The clash of ideologies predicted by William Strauss and Neil Howe in "The Fourth Turning" is certainly hitting it's stride now. I found an article that is particularly telling with regards to how these ideological battles are being fought. The article is supposedly about ridiculous spending items in the stimulus plan, but it has an interesting undercurrent.
Ruben Navarrette Jr. (a Generation X'er born between 1961 and 1981) writes about the "pork" in the plan here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/navarrette.stimulus/index.html
His commentary is mainly focused on Nancy Pelosi (who is part of the Silent Generation, born 1925-1942) and how she wanted to get birth control into the plan and had an extremely weak argument about why this should be in the plan. Navarrette draws a fascinating parallel to Margaret Sanger who was the founder of what became Planned Parenthood. Sanger was a controversial figure because she was in favor of Eugenics, which was a policy adopted by the Nazis to control racial makeup of society.
The interesting part of this is that he quotes a statement from Sanger from 1932:
"the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race such as ... [those] barred by the immigration laws of 1924."
Here's the generational connection: according to the turning of generations we are at the beginning of the crisis (started in about 2005), perhaps only a few years in. If we look just a few years into the start of the previous crisis (started in 1929) we would come up with the year 1932. It is interesting that Navarrette would use an argument from that period to go after Pelosi. The similarity to that period is that there was a huge ideological clash going on and there was a battle for control of public perception, just like today. Like in my previous posting where Gore was accused of trying to brainwash kids like Nazi youth, I think we will see more and more of this sort of reference over the next few years. Each side in the ideological battle will try to paint the other as the absolute enemy, and referring back to the enemy in our last major crisis (the Axis) will be a favorite tactic. Watch for it.
(if you are curious to learn more about the basics of generational research, go to "Start Here". It includes links to Strauss and Howe's original works as well as my interpretations).
For more about generations, see my blog at http://www.thegenxfiles.com
