Time to join the generation game?

Perhaps it’s the political parties themselves where the generation gap is most real. One only has to look at the number of areas (climate change, marriage equality and so on) where the general population is much more progressive than the major parties to see this.

I agree with the antipathy to generational labels. But it is really the boundaries that create the problems. I think of generations in the way I think of neighborhoods in big cities. Neighborhoods have a certain undeniable character to them. They are made of people, and groups of people do develop group identities. The problem for map makers is drawing the edges.

Brexit and the other awful things that you mention will have a powerful affect on a fraction of young people. That may last long enough that they share some identity as a result. I believe that “generation X” hit some powerful stuff at critical ages, leaving some shared identity there as well. Like a gradient in the water table emanating out around a toxic spill.

My younger brother, who just signed up for Medicare, did not join me and my mother protesting the invasion of Iraq. Now he has five bumper stickers on both of his cars.

My family, including my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, with one exception, have always been on the left. Perhaps the California side could be explained by founder effect, left coast diversity or Mexican cuisine, but the other cousins seem to be the same, so perhaps the rightward drift of aging isn’t a universal phenomenon.

My siblings’ first offspring were born in the bracket commonly considered Generation X, and bristle at the suggestion that they are millennials, but they are incontestably the children of baby boomers, grandchildren of the greatest generation. I’m inclined to think “who’s your daddy” is more dispositive than the first pop tune you heard.

I’m still convinced that this current deviation from neoliberalism is temporary. Neoliberalism, whether of the left or right version is still the closest real world arrangement to Rawlsian political liberalism. The whole business about caring just about GDP etc can be given a public reason gloss. Any reasonable path forward which does not involve dehumanising the other half of the citizenry is going to involve cashing things out in terms that are publicly scrutable. So my bet is that the future will be neoliberal.

@Murali “Neoliberalism, whether of the left or right version is still the closest real world arrangement to Rawlsian political liberalism.”

I think this is a mistake. If you’d said Dworkinian liberalism I’d be on board, but Rawls’s views, centring on the idea of a co-operating citizenry are rather different. The priority of the basic liberties and the need to guarantee for all real fair equal opportunity make for a rather different politics, particularly in a non-ideal condition where these are denied to so many people and particularly to the least advantaged. Neoliberalism, by contrast, is the domain of policy wonk initiatives justified by CBA etc rather than thinking of policies in need of justification to the victims of structural injustice conceived of as free and equal persons entitled to respect. (I’m some way through reading Tommie Shelby’s Dark Ghettos at the moment, which is both a brilliant book and a very interesting exercise in the differences between Rawlsian and policy-wonk perspectives.)

“My younger brother, who just signed up for Medicare, did not join me and my mother protesting the invasion of Iraq. Now he has five bumper stickers on both of his cars.”

I wonder if older generations who leaned left but get most of their information from the internet are moving further left as well. (I say ‘leaned left’ because if you lean right–you’ll have a different diet of websites.) My point isn’t that the internet makes Gen X-ers & Gen Y-ers leftists. Rather, it fuels a more intense frustration with the depredations caused by capitalism for those who’ve already taken notice of them.

Anecdotal experiences with my angry aging online cohort suggest it may not even be our *views* which are moving left but that our feelings of disgust, alarm, and impatience are so much stronger in the face of the catastrophes we are staring down–and this pushes us toward more radical views.

TV news gives one almost no sense of the coming environmental, economic, and democratic crises whereas a heavy consumption of online news seems to do the opposite.

While political orientation in the US is very influenced by one’s region, it seems likely that there is a TV v. internet split among the older crowd, particularly those more active on social media. Obviously, a type of aging left-leaning person is going to be pulled onto the internet. So it’s not a first cause but more of a feedback loop. This probably tracks educational levels as well.

It’s obvious we’re badly screwing the younger generation–but doing so in such a way that it’s impossible not to strenuously object even for a fairly self-centered oldster. The way it’s being done involves screwing humanity as a whole. Being comfortable with that requires a type of denial that is beyond all but the most deluded.

Again, it’s anecdotal but I’ve eavesdropped on quite a few cranky rants by leftist boomers. It’s the same style of cranky rant, but on the other side of the political spectrum than we’ve come to expect.

“..if leftwing governments are elected and fail to deliver on their promises (or worse, implement their promises and fail disastrously) their support among currently young cohorts may be replaced by permanent oppositions.”

