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Brave
New Generation II
I
have an acquaintance I’ll call Natalie. She’s 18 years old. We met
following numerous near-simultaneous excursions to the same coffee
shop here in Columbia, where mutual interests in both writing and
film brought us into conversation earlier this year. She’s a member
of the laptop generation, and often had hers open in front of her.
I usually had my clipboard with me, bearing some manuscript awaiting
hand correction (I don’t own a laptop, at least not yet).
Natalie
scares me a little. Let’s say this first: she’s bright – just began
her freshman year a semester early – and surprisingly well read for
someone her age (particularly for someone who just graduated from
a government school!). She knows some literature, especially writers
such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald. She also enjoys horror such as
that of Lovecraft, fantasy such as that of Tolkien, and "cyberpunk"
science fiction (Philip K. Dick, Bruce Sterling and William Gibson).
She has all the Harry Potter books, too, for whatever that is worth.
She looked up to me somewhat because she’s an aspiring writer (mainly
of fiction and poetry) and I’ve actually been published. Her publications
are limited to a couple of items in local "zines."
Where
we differ – and I come, finally, to what scares me – is not just our
politics, but our very conception of the political process.
It
began the day Maurice Bessinger’s name got dropped into conversation.
Bessinger, of course, is one of South Carolina’s best-known barbecue
tycoons, having built a substantial business in the Columbia area
that created several hundred jobs. His business was severely damaged
back in late 2000 because of his staunch defense of the Confederate
Flag, and of Southern heritage generally. To hear Natalie tell it,
however, the man is a knuckle-dragging throwback – an unrepentant
racist who hates black people, would bring back slavery, and who
therefore deserved everything he got.
Natalie
couldn’t supply reasons why she thought this other than what she’d
heard from her peers or gotten from hostile local media. She admitted
she has never set foot in any of Bessinger’s restaurants. She didn’t
seem familiar with what had been written about him on the Web –
she just doesn’t frequent Southern Patriot websites or other places
in cyberspace where the other side of the Bessinger story is likely
to be told. She wouldn’t be caught dead with a copy of his book
Defending
My Heritage (2001). She was unimpressed when I observed
that I know the man personally, and that he is nothing like what
she has pictured. She was also unimpressed by my allegation that
what hurt Bessinger’s business was the incursions of political correctness
into corporate America combined with his refusal to capitulate.
Her conception of the political process was that this was all fine
and dandy. It is okay to use boycotts plus whatever else it takes
to bring the knuckle-draggers to heel. "Unprogressive"
points of view must be made to go away.
That
conversation damaged our friendship, if friendship it was. It has
not recovered, and as we have barely exchanged a word in two months,
I do not expect it will.
Even
before that evening, I recall numerous hints that I was dealing
with someone on the leading edge of what I once called the Brave
New Generation in one
of the first articles I wrote for this site, long before Maurice
Bessinger’s situation erupted. That was the generation that began
to be born during the mid 1980s, and grew up with no memories of
a world where there was no political correctness, or multiculturalist
indoctrination in the schools, or hypersensitivity to matters of
race, ethnicity, gender and homosexuality. Having been fed the schools’
brand of vapid cultural relativism their entire lives, the idea
that someone such as myself (or Bessinger) could stand on another
point of view would strike them as shocking, if not abhorrent. Having
grown accustomed to basing opinions on feelings and on what the
crowd believes, much of this generation would view an individual
who chose to stand apart from the herd as an aberration. I recall
Natalie looking at me like my forehead had suddenly sprouted horns.
The
Brave New Generation was beginning high school back in 2000. Now,
its leading edge is moving into colleges and universities, where
doubtless the resident radical feminists and other such types who
took over back in the noxious ’90s are amazed at the receptiveness
of their younger audience. The latter are ready to live in a land
where you watch what you say. By their words and actions they say
one should never offend anybody – unless those offended are
white, male, straight, and with Christian beliefs. Interestingly,
Natalie once told me she was a Christian, and attends church twice
a week. In her own mind she has combined Christianity with political
correctness – the difference being that what I call ‘political
correctness’ she considers normal. Jesus loves everybody equally,
after all. Having been born in late winter 1986, she was just five
years old when Dinesh D’Souza’s exposé Illiberal
Education came out, blowing the whistle on what incursions
by leftist ideologues were doing to higher education. She turned
eight the year my Civil
Wrongs came out. Political correctness had spread to corporate
America before she was in her teens, beginning with the shakedowns
of restaurant chains such as Denny’s. While initially companies
just wanted to avoid expensive lawsuits, now hypersensitivity is
part of the culture of corporate America.
