Reagan's Children - Taking Back the City on the Hill
by Bob Stapler | View comments |
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In his new book, Hans Zeiger describes from the perspective of a Christian conservative the currently maturing generation and where they are leading us.
Reagan's Children
by Hans Zeiger
B&H Publishing Group (June 2006)
Ppbk., 199 pgs.
ISBN: 0805440623
With a title like that, I was half expecting a generational roadmap, similar to my own generation’s Port Huron manifesto, with conservative overtones. Instead, Hans Zeiger’s book is a thoughtful survey of his generation from the perspective of a Christian conservative, in which the author describes the currently maturing generation and where they are leading us.
That’s right, “where they are leading us.” As Zeiger quite correctly points out, the generation of leftist radicalism is beginning to die out and no one is rushing forward to reclaim their banner. The Sixties generation is not done yet, but the writing is on the wall, and Zeiger & Company are writing it. The present half-generation, the generation mostly born during the Reagan years, is only now graduating from college, setting up shop, taking job offers, boldly starting business ventures, ignoring cynicism, embracing faith, and increasingly declaring their support of conservative social and political initiatives. Many of this generation feel regenerated and validated by Reagan’s often uplifting messages. This generation has every indication of rejecting the more radical propositions of the Kool-Aid generation in favor of re-infusing society with some, if not all, of the values my generation rejected wholesale. The generation Zeiger introduces us to is sober, respectful, evangelical, concerned and assertive. In at least one way, it is very much like the generation of the 1960’s in that it rejects the legacy bequeathed it to seek something better.
Something is missing, however, in his accounting of all his siblings. Zeiger has done a commendable job telling us about the leadership of his generation, but almost nothing about its following. With the sixties radicals, there was a broad population of youth who either gave passing consent or muttered deep misgivings regarding those speaking in our name. It would be understandable of those who weren’t there to misconstrue us as apathetic and disillusioned, but that would be wrong. We weren’t, yet we failed to wrest the initiative from the Left. Both allowed radicals to claim our generation and dictate what we represent. Over time, their values displaced ours as we increasingly conceded the irreversibility of their fait accompli. The same will be true of Zeiger’s generation, and we need to know how onboard these less vocal members are with their leadership. The sixties radicals pretty much ignored the rest of us, just as they ignored our parents and the establishment. That indifference created deep and bitter divisions and disgust. All of us are paying the penalty of that hubris, and I hope Reagan’s Children won’t make the same mistake. Zeiger makes some comments regarding the preceding generations, Boomers and Gen-X, which are scathing. Yet, he’s not unfair and more than a little charitable. His perspective of us is flawed, however, because all he knows of us is distorted and magnified through the narrow lens of radicals, the media, and public opinion; all of which tend to capture only the most sensational and garish aspects of people and events. For that, we are ourselves guilty for presenting only one side of our stories.
The other thing Zeiger does with us is lump the generation of leftward activism with that of X-apathy. This makes for some inconsistency in his recounting of us. The reason he does is the parents of "Reagan’s Children" belong some to one and some to the other. The current crop of 16-24 year olds have parents ranging in age from 35 to 60. Many of us older Boomers waited until we were well into our 30’s before having kids, leaving a wide gap in the gene pool. Zeiger does not make this distinction very clear; and it is important to understanding all he says regarding his generation and its demand for something both grounded and purposeful.
One thing that struck me (though you won’t find this specifically in his book) is that my generation has left a spiritual and psychological rift in Zeiger’s past. We have done this religiously and historically. The 60’s and 70’s Left, in its remaking of society, deliberately tore down and destroyed a good many icons of the past. In so doing, we created revulsion for our heritage that sent a shockwave into the future. Zeiger’s generation is the first to react to that shock and hurl it back at us. In rejecting our past, we’ve destroyed theirs as well; cutting them off from grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-greats down to the founding fathers; with a wall of separation regarding who their ancestors were and what they were all about. We have also done all in our power to cut them off from G-d and from that human understanding that only comes from G-d. Zeiger and Company are demanding we restore that heritage to them and all else we’ve denied them, and I can’t blame them.