That’s something that worries me. The one advantage you have as an older person is that you see how hard it’s going to be, and how much longer it’s going to take than we need it to. The utopian impulses of the youth motivate them, and you don’t want to undermine their energy–but you hope they will be in it for the long haul.

To be slightly less abrupt than my previous comment, I think the change that takes place over time is one of perception of one’s role in society at large. Given a political drama, I suspect the young will identify with the heroic key players in the drama. They see themselves as drivers of change, full of ideas that will bring beneficial transformation. For them, a party that is strong on ideology but short on checks and balances will be attractive, as will a political movement that has such lofty ideals as the EU.

Over time, people change their point of identity from the people doing the heroic stuff, to the people having heroic stuff done to them. The heroic stuff never quite works out, isn’t as transparently good as the headline would believe, and what is needed is a means of dealing with the fall out. As older people look at levels of youth unemployment in the EU, look at the fate of Greece, at the levels of immigration bringing waves of unattached you gem fresh from the traumas of urban warfare and, a scepticism about this supra-nationalistic EU ideology to deliver actual benefits and suspicion of the motives of some of the people involved would seem to be warranted.

The attraction of conservatism to older voters is that it isn’t an ideological platform. It is a belief in a system of political cheques and balances that mean changes in society can be delivered in a way which gives everyone a voice, minimises negative consequences and avoids civic disruption. Hence the Conservative Party is the party that has had two female PMs, introduced gay marriage, has openly gay ministers, many non-white MPs, and a home secretary of Pakistani heritage who follows a single mother with a black partner. All with a minimum of fuss and noise. You old lefties didn’t see that coming thirty years ago, did you?

“reading Tommie Shelby’s Dark Ghettos ..”

Not *the* Tommy Shelby? (New Peaky Blinders soon)

… and just to add the next wave of recruits to the Conservatives will be feminists, who finding themselves being lectured by women-with-penises about what it really means to be a woman, and seeing claims of rape and sexual assault not taken seriously and brushed under the carpet by left-wing movements, will increasingly find the Conservative Party a much more conducive place for having proper discussions about the place and role of women in society.

Wow, that’s a spectacularly resent-ridden quote. I notice that he doesn’t actually cite Rawls. Because there’s nothing to cite.

”The sharpest case is Britain, where people over 65 voted massively for Brexit in the referendum and the Conservatives in the recent election, while those aged 18-24 went even more sharply the other way”.

And even sharper are any European students who joined – or will join – ”Erasmus” and as European students who went through the Erasmus program – are the most openminded ”trendsetters” – ”trailblazers” or just ”sooo cool” that not one old Brit will be able to fight ”the Meghan” – the ”’Stay” will keep on staying – even if old dudes think (politically) otherwise…

Wiki: Rawls further argued that these principles were to be ‘lexically ordered’ to award priority to basic liberties over the more equality-oriented demands of the second principle. …as does Hayek, Friedman, maybe Le Maistre. Geuss is absolutely right, and every Marxian should see this a a deal-breaker

I know y’all can make that real complicated, and I suppose I could make or cite extensive arguments and discussions which we shouldn’t bother with yet again., but that was simple enough for me, and allowed me to stop reading Rawls immediately and forever.

In 1985 or 86 I was introduced to Rawls’ thought by philosophy professors (whose names Chris and Harry would almost certainly recognize) via A Theory of Justice. I would bet that 99% of the Internet people who go on about Rawls are doing so on the basis of their personal reading of the text of A Theory of Justice. My impression is that what’s popularly understood to be the main argument of TJ relies heavily on what one takes to be Rawls’ beliefs about what science tells us about economies. In the 1970s this could be assumed to be something like Galbraith (now Kuttner and Reich), but more recently this does not always seem to be the most obvious choice.

I assume many people around my age know about Rawls only what they read in conservative writers like Rand who took him to be arguing in favor of extending the welfare state to the point of socialism. With the benefit of hindsight, seeing such phenomena as Scruton taking Galbraith and Dworkin to be representatives of the Left, I’m not unwilling to discount that kind of evidence.

@Marc

I also thought that the assumption of constant movement to the left isn’t necessarily so. For at least twenty years, you can see young culture writers promoting old-fogyism, and “I agree with these old writers but don’t like explaining what they or I mean” hides a multitude of sins.

