Generation X... 12-15 years to Power

[Mythsaje]

My father pointed out to me that my generation, now, is less than twenty years away from taking the political reins of this country. The Boomers are in power now...the people who came of age during the social revolution of the sixties and early seventies. They remember the artificial culture of the fifties and early sixties, the first "plastic" society...and were there to see the civil rights movement come into its own, and tasted the sexual revolution when contraception became available to women.

My generation, the generation of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," and "Dazed and Confused" will be taking the reins of power from the old guard sometime in the next fifteen years (by my reckoning). Generation X will have become society.

So what is the substance of Generation X? Well, from my perspective, I see a generation more widely separated in ideology. There was no unifying social force that bound Gen X into something that stood en masse against the establishment, though there were several anti-establishment factions that gained prominence in the 80s in particular, many tied to various musical trends. New Wave was probably the first that embraced gay identity, with the success of such bands as WHAM, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Culture Club. There was also the tail end of the punk scene in the eighties, with such bands as the Butthole Surfers and the Dead Kennedys, which embraced the in-your-face "we don't give a shit what you say" attitude. And then you had Heavy Metal. The several different strains of heavy metal, from the party rock glam metal of Poison and Motley Crue, to the political thrash of Metallica, Megadeth, and the like, to the often introspective and progressive mindfulness of bands like Queensryche, Savatage, and Iron Maiden.

And you also had rap, which was just starting to come into play as a popular music form, with its often savage attack on the established order.

As rap rose to ascendency, metal, which had outlasted both punk and new wave all the way to the late nineties, gave way to alternative, which blended together a lot of the styles that had come before it and created a newer, rawer form of music that violated many of the old traditions of music arrangment that had been doctrine since the sixties.

I think that many of us grew up believing that our elders didn't necessarily have all the answers. Like the boomer generation, we did not necessarily believe that tradition held any real answers. On the other hand, we saw that joining the system, and being a part of the system, often meant being corrupted by the system. And there was no reason to believe that the system would listen to us, or that our concerns were in any way of any interest to those in power.

I think that's one of the reasons my generation turned its back on voting. It never had to fight for them, never saw anyone else have to fight for them, and believed that what they said didn't matter anyway. Very few, if any, of the people elected to power spoke to our generation. Bill Clinton was one of the few who could, but he was one who could talk to anyone. That didn't mean he was sincere, but at least he appeared to be listening.

In the next 15 to 20 years Generation X will take the reins, and I believe that it is going to herald a huge change in the way America looks at things, as a whole. Gen X has almost no sense of tradition. It doesn't necessarily think change is bad. It's seen SO many changes in its time.

With all of this in mind, I'd like to make a few predictions about what kinds of things Gen X may embrace when it replaces the old guard, the last of the Cold War warriors.

Gen X will see no reason to maintain the criminalization of marijauna and some other drugs. Gen X will be far more likely to accept the rights of gays to marry and be what they want to be. They will more likely be slightly less likely to believe war is an answer to anything. They will be more supportive of environmental protections (many did grow up, after all, after the reanimation of Disney, when many cartoons, not only Disney) aimed environmental messages at the kids. The kids of Captain Planet, and Dr. Seuss's Lorax.

Gen X is generally pro-science. They've been on the forefront of technological innovation for at least the past fifteen years.

As long as we can keep the old guard from totally screwing up everything in the little time they have left, I think maybe Gen X will do a lot to fix some of this stuff. Sure, they've so far been fairly silent, but when the people who remember the same things they do, that grooved to the Thompson Twins, or banged head to Judas Priest, or did the break dancing thing to the throbbing roar of Run DMC, and watched Michael J. Fox go from a young Republican to a time travelling teenager, to a man made old before his time, they will realize that they too have a legacy to pass to their children and grandchildren. And that it had better be something more than "we came, we danced, and we went home."

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On a side note...I'd like to thank ALL of you who showed your support by visiting my website (http://www.sajewilliams.com) in the hopes that I can get all that much closer to my dream of becoming a full-time author who has the time both to craft my unique style of fantasy fiction AND my unique style of political musings.


Thanks.