One point Zeiger makes in his book is particularly damning. We who are conservative take some comfort in never having supported or no longer supporting abortion. Ours is the perspective of an evil we individually condemn. Generationaly, however, we share in the guilt of some 30-million life terminations since abortion was legalized. Zeiger’s perspective is that of someone whose life might have been terminated for no better reason than inconvenience. He reports that one in every four pregnancies has been aborted since Roe became law. That makes the odds favoring survival rather grim. Zeiger gives us some sense of this when he surveys his generation and wonders “who of us is missing.” Fortunately for Zeiger, his parents chose not to terminate his particular life event. If my generation is the perpetrator, his is the victim. Those of us born prior to 1973 can have no conception of how that feels or how it colors their take on abortion, other than to realize it is a backlash brewing and about to erupt. Zeiger’s generation is coming on-line and about to turn the tables of public opinion against Roe.
Reagan’s children are the first generation to have grown up entirely in the age of the Internet and Talk Radio. Boomers and Gen-X’ers use the net and listen to Talk Radio as much as they, but our ideas were formed before those media came along. For many of Reagan’s Children, these have been nurseries and classrooms. They shape their opinion and, to the degree conservatism has reached them and spoken honestly, it has made them conservative. The success of these media in doing so has more to do with their perception of the mainstream media and pubic education as having cheated them out of more than half the real story. The net and Talk Radio are not yet the private preserve of any one ideology and, even among conservatives, there’s real diversity of opinion and of fact. Every generation suspects its parents of ducking ugly truths, and Zeiger’s is no different. But, unlike Boomers and Gen-X’ers, they have alternative sources to truth, and the effect has been to shatter liberalism’s stranglehold on culture.
In reading Zeiger’s book, I feel a little like George Sanders in the 1960 British Horror classic Village of the Damned. Not that Zeiger’s generation is in any way sinister. His self-description of a quiet, sober, evangelical, yet assertive youth, however, has that surreal quality we associate with ‘alien-ness.’ I find it difficult to fathom, as I always have the genuinely and deeply religious. For myself, faith has never come easy and I still have doubts. My own generation had its religious too, but it was the religion of radicalism and iconoclasm; and I never did connect with that. As with the leader/spokesman for the children in “the Damned,” Zeiger has very quietly and politely informed us: Sorry, but we’re taking over now and there’s nothing more for you to do or say. I suppose our parents felt very much the same about us.
The Port Huron Statement was clouded in misinterpretation, impatience, and condemnation, but also evoked a determination to do better. Zeiger’s book proposes to do better also, and I wish him well. I pray only that you guard against the hubris of my generation and trust fully in G-d to guide you and temper your judgments. Good luck and G-d bless.
Reagan's Children is available on Amazon.com.
rstapler@aceweb.com
Read more articles by Bob Stapler
Without conservatives working and starting businesses, liberals would not have anyone to live off of.
Comment by Charles | July 20, 2006
Conservatives need Liberals and vise versa. This moderate suggests that we lock the loony left up in CA and the Kooky Konservatives in TX and keep the rest of the country for ourselves.
Comment by David Lickiss | July 20, 2006
;-)
Comment by David Lickiss | July 20, 2006
Liberals are not a dying breed. American liberalism appeals to losers and losers predominate most societies.
Comment by Derek Leaberry | July 21, 2006
Due mainly to the malicious indoctrination of the public education abyss and the empty cavern of contemporary culture, I think a good number of us start off as liberals before being knocked off our proud horse on our way to Damascus . Liberalism will exist so long as infantile intellects receive Ph.d's from other adolescent minds.
Comment by Joseph | July 21, 2006
Dan wrote:
"With “liberals” we would not have the majority of art and music that makes our socity worth living in."
I agree that the majority of art and music is by liberals, but disagree that its of a value that gives worth to our society at a level of "livable". Art and music is fundamentally entertainment and worth some appreciation., Gods Art is the only art that makes our society worth living. Man's Art has been nothing but a poor imitation. Liberals will make their Art a life source only because it is also their GOD and therefore hold it in greater value.
Comment by MBeamer | July 21, 2006
The ability to craft art, in whatever form, is a gift from the divine. It should be used to enrich the lives of our fellow humans. That enrichment can and does take many forms. The artistic mind tends to want to push the limits of what society allows and to force society to look at what it is and question what it should be. Junk (or shock) art, like the cross in urine or dung on Mary on the other hand exists only to feed the ego of the artiste' — who suffers from infantile rage for not getting what he/she/it wants from society. Well crafted art forces use to think about what and who we are; junk just makes us angry and closed to the possibility of change.