“Prioritizing SCHIP or student loan relief and paying for them with an inheritance tax is not placing an equality argument against a freedom argument because the social programs are really about increasing equality and opportunity…”

“Obama’s millions are about freedom for black men. Clinton’s millions are about freedom for women. The Koch’s billions are about gross inequality and undeserved political power. Can’t we find a way to tax only white men?”

Liberalism is counterrevolutionary…yeah, conservatism, or definitely opportunistically enabling conservatism. These arguments, these kinds or forms of arguments, are counterrevolutionary.

Socialism is illiberal. Equality is “lexically ordered” over Koch’s freedom bigtime. I do not care about capitalist’s freedom or rights.

The anti-liberalism of socialism can inform the everyday practice of socialists, even in blog comment sections.

And the person trawling the internet for a random anti-Rawls quote to back up his priors (as if that constituted an actual argument) is @engels. Again, no surprises there.

A bit unfair since I’ve read that book (albeit not the Chinese edition to which that’s evidently the preface) as well as Geuss’s essays criticising Rawls, and remember trying to make that (fairly obvious) trickle-down observation in an undergrad pol phil tutorial nearly two decades ago (only to receive a similarly dyspeptic reaction). I’m also fairly sure I remember you once saying here that you admired ‘The Idea of a Critical Theory’ (it might even be what originally led me to Geuss…)

Anyway if anyone wants to read sonething that isn’t on the internet that’s similarly hostile to post-Rawlsianism I’d recommend Lorna Finlayson’s book ‘The Political Is Political’.

Two queries.

One, there are contemptuous references to “bitter old men”. Given the relative death rates, the older generation have actually more women than men. Should we suppose that
a) bitterness in the older generation is restricted to men: if so, why? Or
b) older women are as bitter and despicable as older men, but saying contemptuous things, however well deserved, about any women is in the social media world too dangerous?

Two, it is supposed that the older generations ignore the interests of the younger. But the younger are usually their children, grandchildren, and so on. In my experience, people mostly care intensely about their descendants. Should we suppose that
a) the modern older generation, unlike any before, care nothing for their descendants? Or
b) the modern older generation believe that their descendants will in fact benefit from decisions which they, in their wisdom, approve of, even if the inexperienced youngsters don’t?

“Be afraid of the old/they’ll inherit your soul” -Regina Spektor

to post-Rawlsianism I’d recommend Lorna Finlayson’s book ‘The Political Is Political’.

For what it’s worth, I’ve read Finlayson’s book and thought it was not at all good. It seemed to me to display all of the vices of her mentor Geuss (she studied under him at Cambridge) (mistaking a sneer for an argument, wildly ungenerous and implausible readings of people she doesn’t like, etc.) and none of his virtues (a generally good writing style, actual very deep knowledge of big areas of the history of philosophy, etc.)

For people interested in how far Rawls can be considered to be a “ne0-liberal” better books are this recent one by William Edmundson or the older but still really good one by former blog participant Jon Mandle . (I’ll say that Edmundson’s book is a bit heavy going in some ways, but very carefully argued.)

There are broader trends. Younger people in the UK are far less likely to be the members of a political party or a trade union. They are far less likely to turn out to vote. They are an increasingly depoliticised or politically passive generation.

Sometimes it seems that the difference between Brexit and Remain is really between those who believe in a participatory democracy and those who want to privatise political decisions, contracting them out to a faraway, unaccountable organisation.

Re: Edmundson’s book on Rawls: I had totally forgotten it, but he shows up in comments several times in the post engels linked to about Geuss and Rawls, and at one point says something like, “Rawls needs his own Leo Strauss to explain the ideas he was too hesitant to put explicitly.” This was several years before he wrote his book. (Before it, I never would have associated Edmundson, a very good legal philosopher, with Rawls at all.) But, one way of seeing that book is as doing just what he suggests. (That’s both a strength and a weakness of the book, I think.)

It’s interesting to me that many of the same people who complain about the establishment center-left always kicking left also have so many angry things to say about Rawls. There has always been such a harsh repudiation of the center-left, whatever you want to call it: Rawls, neoliberalism, 3rd way, whatever. It matches both the temperament of the far left, but also to a significant degree, their political commitments. To a large extent I think it is perfectly understandable. But then, why wouldn’t you expect the center-left to repudiate you in turn? There is no particular reason to believe the center-left would prefer the far left to the center-right as a second best political order. The interesting twist is that the center-left still expects far left votes in a two party system as a sensible strategic vote, which is not strictly wrong but always contentious.