I
often wonder what it will take to reverse this. While there are
exceptions to the above among students in Natalie’s age bracket,
they are a minority. Some of the exceptions have been homeschooled.
A few have remained impervious for other reasons. They could be
in for a rough ride when they get to college, at least for a while.
Efforts are underway to bring about real, intellectual diversity,
but the efforts I am familiar with have done little to penetrate
the nation’s high schools and elementary schools where indoctrination
for life in multicultural America now begins.
There
is hope, however. One thing I’ve noticed: the Brave New Generation
may have fallen for a lot of politically correct lines, but in general
they have no love for politicians or for the two dominant parties.
After all, the only two presidential administrations they remember
clearly are those of Clinton and Bush II (some might recall Bush
I the way I recall certain events from the Kennedy years). Natalie
clearly prefers John Kerry to George W. Bush, but not out of any
special love for Kerry. She just detests the Iraq War. Reminders
that Kerry supported the invasion of Iraq elicit shrugs, whether
of indifference or resignation, it is hard to tell. This generation
is aware of the Patriot Act and doesn’t particularly trust the federal
government. Doubtless this presents opportunities for those of us
promoting alternatives to the currently dominant modes of thought.
There’s
a tendency in this generation to support a mind-your-own-business
view of the world that has certain problems, but certain advantages.
There are libertarians – I have encountered them – who confuse libertarianism
with libertinism. The latter combines a more-or-less unarticulated
philosophy of personal freedom with moral subjectivism and cultural
relativism. "Nobody has the right to impose their values on
others," one of the latter might say (complete with poor grammar).
This will mean support for abortion, for example, on the grounds
that it is between a woman and her doctor, and is none of the government’s
business. It might mean support for the idea that one’s sexual orientation
is no one else’s business. Strictly speaking, such arguments make
some sense. But one can also question the premises that appear to
make certain choices live options, and we’re back to the distinction
between libertarianism and libertinism.
Be
that as it may, part of this new generation is also now old enough
to have had jobs of the sort high school kids often work at, such
as waiting tables. Some may have gotten involved with computers.
Doubtless they have experienced the loss of huge chunks of income
subtracted from their paycheck every two weeks or so by the federal
government. The money extracted in taxes from those working for
a living is today much higher than when I was in high school and
at my first couple of jobs. And there are fewer of the latter. Part
of that is the sluggish economy, but part of it is due to the fact
that under today’s conditions of high taxes and regulatory encirclement,
many businesses cannot afford to hire inexperienced teenagers. Expansionist
government by its very nature means fewer jobs and less efficiency
all the way around.
The
trick is to communicate such points to the Brave New Generation.
Even government school graduates can understand that their paychecks
are smaller than they otherwise would be given today’s exorbitant
taxes, and likely to get smaller still as government continues to
enlarge. Good jobs are going to become correspondingly more difficult
to find. Moreover – although this is really a separate article – rumors
abound of an impending revival of involuntary military conscription,
otherwise known as the draft. The neocons want to hit Iran, but
know they don’t have the manpower to do it. This, if it happens,
will hit the Brave New Generation right between the eyes. They will
feel the strength of unlimited government power first hand. Should
the draft be brought back, they will learn very quickly that government
is not their friend!
So
there might be hope of converting members of the Brave New Generation
away from the state-worship that infects so much of American society,
from government schools up through major media. It is going to take
some doing, because of this generation’s immersion in political
correctness, which naturally invites state-worship in the name of
thought control. But the seeds of distrust for government are already
planted. The task falls to those of us who understand the truth
to nurture what grows, working with this new generation when possible
and helping them connect the dots. We may find that once we can
persuade them to free their minds (to paraphrase Neo, the
lead character in one of their favorite films, The
Matrix), we won’t have to keep using phrases like Brave
New Generation. This might not get Natalie into one of Maurice
Bessinger’s restaurants. But one must start somewhere, and there
are places to start.
July 28, 2004
 Steven
Yates [send him mail]
has a
Ph.D. in philosophy and is the author of Civil
Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action
(1994). He is an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
His new book, In
Defense of Logic,
is almost completed. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina, and plans
to launch his author’s website soon.
Copyright
© 2004 LewRockwell.com
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Yates Archives
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