The Marriage Plot, New Feminism, & the End of Men
October 13th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
AT THE CENTER OF ALL SOCIETIES sits the family, and when family culture drastically and irreversibly changes, the whole civilization is impacted.
Our politics, economy, relationships and character are going to be different based on the major family shift now occurring.
What could cause such an all-encompassing change? What exactly is happening right now that is altering our societal future?
The answer is: The shift to a matriarchal society.
And whether this actually happens in full or we are simply witnessing a slight move in this direction, the consequences are momentous.
In short, this boils down to four major trends that are remaking our society:
- The rise of matriarchal society
- The decreasing popularity of marriage
- The growing confusion about manhood
- The opportunity for masculine nurture
The Rise of Matriarchal Society
The Great Recession is touted by many as having brought the end of male dominance in our culture, and of ushering in a new era of matriarchal supremacy.
As Don Peck writes in The Atlantic:
“The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults….It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities….Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture and the character of our society for years come…
“[J]oblessness corrodes marriages, and makes divorce much more likely down the road. According to W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the gender imbalance of the job losses in this recession is particularly noteworthy, and—combined with the depth and duration of the job crisis—poses ‘a profound challenge to marriage’…
“‘We could be headed in a direction where, among elites, marriage and family are conventional, but for substantial portions of society, life is more matriarchal,’ says Wilcox. The marginalization of working-class men in family life has far-reaching consequences.
“Marriage plays an important role in civilizing men. They work harder, longer, more strategically. They spend less time in bars and more time in church, less with friends and more with kin. And they’re happier and healthier.”
Women are now the majority of the paid workforce for the first time in history, the majority of managers are now women, and significantly more women than men now get degrees.
“For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?”
As Hanna Rosin outlined in a an article on “the unprecedented role reversal now under way—and its vast cultural consequences,” couples at fertility clinics are now requesting more girls than boys, three quarters of the jobs lost in the Great Recession were lost by men, many college women now assume that they will earn the paycheck while their husbands stay home and mind the kids, and women now earn 60 percent of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Ask Rosin:
“What if the economics of the new era are better suited to women? Once you open your eyes to this possibility, the evidence is all around you….Indeed, the U.S. economy is in some ways becoming a kind of traveling sisterhood: upper-class women leave home and enter the workforce, creating domestic jobs for other women to fill.
“The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominately male….
“The economic and cultural power shift from men to women would be hugely significant even if it never extended beyond working-class America. But women are also starting to dominate middle management, and a surprising number of professional careers as well.”
Of the top 15 careers projected to grow in the decade ahead, says Rosin, only two—janitor and computer engineer—are filled by a male majority. And the trend is not limited to the United States: both China and India boast similar indicators.
College statistics show “with absolute clarity that in the coming decades the middle class will be dominated by women.”
The Decreasing Popularity of Marriage
At the same time, and certainly not unrelated, many women are finding marriage less attractive.
Sandra Tsing Loh writes that:
“for women, obsession with real estate is replacing obsession with love and marriage….Whatever the emotional need, we women can engineer the solution. But such continual resculpting may be irksome if the vessel of our current and future happiness is an actual male….
“So what if, in comparison with Jane Austen’s time, when the heroine’s journey was necessarily Girl Meets Boy, Girl Marries Boy, Girl Gets Pemberley, 200 years later our plots are Woman Buys Pemberley, Pemberley Needs Remodeling, Woman Hires Handsome, Soulful, Single Architect to Find Perfect Farmhouse Sink but After Whirlwind Affair Boots Him Out Anyway Because She Hates His Choice of Carpeting…?
“Whether you wish to chant ‘Our houses, our selves’ or ‘We have houses, hear us roar,’ for us women, home is where the heart is.”
Loh suggests that “middle-aged female readers’ tastes,” at least, “are shifting away from the marriage plot.”
She cites such current female classics as Committed by woman’s icon Elizabeth Gilbert, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House by Meghan Daum, and Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity From a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes.
About The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine (which the New York Times Book Review called “an update of Sense and Sensibility”), Loh said that it is
“less about who ends up with the men than who ends up with the real estate….
“As the years grind on, Sheldon [‘bald and in bow ties’] will only continue to physically collapse, as opposed to a house, whose luster just improves with age. A 100-year-old farm house? Make it 200! Even 300! Original hardware! Wide-plank floors! And what’s more fun than falling madly in love with a piece of real estate?”
Quoting Meghan Daum:
“Moving, like chocolate and sunshine, stirs up many of the same chemicals you ostensibly produce when you’re in love. At least it does for me. Like a new lover, a new house opens a floodgate of anticipation and trepidation and terrifying expectations fused with dreamy distractions. It’s all encompassing and crazy making. You can’t concentrate at work…”
And about Hayes’s book:
“I am raptly studying the New York Times piece on lefty stay-at-home mothers in Berkeley who raise their own chickens. In a house with no cable…the only entertainment we have is reading….Evenings go by so slowly, I’m already halfway through my every-four-years read of Anna Karenina…
“I’m intrigued by the stay-at-home-mom chicken-slaughtering because on my rickety nightstand (flea market—$8!) is my new bible, Shanon Hayes’s Radical Homemakers. Sure, it has some of the usual tropes one would expect from a crunchy-granola rebel seeking to live off the land: Hayes’s daughters have lyrically daunting names like Saoirse and Ula; there is copious homeschooling; there are hushed-voice, enigmatic, and unironic biographical descriptions like ‘She raises and forages most of her food in the heart of the city’ (Chicago). More timid souls might balk at maybe limiting their diet to venison, figs, and prickly pear cactus; melting beef tallow for soap….And yet, I find myself dog-earing page after page, exclaiming ‘Aha!’ and circling passages….
“What a heady brand of feminism—self reliance in the home is a path to more authentic macro-freedom; freedom from government, freedom from corporations, freedom from a soul-diminishing economy! Like early American rebels who freed themselves from dependence on the British by pairing turkey not with imported jam but with locally grown cranberry sauce, we, too, can start a revolution in the kitchen!”
A much more direct new feminism, according to Rosin, comes from leaders like Iceland’s female Prime Minister who campaigned by promising to put an end to “the age of testosterone.”
And many women are simply foregoing marriage. Says Rosin:
“In 1970, 84 percent of women ages 33 to 44 were married; now 60 percent are….[T]he most compelling theory is that marriage has disappeared because women are setting the terms—and setting them too high for the men around them to reach.”