This classic argument seems less relevant now as the western world moves to a new style of polarization with both far right and far left growing in power. But unless these new political power centers can happily collapse back into traditional centrist models, I fear the outcome will only appeal to the most unrepentant authoritarian right or left (but more likely the right!)

And may soon elect the first real socialist government in British history…

“As the map linked here shows, if only 18-24 year olds were voting, based on current polling data, the Conservatives would not have won a single seat[2]. If only those over 65 voted, the Conservatives would win 575 and the combined opposition 54.”

Surely you cant generalise from the sorts of young people who actually vote in elections to the entire cohort? Afaik during Brexit you saw the same education divides among 18-24 yr olds, just non third level 18-24 yr olds were much less likely to vote?

@44
”And yet they don’t seem to want to do what old guys like you tell them”!

We never want to do what old guys tell us – but what does that have to do with ”politics”.
-(and please no answer that ”everything is politics” – as actually ”everything is art”)

We never want to do what old guys tell us – but what does that have to do with ”politics”.

Not supporting Brexit, supporting Corbyn, along other things. Seems like you’d expect a ‘politically passive generation’ to fall into line behind the blue passports, national service and Trident brigade…

Z: “My guess is that you were right: we have moved from a left/right spectrum to a three party system. Older people understandably find it harder to adapt to the new political landscape and to think about it, so I suspect they went disproportionately to what they thought they could fit in the formerly valid squares they were accustomed to. As the transitional process first destroyed the Left (split between the neosocialist left and the neoliberal left), that meant some sort of Right.”

Yes, I agreed with JQ’s three party system when he proposed it, but it did have the disadvantage that there were groups who were on the wrong side of the lines he drew. IIRC he suggested that people would move to the side the theory predicted. Instead, we had groups of people—many of them young, or declared to be young (under 45 was a category sometimes called “young”)—who dug in their heels and declared the real system was one more favorable to their own side.

Additionally, what defines left and right has moved. I think there’s some degree of oldish people dismayed that their own side has had a bunch of people with what they considered wrong opinions, and were cheered recently when they thought they saw their preferred opinions gaining ground. JQ didn’t, I don’t think, have a place for left anti-neoliberalism. Whether the gains are permanent, and what the effects will be of any shift in emphasis that sticks, are hard to predict.

” if you have data to the contrary, I’d be keen to see it.”

Cant remember where I saw the stuff on divides within 18-24 year olds. I’ll try find it.

John Quiggin The final results as reported here don’t match your analysis. Age differences weren’t that big, and support for Le Pen peaked among 35-49 year olds.

The second round is far less indicative of the behavior and opinions of the French electorate than the first round, if only because turn-out was down 20% between the two rounds (more than 35,1 million people cast an actual vote in the first round while less than 27,3 did so in the second round) – the very first time turn-out was down at all between the two rounds in French political history since 1969. Abstention was around 33% for voters under 35, so age effects in that round are probably indiscernible simply because young people did not vote.

I disagree that votes for Melenchon represent a break with the pattern represented in the UK. From the other side of the planet, Melenchon looks a lot like Corbyn, right up to a left version of EU scepticism.

Obviously I didn’t make myself clear enough, because I meant the exact reverse of what you are disagreeing with.

The UK Tories and Macron/Fillon shared some characteristics: they campaigned on economic austerity, lower capital taxes, stricter control of the unemployed, a larger role for the private sector, less civil servants, tighter budgets for education and social programs, and stricter immigration policies. Also, they were arguably the candidates the easiest to identify in terms of formerly well-known subdivisions of the political space. On the other had, they differed in an important respect: the former are strong critics of the EU, the latter were by far the strongest proponents of the EU.

Based on the fact that older people went disproportionately for the Tories in the UK and for Macron/Fillon in France, I conclude that it is implausible that the attitudes of candidates towards the EU is an important causal factor in explaining the way older people vote and that it is more likely that their electoral behavior is explained by their support of economic austerity, lower capital taxes, stricter control of the unemployed, a larger role for the private sector, less civil servants, tighter budgets for education and social programs, and stricter immigration policies (a position that makes a good deal of political sense in terms of their own self-interest) and/or by the fact that they tend to vote for candidates they think they can identify in political terms familiar to them.