In all of this, men are often seen as dull, stulted, unimaginative and unable to cope with change, while women are seen as naturally innovative, able, creative, adaptive and ready to deal with and overcome anything.
When challenges come, men are expected to mope, but the women assess the situation, develop solutions, and then muster resources and support to turn challenges into triumphs.
In this new worldview, the stereotypes are significant: men are naturally needy and dependent while women are bright, engaged and full of initiative.
Why would women even want to marry in such an environment? Many college women, according to Rosin, see men as “the new ball and chain.”
Growing Confusion about Manhood
President Obama said in his 2008 Father’s Day Speech that fathers are critical to the foundations of the family:
“They are teachers and coaches. They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and men who constantly push us toward it.”
Kids who are raised without fathers are five times more likely to commit crime or live in poverty and nine times as likely to drop out of school. But these statistics are all in debate, and no clear conclusions are accepted by the researchers.
In fact, as the author of Parenting, Inc., Pamela Paul, put it,
“The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there’s nothing objectively essential about his contribution. The good news is, we’ve gotten used to him.”
Such tepid support for the role of fathers is becoming the norm. As Don Peck wrote:
“In Identity Economics, the economists George Akerloff and Rachel Kranton find that among married couples, men who aren’t working at all, despite their free time, do only 37 percent of the housework, on average. And some men, apparently in an effort to guard their masculinity, actually do less housework after becoming unemployed.
“Many working women struggle with the idea of partners who aren’t breadwinners. ‘We’ve got this image of Archie Bunker sitting at home, grumbling and acting out,’ says Kathryn Edin, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and an expert on family life….It may sound harsh, but in general, [Wilcox] says, ‘if men can’t make a contribution financially, they don’t have much to offer.’
“Two-thirds of all divorces are legally initiated by women. Wilcox believes that over the next few years, we may see a long wave of divorces, washing no small number of discarded and dispirited men back into single adulthood.
“Among couples without college degrees, says Edin, marriage has become an ‘increasingly fragile’ institution. In many low-income communities, she fears it is being supplanted as a social norm by single motherhood and revolving-door relationships. As a rule, fewer people marry during recession, and this one has been no exception.”
More people are putting off marriage and just deciding not to marry.
One result of all this is that more communities are filled with unmarried, unemployed, underemployed, increasingly less educated, frustrated and unproductive males.
Even among educated men who are married and employed, there is increasing confusion about the ideal and proper role of men.
Few men are willing to voice a strong opinion about the roles of men and women any more, though it is a frequent topic among women.
Even those men who do share an opinion most often begin or end, or both, with a disclaimer along the lines of, “but what do I know? I’m just a man, after all.”
We are at an interesting place in gender relations in America. Hanna Rosin wrote:
“Throughout the ‘90s, various authors and researchers agonized over why boys seemed to be failing at every level of education, from elementary school on up, and identified various culprits: a misguided feminism that treated normal boys as incipient harassers (Christina Hoff Sommers); different brain chemistry (Michael Gurian); a demanding, verbally focused curriculum that ignored boy’s interests (Richard Whitmire).
“But again, it’s not all that clear that boys have become more dysfunctional—or have changed in any way. What’s clear is that schools, like the economy, now value the self-control, focus, and verbal aptitude that seem to come more easily to young girls.”
I have suggested for many years that girls are a couple of years ahead of boys and that we do much harm by pushing boys into academics too early.
In fact, until they have a love of learning (which comes early) and then a love of studying (which usually comes to boys shortly after puberty), requiring them to do a lot of typical school work is often very destructive to their long-term education.
By establishing grade levels by age, rather than as phases that come to different children at their own pace, society often labels boys as “dumb,” “not smart,” “less gifted,” and “behind,” when in fact they just aren’t yet ready to meet some arbitrary standard called a grade level.
Some boys, and some girls, may develop more slowly than the “established norm,” but they are still fully capable of superb performance when they are allowed to move at their own pace.
Unfortunately, this flies in the face of the “expert” wisdom and is largely discounted by most.
One suggested solution by those currently dealing with this trend of “underperforming” boys is to create gender-oriented tests instead of standard exams. This strikes me as sad and frustrating, since I have been promoting personalized, oral exams instead of standardized tests for years.
Another proposal is to allow boys to walk around during class in order to get out their nervous attention and allow them to concentrate like girls or older students.
Again, I have taught for nearly two decades that younger children aren’t quite ready for the academic environment we have forced them to endure.
Some experts want to establish all-boys classrooms and even all-boys school, and to focus on the needs of boys instead of requiring them to fit into standard classrooms.
I agree with Rosin:
“It is fabulous to see girls and young women poised for success in the years ahead. But allowing generations of boys to grow up feeling rootless and obsolete is not a recipe for a peaceful future.”
Unfortunately, the pro-men and pro-boy movements that are now happening are either discounted by many as too religious, too extreme, or too angry and anti-women.
In short, the only thing which really seems to work in raising boys toward ideal manhood, regardless of what the experts are saying, is the intimate and ongoing example of fathers, grandfathers, uncles and other key male role models.
Solutions
This reality, in fact, is one of those amazing coincidences that can only be called either inspiration or serendipity.
The current crisis is offering an opportunity for men to develop their nurturing side.
Before you discount this, consider that men are as naturally prone to nurture as they are to provide.
Thousands of years of the Nomadic, Agrarian and Industrial Ages have conditioned hundreds of generations of men to find success through work.
And the long era of comparative peace and prosperity since 1945 have tended to make them feel entitled to plentiful jobs, extra cash, vacations, and leisure time, and numerous other opportunities—often with minimal effort.
The Great Recession has challenged these assumptions, requiring a new type of individual with two sets of character traits and skills:
- First, extremely high levels of initiative, resiliency, ingenuity, and tenacity.
- Second, much higher than traditional levels of cooperation, communication, unselfishness about who gets rewards and credit, and teamwork.
Today’s generation of men and women are capable of the first list of needed traits and changes, but many men struggle to compete with women on the second list.
Indeed, for much of history it was man’s lack of these very “weaknesses” that made him independent, self-assured, bold, assertive, ambitious, and what has been called simply, “manly,” “Roman,” and “tough.”
When boys are taught, “be a man,” “don’t cry like a sissy,” and men are told to “cowboy up,” it often means precisely not to be the cooperative, communicative, depend-on-others types.
“Stop talking and just do it.” “Who cares what others say or do, just do what you want.”
Men still laugh at Tim Allen’s grunts as the essence of male communication, and even in team athletics boys are taught to stand out and rise above the crowd.
What used to be the unwritten rules of “male dominance” are now actually seen as inability to excel in the vital second list of characteristics (communication, cooperation, unselfishness).
While of course this generalization is overcome by a number of individuals, it remains a reality for many.
Wise fathers, grandfathers and role models will help teach boys and men that there is much more to manhood than the wartime and gang-related values.
Indeed, the lessons taught from fathers to sons by generations of hunters, farmers and entrepreneurs differ greatly from those idealized by warriors, politicians and corporate raiders.
The first group idealizes cooperation, communication, and progress whereas the second prefers competition, dominance and victory.
In the Industrial Age, the “Organization Man” became the ideal for males—detached, admired, cash-carrying, benefitting from a lot of leisure time, and considered in charge of his family and its members.
The Industrial Man was the provider and the boss. At work he was an employee, a servant, but at home he was the center of the universe. He too often tended to treat his wife and children like employees and act like the boss he resented at work.
With a life experience built on succeeding as an employee, he didn’t know another way of acting.
His wife was either an employee, the boss, or perhaps a fellow worker in competition for advancement, attention and rewards.
His marriage was most often seen as a contract, where both sides were expected to perform their agreed upon roles, rather than a covenant where he would give his all in sacrifice and longsuffering regardless of what the other side did.
His relationships with neighbors and his nation took on this same contractual perspective.
He voted like an employee, for what he wanted—rather than for what the nation truly needed like a farmer or owner protecting the land or the organization he raised from scratch.
Today some men are lamenting (often quietly) the loss of this concept, while at the same time the need for a new male ideal is vital.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the masculine ideal was often the best nurturer. It takes nurturing, not detached management, to grow a farm, build a business from the ground up, and raise children into adults.
The necessary attention to detail is legendary. Indeed, in the Agrarian Age the iconic man’s occupation and business was Husbandry.
Providing was part of their role, but it was a secondary natural outgrowth of nurturing children like a small business in its infancy, encouraging and husbanding plants and coaxing them to grow and flourish into a farm in full bloom.
As Wendell Berry put it:
“…a man who is in the traditional sense a good farmer is husbandman and husband, the begetter and conserver of the earth’s bounty, but he is also midwife and motherer. He is a nurturer of life. His work is domestic. He is bound to the household.
“But let ‘progress’ take such a man and transform him…sever him from the household, make…‘uneconomical’ his impulse to conserve and to nurture…’ and not only will much of his incentive to be a good husband end, but his attachment to the land, to his nation, and to his wife and children, who are, after all, not particularly economical.
“Then, send his children away to school during the day, thus severing the wife from both husband and children, and she will naturally follow him to work looking for connection and meaning.
“Our homes are left abandoned and barren across the nation—father, mother and children are all elsewhere, seeking love and acceptance and nurturing.”
New Opportunities
Then the economy tanks, the era of the male provider-warrior ends, and man stands wondering if he has any importance.
As women take more than half of the new jobs in the market, they too begin to wonder if man is needed.
Here comes the miracle.
Like a wildfire burning a forest and opening the seeds for the growth of new trees and vast swaths of new woodlands, men look around, try to see any value in their lives, and find, hopefully, inevitably, their inner nurturer.
If this sounds effeminate, you still don’t realize how much the world has changed.
This transition is not simple, and we fight it with the zeal of the government battling the most threatening forest fires.
The experts and activists may call it “A New Era of Matriarchy,” “The End of Men,” “The Failed Marriage Plot,” “The Victory of Feminism,” or “a Matriarchal Society,” but all of these miss the most central point.
After generations of an economy driving men further and further away from their nurturing selves, of making them more and more the provider-manager-disconnected-careerist or confused-noncommittal-freewheeler-playboy, something drastic is required to reawaken a generation of husbandmen.
A generation of husbandmen could improve the world like perhaps nothing else. Indeed this is the highest ideal of manhood promoted by feminism and its opponents alike.
And if unemployment and economic struggles are what it takes to bring about this change, it is certainly worth it.
Of course, making this change will be neither immediate, easy nor sure. There will be ups and downs, and individuals may reject the whole thing.
But the change is here, women and men are empowered, and our society is poised to take a great step toward an ideal world.
Speaking as a man, I am both overwhelmed and intrigued by the prospects.
This is about much more than just seeing the proverbial silver lining in economic struggles. We literally have the chance to become better as men, women, and people.
The debate about gender that has raged my entire life can finally be answered. We don’t need to worry so much about what men or women should be or who is ahead.
We have reached a point where all the incentive is simply for men to be better men. If each of us, male and female, see things this way and simply set out to be better, just imagine the potential.
I am so glad my daughters live in a world of such opportunity—both in and out of the home. And I am equally thrilled that my sons will build their lives in a world where the whole man—nurturer as well as provider—is emerging as the ideal.
I am more enthused than ever about the potential for all our children to be equally yoked and fully happy in their marriages.
I don’t believe that the era of marriage, family happiness, or the high point for men or women is over. In contrast, I have never been more optimistic about the future of family.
If we are entering an era where both women and men more broadly improve themselves, the future of the home is indeed bright—and the impact on the rest of the world is inevitable.
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Culture &Current Events &Economics &Family &Featured &History &Mini-Factories
How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America
October 11th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Every once in a while a truly great article comes along that needs to be read by everyone who cares about freedom.
Past examples include “The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington and “A Separate Peace” by Peggy Noonan. Both of these are still incredibly valuable reading.
Today, when many politicians are trying to convince the American people that the recession is really over, there are still very few people who believe an economic boom is just ahead.
A significant number of people feel that things may well get much worse, and most Americans seem to expect the economy to sputter for the foreseeable future.
Even if growth does increase, it appears that major economic challenges are far from over.
More importantly even than financial impact of hard economic times is the significantly negative impact on the family.
Because of this, today I want to recommend that everyone read a truly important article written by Don Peck in The Atlantic: “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America.”.
I have read and re-read this article a number of times since I first saw it in March, and I am learning something more each time. I urge you to take time to read it thoroughly.