Symmetrically, young voters both in the UK and France apparently are disproportionately prone to voting for candidates defending neo-socialist policies and committed to radical environmental policies Рpolicies that make a lot of sense in terms of their own self-interest Рand/or that are easy to fit in the new way the political space is organized (the one which is familiar to them) even though these candidates (Corbyn and M̩lenchon) are somewhat at odds with them in terms of general attitudes towards the EU.

So I am skeptical of what I took to be your “explanation in simple terms” relating Brexit to the way old or young people vote.

@59
”Abstention was around 33% for voters under 35, so age effects in that round are probably indiscernible simply because young people did not vote”.

So I am skeptical of any (political) “explanation in simple terms” relating to any young people – what it takes for them to vote?
-(for whoever?)

So couldn’t we just agree that old dudes have a very hard time to understand the ”depoliticised” generation?

This being CT of course I should have said ‘does anyone have any ideas or wish to angrily dismiss the premise of my question?’

@63
‘does anyone have any ideas or wish to angrily dismiss the premise of my question?’

What’s about dismissing it jokingly? – and the Brexit and the piece of cake which was offered to Madame May is a wonderful example –

If you are willing to share the cherry you even might get a bigger piece.

I think it comes down to whether you think ‘market socialism’ is socialism: personally I don’t.

@Prof Q ” My perception is that UK Euroscepticism relies much more on nostalgia for imperial glory, and a lack of interest in the future …”

Not really. In fact I’d say it is Remainers who go on about “Britain’s place in the world” and “Britain’s standing in the world” who have an inability to let go of the past and see the UK in historic terms. Brexiters tend to focus on more mundane things like fishing quotas and consequences of uncontrolled immigration.

Also, Leavers have been quite clear about the future of the UK as an independent state with free trade agreements with other nations. Remainers don’t generally discuss the future other than in vague terms, and specifically refuse to engage on what the future of the EU is and the UK’s place in it. Much of the Remain campaign and the campaign for another referendum is based on projections of short-term GDP and immediate supposed consequences rather than on any political vision of the future.

I agree with earlier comments about the role of the internet in the “generation gap” but also also think it extends to the media landscape in general. As an American, the UK journalism landscape is, frankly, baffling. Our “liberal media” isn’t actually all that liberal (and is decidedly corporate), but I still get sad and confused when I hear Brits discuss the various shades of right-wing tabloid that pass for national newspapers there. Sure the Guardian is fine (even if they apparently can’t afford copy editors), but the Graudinad is self-evidently a paper of the left and often preaches to the converted or entertains the sort of sectarian feuds that are only meaningful to people who have strong feelings about Blairites, “populists,” and the word “neoliberal.” In the US, that sort of editorial slant is more common in weeklies and monthlies and the big dailies usually play up their neutrality.

Don’t get me wrong, I read the Gaudiran regularly in part because, unlike WaPo or the NYT, I actually know where it stands (also no paywall), but I still sometimes get the unpleasant feeling that it’s trying to sell me a particular worldview (which is perhaps more noticeable as a foreigner). For Britons who are put off by the Gourd because of its style, substance, or association with Labour, what’s the alternative? A bunch of rags that occupy the intellectual space between the Wall Street Journal and Breitbart? The anodyne stiffness of the BBC? Obviously there is a vast world of information and perspectives online and the people who grew up with the internet or turned to it out of frustration with the rightwingmainstream media will have access to it, but what about the people who’ve read the Times or the Telegraph or whatever for years and don’t think too much about the politics? Are they aware of the conservative slant the way a Daily Mail reader would be, or does the existence of those Daily Mail readers make them feel like they’ve stayed in the center?

These aren’t just rhetorical questions. I’m generally curious what the British “mainstream” looks like these days. In the US, we went from no one knowing what Fox News was to it being the primary source of right wing propaganda (especially for the elderly) in less than two decades. It’s a new thing, so its effects are obvious, but the British media landscape is full of grand old papers that moved to the right in fits and spurts over many years. How does that affect the generation gap calculus? Brexit was something that had to be sold to the British public. John is arguing that the over-60 set were the ones that were naturally most interested in buying it (which certainly sounds right), but it’s also possible that they were simply the ones that had it pitched to them the most because they were the ones that still got their news from the conservative old media. If that is the case, then it’s possible older Britons are not inherently or uniquely Euroskeptical, but that they were simply the most appealing or accessible target demographic for a sophisticated nationwide marketing campaign.