While you read it, consider at least four themes:
- The challenges of fixing the economy, and the great need to re-incentivize innovation and entrepreneurs.
- Why are we choosing to increase taxes and regulations on small business instead of opening the economy and giving them a chance to put American initiative to work?
- The impact of high unemployment on the family, including the restriction of the roles of husbands, fathers, wives and mothers.
- The impact on youth.
Finally, I am still trying to figure out the ramifications of one major point in the article, that the economic downturn is altering our culture into a “matriarchal society.”
I’m all for equality, but is a matriarchal society a good thing or a bad thing? What exactly is it, and what will it look like? I think this is a vital trend that we all need to think about and discuss.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Culture &Current Events &Economics &Family
Basic Tribal Culture
October 5th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
THERE ARE AT LEAST THREE MAJOR CULTURAL TRADITIONS of the world’s history, which can be described as Warriors, Farmers and Competitors.
Warriors
Warrior cultures believe in enemies, battles, winners and losers, us versus them, strength, courage, victory, personal skill, honor, resiliency, and a bias toward action—among other things.
They tend to see the world in terms of “our tribe” above all else. Many in history called themselves “the people,” or “the chosen.”
The tribes which became the nations of Norway (Norse), England (Anglos), France (Franks), etc. were from this tradition; other examples are found around the world.
Farmers
Farmer traditions valued security, hard work, frugality, sexual morality, responsibility, loyalty to community, savings and assets, land ownership, integrity, education, honesty, steadiness, family loyalty, neighborliness, and prosperity defined by abundance of food.
They built communities, simultaneously promoted individual freedom and conformity to community norms, and considered themselves successful when they produced bountiful harvests and saw their children married well (to spouses who embodied the values of the community).
Competitors
Competitor traditions saw the world as (usually) friendly competition between children at play, youth at courting and adults at work. Even the elderly competed to brag about the best lives, worst pain, most accomplished son, most neglectful daughter, most talented grandchildren, and whatever else came up.
For example: “I have two sons who are doctors and a daughter who is a lawyer,” versus “My grandson is a star quarterback who just won a state championship and his sister just got a scholarship from a national competition she won in Washington, D.C.”
People in such societies like competitive entertainment to escape from the pressures of their competitive schools and jobs.
A lot more could be said about these three major traditions, but the key point here is how they relate to tribes and freedom.
Warrior societies are tribal by nature, and they grow by conquering and colonizing other societies. They see life as a big battle, and raise their children and spend their days in battle mode.
They believe that life is about either conquering or being conquered. They see those with farmer and competitor traditions as victims.
Farmer societies are also tribal, but see the world as a big desert that needs to be turned into a garden. The more people who will adopt their values and join their quest to beautify and expand the garden, the better.
To them, the warriors and competitors are savages and wild outsiders who should be avoided and kept away from their society.
Pitfalls of National Culture
Competitor cultures are National (as opposed to tribal): interested in education for career, working moderate hours in order to enjoy daily entertainments, uninvolved with neighbors unless there is some other relationship to pull them together, and selfish with their free time.
They see the world as a big race, and individuals want to be the winners instead of the losers. In fact, they generally look down on “losers” and avoid them lest losing somehow “rub off” on them.
They see warrior and farmer cultures as quaint and backward, at best, and often with a more critical eye. Clearly, those cultures aren’t winning the race.
Competitor cultures divide their competitions into those that matter and those that don’t. They join tribes for the ones with little at stake, but stay individually focused on the ones that matter most.
Career and money are the competitions that matter more than any others in these cultures. Even family relationships have to take a back seat to most career considerations.
In other words, competitor cultures appear tribal by habit, but are nationalistic when they feel something is really important.
National cultures therefore desperately need the lessons taught by traditional tribal cultures.
But there are also pitfalls and negatives typical to tribal cultures, and we want to learn what they are and avoid them.
The American founders took on a deliberate process of statecraft, weighing the merits and failings of forms, models and ideals from societies throughout history.
I would assert that such a considered approach to our future as a nation and society is called for today. The goal is to adopt the best from national, tribal, warrior, farmer, competitive and other cultures, and at the same time reject their flaws and weaknesses.
With this in mind, let’s discuss what the tribal ideal really is.
With the assumption of local governance under the direction of concerned and involved citizens who were invested in one another’s success and security—basically a tribal council at the community level—the American founders established constitutional forms to create a cooperative and interactive union of states.
We have lost too much of the tribal foundation that was the animating spirit of American culture—the underlying weave of the fabric of freedom—and it is hard to overstate the case for recapturing it.
The Tribal Worldview
Just as there are religious worldviews, secular worldviews, materialistic worldviews, etc., there is an overarching tribal worldview.
Just like there are many views and differences within, say, the religious worldview, there are many different tribal perspectives.
And just as there is an overarching religious worldview (there is a higher power, and I should live in harmony with it/Him), there is also a profound and powerful tribal worldview.
One of the best ways to begin to understand any worldview is to ask, “What is the world, and what is the purpose of life and the universe?”
This is a complex question, of course, but it can be answered in simple terms and the early answers are often the most important. By understanding tribal culture at this basic level, we understand a great deal about ourselves.
The Universe
As I have studied tribal cultures from around the world and throughout history with these questions in mind (What is the world? What is the purpose of life and the universe?), I have categorized recurring themes, forces and societal roles; the labels used here are my own.
In generic tribal thought, the universe is made up of certain vital entities. For example, first come the Obeyers; these do their part in the universe unfailingly. They include suns, moons, planets, rocks, canyons, rivers, mountains, valleys, etc.
Many ancient religious temples and writings are full of these Obeyers. Obeyers set an example to all others, and they are the basic building blocks of everything. Many ancient stories center around references to and morals learned from valleys, rivers, mountains, etc.
Next are the Growers: the trees, grasses, plants, fruits, and so on. They build the universe by growing. Their growth feeds the others, bringing the power of the sun into assimilable form.
Many ancient religions and philosophies are built around the Growers and grower symbols.
The Movers include animals, fish and birds. They move around the world, spreading minerals and seeds from the Obeyers and Growers as they travel.
Many tribes consider some of the Movers, especially birds, to be messengers, teaching us as we interact with them in the world. They also provide food to others, and feed the Growers when they die.
The Movers are a key part of the universe, as are the Growers and Obeyers.
The Fishers are an interesting group. They change the environment by building dams to fish like beavers, or storing nuts like squirrels. Bees and others fit this category. They somehow raise and harvest food, not just wander and search for it.
In some traditions they are called farmers, and in others spiders (which weave webs to capture food). By their fishing, storing, farming, weaving, etc., they benefit the environment and all of life.
People are expected to learn from all of these parts of the universe, and to follow their good examples. Each type of entity is judged by how well it promotes and benefits life, which Obeyers, Growers, Movers and Fishers all do.
Next come the Lovers. Lovers benefit life to the extent that they love. When they don’t love, they hurt life and all the other entities.
The Lovers include all humans and also the spirits (or God, gods, and/or ancestors, depending on the tribe). Humans exist to love.
The Shadow Side
In addition to the good parts of the universe that benefit life, there are those that attack life. These include the Thieves, Murderers, Manipulators and Destroyers.
Thieves take one’s implements of life because they think it will benefit their life. They are mistaken, and cause pain for all by wrongly attacking life.
Murderers take life in order to promote their own life, and in so doing increase total pain. Murderers are seen as worse than Thieves.
Manipulators are an interesting category, often considered to be much worse than thieves and murderers. Manipulators set up systems that steal or kill, but in a way that the thieves and murderers aren’t directly blamed and in fact get away with it more often.
Such systems include anything that skews the natural way things should be, such as class and caste systems, manipulative and deceptive laws and governments, tricky lending and business deals, etc.
In this worldview, the only thing worse than Manipulators are Destroyers. Destroyers are those whose very nature has changed, who no longer are fallen Lovers, but are truly motivated only by hate and pride.
Note that while Movers, Fishers and Humans can be Thieves and Murderers, only humans can become Manipulators or Destroyers.
Since the very purpose of humans in the universe is to bring as much love as possible into the world, it is a colossal tragedy if a Lover becomes a Manipulator or a Destroyer.
By the way, in many traditions only Manipulators become Destroyers.
Now, with all this said, imagine how people in this culture feel about those who set up abusive, forced, corrupt and controlling governments, economies and laws: They are the worst of the worst.
Even those who support, condone or allow such manipulative governments, laws and economies are doing the work of the Destroyers and attacking life and all that is good.
This is one reason that tribal societies so adamantly mistrust most national cultures and people: It seems to many of them that the very basis of national culture is manipulations and exploitative systems.
It is also why it would be so valuable for them to learn the constitutional principles of freedom and how to apply them. But our purpose here is not to admonish the tribal cultures, but to learn from them.
Major Weaknesses of Tribalism
At this point, we should note that while traditional tribal culture does have much to teach us from its idyllic simplicity, it is far from perfect. Studying its pitfalls and common flaws is also instructive.
When tribes are run by small councils of all adult members, these weaknesses can be mitigated.
But when tribes don’t follow the leadership of councils of all adults, they turn against themselves; whatever other form of government they adopt, it becomes corrupt.
When this happens, various problems arise. The problems that follow are the normal for tribes that are not led by councils of all adults.
Economic Control
Tribal culture generally gives a great deal of economic power to tribal leaders.
Interestingly, most tribes distribute political power well between the executive (who gets power only in the face of external challenges and only for the duration of the challenge), the judicial (often a shaman and in many cultures left to families⎯both of which are usually independent of the executive and legislative), and run by the legislative (sometimes councils of elders, sometimes the combined adults of the tribe, sometimes both).
Of course, there are tribes that fail to follow these models, but the freest tribes use these basic systems.
Still, even with political freedoms, few historical tribes have economic freedoms.
The trust of the chief, the head elder (male or female) or the shaman is often absolute.
And, indeed, such leaders often adopt a sort of royal mentality where they believe that what is good for the leader’s finances is good for the whole tribe. In this form, nobody sees undue control of everyone’s finances and ownership as a negative.
But often, it creates the loss of political freedom—including parental choices, like who should marry whom—and a strict caste system with no economic or social mobility.
Many tribes face long-term poverty for most members of the tribe. Such poverty never persists in a truly free-enterprise model, which includes both freedom and opportunity.
Often tribal leaders see this as a threat to their power and, by extension, the tribe’s security and viability.
Emerging tribes with a charismatic leader who seeks control over individuals’ and families’ finances are cultish, and history is littered with the tragedies that such arrangements can lead to.
If a tribe wants to sell things, that’s great. But trying to pool resources or give up control of personal property should of course be met with serious suspicion.
This discussion also exposes a national-culture flaw: the idea that in learning from other cultures we should not judge their systems, traditions and behaviors.
Perhaps this is true when the goal is to maintain purity and academic objectivity in anthropological studies, but it certainly not true when our purpose is to learn and apply the best of tribal (and national) cultures to the tribally-nationalistic-globally-connected societies of the future.
If some calamity changes the world drastically, the same lessons will need to be applied in the new local societies that will be forged.
We need to measure the parts of each culture by how well they promote and support an environment of freedom, prosperity and happiness for all.
Interpersonal Politics
In a small group, political power is often swayed by personalities, likes and dislikes, trysts and history, baggage and personal weaknesses. Nothing can keep this from happening, and in a free system and voluntary tribes it doesn’t matter much.
In a local or official tribal system where the government has actual power over life, death, imprisonment, finances, etc., systems should always be established that keep this from happening.
By “systems” I mean written constitutions with separation of powers, checks and balances well-structured.
Class Power
Most tribes are aristocracies. This is a problem, because the class system is usually established by those in power and dominated by certain families.
In a local structure, or any model where the tribe or community is non-voluntary and/or actually has government power, the solution to this is to establish a legislature of all adults in the tribe.
As the tribe grows in size and geographical scope, local councils representing perhaps no more than 150 households continue to govern themselves, and may send representatives to a regional council to manage affairs of mutual interest to the coalition of local councils.
Conformity
Tribes often flounder economically and fail to grow because the people become too socially conformist. When tribes demand sameness on many levels and in nearly every aspect of life, they shut down creativity, leadership, wisdom and progress.
This is natural to any group, and in national cultures it is often called “groupthink.”
It is important for any group to continue learning, thinking, risking and trying.
Of course, certain violent and anti-social behaviors from rape to murder and so on cannot be tolerated. But stopping criminal behavior is far different from scripting people’s lives and socially enforced hyper-conformity.
This also translates to a socially-enforced closed-mindedness with respect to new ideas and a lack of tolerance for diversity, which lead to a stagnation of creativity and a tendency toward thought-policing.
Lack of Diversity
These conspire to cause narrowness of thinking, along with many of the other problems listed above. On the one hand, the whole point of tribe is joining together based on commonalities.
But the thing which makes tribes flourish is truly caring about each other, connecting, bonding. And connections based on both commonality (such as the shared value of freedom of choice) and diversity (such as the shared value of freedom of conscience) weave a much stronger fabric than one based on sameness.
Conclusion
The New Tribes of the 21st Century would do well, of course, to avoid these pitfalls. As stated, nearly all of these go away when a tribal society is governed by small councils of all adults in the tribe. If the tribe is too large for everyone to have a voice, smaller sub-councils are needed.
Historical tribes do have their weaknesses, but these also have much to teach us. Our generation of citizens needs to understand the good and the bad from the great tribes, nations and societies of history.
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
How to Become a Producer
September 24th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Click Here to Download a Printable Version of This Article
Producers are the most important citizens, as Thomas Jefferson put it.
Actually, the word he used was farmers—specifically, “tillers of the soil.” By producing food, farmers obviously had an important role in successful society.
But Jefferson meant more than this.
Because farmers lived close to the land, they were self-reliant with respect to their own survival and received an income from providing indispensable basic needs for others.
This made them more independent than people of other occupations.
If hard times came, they tightened their belts and lived off their farms. In contrast, during the same challenges, most city dwellers and even shop owners were more likely to turn to the government or upper classes for help.
The founding generation was sensitive to the level of dependency of the European populace.
The small but incredibly powerful upper class was the only group that could live off their assets and make it through hard times like war, economic depression, or pandemic.
Because of this, the upper class was independent while everyone else was dependent on the upper classes and government.
Since the first focus of human societies is to survive, the power to survive independently was seen as true independence. Indeed, the War of Independence had this deeper meaning to founding Americans: They were finally independent of the European upper class.
Dependents versus Independents
In our day, nearly all citizens are dependent on an employer or the government.
One way to rate one’s level of independence might be to measure how long you can survive, feed your family, and live in your home after your employer stops paying you anything.
Some people are two-year independents, while others are three-year independents or two-month independents, and so on.
It is not unlikely that most Americans are absolute dependents, living paycheck to paycheck or on government support.
The triple entendre here is interesting.
At a time where the growth of political independents is helping lessen the dangers of a two-party monopoly on American politics, there is a need for more people to become true economic independents (people who can survive indefinitely without a paycheck). As both of these grow, the level of American independence will increase.
Any level of economic independence is good, including everything from two months to twenty years of non-employer-dependent financial security.
But the future of freedom may well depend on those with permanent economic independence.
3 Types of Independents
There are three groups with long-term independence whose members are permanently free from dependence on a paycheck.
The first two are made up of people supported by trust funds or equivalent, covered financially for life by wealth earned or passed down to them.
Group one lives off these funds, often spending their lives in play and leisure.
The second group spends their lives dedicated to making a difference in society through service, career, investment, entrepreneurship, or whatever path they choose to use to improve themselves and the world.
The third group has no trust fund or equivalent wealth to rely upon, but has the skill set and worldview of entrepreneurial enterprise.
This group doesn’t start with full bank accounts, but rather with emotional accounts full of faith and determination, grit and initiative, and an undying belief in the principles of abundance, hard work, and enterprise.
Whatever happens, members of this third group have an almost unshakable belief that there is opportunity everywhere.
They believe in themselves, and they believe that if they put their minds and hands to work they can build value out of opportunity and create prosperity through their energy and effort.
Together, the second and third groups are society’s Producers.
They start, build, invest in and grow businesses and organizations that create a nation’s assets, advancements, and top achievements. They employ the workers of the world.
And when hard times come, they don’t ask government or employers to provide for them. Rather, they look around, assess the situation, see opportunities amidst the problems, and get to work building value for the future.
They do, however, ask government and the big established businesses to get out of the way, to allow them the freedom to turn their initiative and work into growing profits and success.
When government increases obstacles and regulations on small business, it directly attacks freedom and prosperity.
When this occurs, entrepreneurs naturally look for nations and markets that are friendly to business. As a result, nations with free enterprise systems attract more producers and are blessed with greater wealth and prosperity.
Non-Producer Attempts to Create Producers
Nations naturally benefit from a large producer class, but how are producers created? The common answers fall short.
The liberal view is that those with credentials and advanced education—the experts—must set up a system that allows enterprise but also fairly distributes the rewards of economic success.
The conservative view is to allow big investors to get huge rewards and therefore be willing to take big risks.
The blue-collar populist approach is to make sure management treats labor fairly and humanely.
The bureaucratic view is that rules make the society and economy work.
While each of these has a place, within limits, none of them really get to the heart of what makes producers tick.
The problem is that these views are nearly always promoted and managed by employees with an employee background and an employee mentality.
Non-producers grudgingly admit the great need for more producers, and then set out to build conveyor belts which will produce more producers.
This only works insofar as a born entrepreneur sometimes breaks out of the conveyor belt and overcomes the obstacles to his or her success.
David Brooks has referred to Washington’s party politics as the PhD’s (liberals) versus the MBA’s (conservatives).
Both give lip service to small business; but their modus operandi belies a different governing worldview.
The PhD’s want government to run the economy and provide jobs, and to be the Great State Entrepreneur so that regular citizens don’t need to take risks.
The MBA’s want to appeal to big investment, and are loathe to consider small business significant or meaningful.
The average citizen-employee wants managers to treat employees better.
This is all employee thinking.
Government programs will not create many entrepreneurs, nor will most corporate ventures, bureaucratic agencies, or labor unions.
And most MBA programs emphasize employee training and measure their effectiveness by citing job placement statistics.
Entrepreneurs are the natural competitors to all these.
The Answer
How do we create more producers?
The answer, as frustrating as it is to the experts, is this: We don’t.
That is, institutionalized and standardized programs do not of themselves yield producers, except by happenstance (as noted above).
The very act of systemizing the training of initiative and innovation tends to shut down initiative and innovation.
What can be done, what actually works, is to help young people realize the importance of producers in society and reward their inclinations toward being anomalies, outliers, and disruptive innovators.
The first one is easier said than done; the second one is nearly impossible for most parents and teachers to either conceive of or accomplish.
To support the development of the entrepreneurial spirit in the rising generation, youth need to be:
- Exposed to those who highly value entrepreneurialism
- Given opportunities to earn and receive personalized mentoring from successful producers.
In short, as we elevate the honor and accessibility of being producers, we will tend to increase the number of them.
While the example may have its limitations, it is interesting to study the most successful network marketing, multi-level and other like organizations that in recent times have emphasized entrepreneurship among “regular” people.
For instance, Amway and its affiliates created more millionaires than most of the top 100 corporations combined, with each millionaire being an independent entrepreneur.
In such organizations, interested people are introduced to many who highly value entrepreneurial producers, and new affiliates work directly with a producer mentor.
Hundreds of non-traditional companies have accomplished similar results. Ironically, one criticism of such organizations by mainstream (employee) experts is that they are “pyramid schemes.”
From another perspective, the true pyramid companies are those where most of the work hours are done by lesser-paid employees while the highest salaries and bonuses go to the executives at the top.
Hands-on business schools like Acton MBA have similarly helped educate entrepreneurs by a combination of inspiring people to be producers and also providing producer mentors.
And the many bestselling books promoting this same model, from the “One Minute” series to the writings of Steve Farber and many others, show that this system is appealing to many people.
Highly successful coaching services have followed this pattern as well, including such notable businesses as those established by John Assaraf, Leslie Householder, Dennis Deaton and many of those mentioned in The Secret.
Nearly the entire self-help industry is built on this model: Promote the honor and value of successful entrepreneurialism and help would-be producers get direct mentoring from successful producers.
Thinkers like Andrew Carnegie and writers like Dale Carnegie outlined this model a long time ago.
The mainstream PhD/MBA ambivalence toward the “Success” and “Self-Help” community stems from their reliance on and loyalty to the doctrine of employeeship.
Harvard Business School once emphasized that the major changes in the world tend to come from what they called “disruptive innovators.”
These anomalous individuals produce surprising novelties from out-of-the-mainstream sources and dramatically change society, business, and other facets of life.
Disruptive innovators are disruptive precisely because they are totally unexpected by the conventional majority.
The government and big corporations spend a lot of resources trying to predict the future.
And invariably entrepreneurial producers come along every few years and change everything. Reams of articles and books are written trying to predict where the next such innovations will come from and prescribing how to help train future innovators.
But the network marketing companies and other non-traditional entities drastically out-produce government and big corporate attempts to build entrepreneurs.
3 Steps
But all of this commentary falls short of the real point. Only the individual can truly become an entrepreneur.
If there is to be a much-needed revolution that brings many more entrepreneurs to society, individuals, and families must take action and lead out.
If what we want is more independence, then we must have more independents—more producers.
If you want society to be leavened by a greater proportion of individuals with producer mojo, then you need to consider whether you should be a producer yourself, and how to become one.
To be a producer, it is up to you to make it happen.
Here are three suggestions:
1. Study successful producers.
The most important part of this is to see the power of focus, integrity, and faith in abundance that producers exemplify.
Where the media often tries to paint producers as greedy and immoral, the truth is usually very different.
Pay special attention to what great producers believe, and learn to think like them.
The habit of truly believing in abundance and principles makes one a true independent, permanently free of dependence on others and able to build, create and lead.
2. Study what the great producers study.
The material most studied by the greatest producers and leaders has been the great classics.
Producers are voracious readers, going far beyond any prescribed lists. Leaders are readers.
Read the greatest works of mankind and everything else you can get your hands on. Keep reading, studying and learning throughout your life.
3. Find and work with mentors who are successful producers.
The unwritten lessons gained from this kind of experience are invaluable, real and profound.
Coming face-to-face with greatness by working with successful producers is essential to becoming a successful producer yourself.
Our society desperately needs more producers.
We need more people who think like entrepreneurs and more people who take initiative and fulfill the needs of society without waiting for government or the people of wealth and privilege to “fix it for us.”
The future of freedom is directly and literally tied to the future of producers in our society.
Click Here to Download a Printable Version of This Article
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Culture &Economics &Education &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Mini-Factories &Producers
The Latch-Key Generation & Independents
September 16th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
The rise of Independents isn’t an accident. It is the natural result of both major parties emphasizing politics over principle and ideology over pragmatism.
A third reason for the rise of Independents is the widespread loss of blind faith in man-made institutions (like government and corporations) as the answers to society’s challenges.
These institutions have failed to perform, over and over, causing many of even the staunchest state- and market-loyalists to feel skeptical.
Fourth, the e-revolution has created a technological power of the citizenry, at least in the ability to widely voice views that diverge from the mainstream parties.
The Internet gave Independents (and many others) a voice. People who believed in common-sense pragmatism and principled choices over party loyalty have been around for a long time, but the e-revolution was needed to give them group influence.
But all of these reasons are really just after-the-fact justifications for why so many people are no longer channeled politically through one of the top parties.
They explain why people aren’t Republicans or Democrats, but they don’t explain why Independents are Independents.
Some Independents are actually from the far right and just anti-liberal, and others are leftists who are Independents because they are anti-conservative. Some are one-issue Independents, emphasizing the environment, feminism, race, the gold standard, etc.
A growing number of Independents, however, are Independents because they believe in a shared new ideal.
They have faith in both government and the market, but only to a certain extent. They are truly neither liberal nor conservative, but moderate. They want government and markets to work, and they want to limit both as needed.
Still, they are not just moderates, they are something more.
Three Versions of Management
What makes these Independents tick? They are motivated by a new focus, a set of goals surprising and even confusing to anyone who was taught that American politics is about right versus left, conservative versus liberal, family values versus progressivism, religious versus secular, hawk versus dove, and all the other clichés.
Independents are something new.
Daniel Pink argues that business is going through a major shift, that the entire incentive landscape of employees, executives and even owner-investors is changing.
Our ancestors were motivated mostly by “Management 1.0,” Pink says, which was a focus on physical safety and protection from threats.
“Management 2.0” came when people learned to produce things in a routine way, from planned agriculture to industry.
People became more motivated by a “carrot-and-stick” model of “extrinsic motivators.” Managers, teachers, parents and politicians created complex systems of rewards and punishments, penalties and bonuses to achieve results in this new environment.
In this model, conservatives are 1.0 because they want government to limit itself to protecting its citizens from external threats, to national security and legal justice.
Liberals support a 2.0 model where the role of government is to incentivize positive community behaviors by people and organizations, and also to enforce a complex system of punishments to deter negative behavior.
In education, 1.0 is the one-room schoolhouse focusing on delivering a quality, personalized education for each student.
In contrast, 2.0 is a conveyor-belt system that socializes all students and provides career rewards through job training, with benefits doled out based on academic performance.
The problem with 1.0 is that education is withheld from some based on race, wealth and sometimes gender or religion.
The 2.0 version remedies this, ostensibly providing democratic equality for students from all backgrounds; but the cost is that personalization and quality are lost, and a de facto new elite class is created by those who succeed in this educational matrix.
On the political plane, 1.0 promoted freedom but for an elite few, while 2.0 emphasized social justice but unnecessarily sacrificed many freedoms.
Version 3.0 combines freedom with inclusion, and this is the basis of the new Independents and their ideals.
It may seem oxymoronic to say that pragmatic Independents have ideals, but they are actually as driven as conservatives and liberals.
Independents want government, markets and society to work, and to work well. They don’t believe in utopia, but they do think that government has an important role along with business, and that many other individuals and organizations have vital roles in making society work.
They aren’t seeking perfect society, but they do think there is a common sense way in which the world can generally work a lot better than it does.
Mr. Pink’s “Management 3.0” is a widespread cultural shift toward “intrinsic motivators.” A growing number of people today (according to Pink) are making decisions based less on the fear of threats (1.0), or to avoid punishments or to obtain rewards (2.0), than on following their hearts (3.0).
This isn’t “right-brained” idealism or abstraction, but logic-based, rational and often self-centered attempts to seek one’s most likely path to happiness.
Indeed, disdain for the “secure career path” has become widely engrained in our collective mentality and is associated with being shallow, losing one’s way, and ignoring your true purpose and self.
This mindset is now our culture. For example, watch a contemporary movie or television series: The plot is either 1.0 (catch or kill the bad guys) or 3.0 (struggle to fit in to the 2.0 system but overcome it by finding one’s unique true path).
Settling for mediocrity in order to fit the system is today’s view of 2.0.
In contrast, the two main versions of 3.0 movies and series are: 1) Ayn Rand-style characters seeking personal fulfillment, and 2) Gene Rodenberry-style heroes who “find themselves” in order to greatly benefit the happiness of all.
Where the Greeks had tragedy or comedy, our generation finds itself either for personal gain or in order to improve the world.
Whichever version we choose, the key is to truly find and live our life purpose and be who we were meant to be.
And where so far this has grown and taken over our pop-culture and generational mindset, it is now poised to impact politics.
Few of the old-guard in media, academia or government realize how powerful this trend is.
Generations
Independents are the latch-key generation grown up.
Raised by themselves, with input from peers, they are skeptical of parents’ (conservative) overtures of care after years of emotional distance.
They are unmoved by parents’ (liberal) emotional insecurity and constant promises. They don’t trust television, experts or academics.
They don’t get too connected to any current view on an issue; they know that however passionate they may feel about it right now, relationships come and go like the latest technology and the only one you can always count on is yourself.
Because of this, you must do what you love in life and make a good living doing it. This isn’t abstract; it’s hard-core realism.
Loyalty to political party makes no sense to two generations forced to realize very young the limitations of their parents, teachers and other adults.
Why would such a generation give any kind of implicit trust to government, corporations, political parties or other “adult” figures?
Independents are more swayed by Google, Amazon and Whole Foods than Hollywood, Silicon Valley or Yale.
Appeals to authority such as the Congressional Budget Office, the United Nations or Nobel Prize winners mean little to them; they’ll study the issues themselves.
Their view of the experts is that whatever the outside world thinks of them, they are most likely far too human at home.
Officials and experts with noteworthy accolades, lofty credentials and publicized achievements make Independents more skeptical than star-struck.
They grew up with distant and distracted “corporate stars” for parents, and they aren’t impressed.
Having moved around throughout their formative years, never allowed to put down deep roots in any one town or school for long, why would they feel a powerful connection to country or nation?
If the government follows good principles, they’ll support it. If not, they’ll look elsewhere.
They understand being disappointed and having to move on and rely on themselves; in fact, this is so basic to their makeup that it is almost an unconscious religion.
If this all sounds too negative, consider the positives. The American founding had many similar generational themes.
Raised mostly by domestic help (parents were busy overcoming many out-of-the-home challenges in this generation), sent away to boarding schools or apprenticeships before puberty, the founders learned loyalty to principles over traditions, pragmatic common sense over the assurances of experts, and an idealistic yearning for improving the world over contentment with the current.
Today’s Independents are one of the most founders-like generation since the 1770s. They want the world to change, they want it to work, and they depend on themselves and peers rather than “adults” (experts, officials, etc.) to make it happen.
Independent Philosophy
There are many reasons why Independents don’t resonate with the two major parties, but this is only part of the story.
Most Independents aren’t just disenfranchised liberals or conservatives; they are a new generation with entirely new goals and views on government, business and society.
This is all hidden to most, because the latch-key generation isn’t vocal like most liberals and conservatives.
Trained to keep things inside, not to confide in their parents or adults, growing numbers of Independents are nonetheless quietly and surely increasing their power and influence.
Few Independents believe that there will be any Social Security monies left for them when they retire, so they are stoically planning to take care of themselves.
Still, they think government should pay up on its promise to take care of the Boomers, so they are happy to pay their part. Indeed, this basically sums up their entire politics.
They disdain the political debate that so vocally animates liberals and conservatives, and as a result they have little voice in the traditional media because they refuse to waste time debating.
But their power is drastically increasing. The latch-key Independents raised themselves, grew up and started businesses and families, and during the next decade they will increasingly overtake politics.
Like Shakespeare’s Henry V, they partied through the teenager stage, leaving their parents appalled by generational irresponsibility and lack of ambition, then they shocked nearly everyone with their ability and power when they suddenly decided to be adults.
Now, on eve of their entrance into political power, few have any idea of the tornado ahead.
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Business &Culture &Current Events &Generations &Government &Independents &Politics &Technology