Worthwhile art calls us to reach for a higher plane. It challenges pre-conceived ideas without alienating. Take the original Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren" in which the first inter-racial kiss occurred. In 1968 art was calling on us to give up racism. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel work with God and Adam reaching towards each other calls us to remember that moment of communion between God and the human race before sin entered our world and calls us to strive for that moment of perfect communion with the divine once more.
Junk art on the other hand expresses the artist’s emotion without concern for how that emotion affects others or it is done simply for the sake of money. Take the above examples of defiling the symbols of Christianity. The artist may have wanted to criticize Christianity and its adherents but chose to directly attack without offering any ideas for improvement. It was an infantile temper tantrum rather than art. Gangster Rap is another thoughtless form of junk art. The original rap based on the east coast in the 1980s was about social criticism put to a style of music. As it spread it morphed into a hatred filled assault upon the African-American community. Claiming to describe reality, it describes and glorifies the things that prevent inner-city youth from achieving their dreams. All for the sake of money.
Art, like all of humanities creations, can be used for good or for ill. It is our responsibility to know the difference and to act in a good way rather than a harmful way towards our fellow human beings.
Comment by David Lickiss | July 21, 2006
Where in the world do you get the data to say that most art would not exist without liberals, and that most right-wingers are not talented? Is this just based on observation of Hollywood? Consider that clique-ish groups are always hard to break into. They perpetuate trends.
And if the only argument in favor of liberals (if it were true, which it is not) is that they are better at producing art, then that's still not sufficient use to society, all things considered.
Don't worry guys, when liberals no longer rule popular culture, there will be no shortage of art and beauty.
Comment by Audriana | July 21, 2006
Dan,
My point is not that Art doesnt have any value. Its that it is not a value of survival as you put it . However, you have demonstrated what you believe is valuable. When you wrote:
"art is the single most important thing we do as human beings"
…that statement just amazes me.
You wrote: "Liberals also flourish in every college town across this country. Take, for example, Athens, GA or Knoxville, TN. These are small towns with large universities. Without those universities, these would be useless places, little more than farmland."
If you think farmland is so worthless that it is even less then a "useless place" your out of touch with reality.
Most all the Universities in this Country including some of the most liberal ones were established by Christian Conservatives or those values. In my opinion today their value to society is overated and on the decline because of liberals.
And all the so called great cities of today were small towns once. I personally believe their was greater value in those towns then there is today. Where Art was "an Art". Where it meant more than something to please ones senses but it was for the true enrichment of life through worshipping God, improving health through science , and survival yes even in …farming. This was not ART of liberals.
So yes, the majority of what is today labeled as "art" is by liberals. However, the Art with real value is what surrounds us everyday, that is created by God, and given to man and usually is easier to see in a small town or even on farmland and most of all it does not have a label of "Art".
I know you dont consider yourself a liberal but I hope you dont mind but with what I've read so far I will have to consider you one.
Comment by mbeam | July 21, 2006
Dan,
What I said (and this echo's Zeiger) is that "my generation" is starting to phase out. I did, indeed, point out Zeiger has not polled enough of his whole generation, and there are some obvious subgroups missing. A few of my generation have already died out, and the certainty for the rest of us only increases with age. Large numbers of us are also nearing retirement, meaning someone else will be taking over the reigns of business, politics, and shaping our future. This happens to every generation. As much as we'd like to stay in charge (and may even think ourselves better suited), our remaining time for leading is short. Soon, we'll be taking our place in the bleechers with the rest of the geriatrics.
To the degree it was radical-liberalism that dominated my generation, it is now radical-liberalism that is being supplanted. But it is also conservatives, moderates and the non-political of my generation who are being supplanted. I have in no sense said liberalism will die out, nor socialism, communism, anarchism or any of the other ideologies (however unfortunate). Nor has Zeiger. You may disagree with Zeiger's assessment, but I think he has made a pretty good case for a more conservative future (you'll have to read the book to judge for yourself how good). However, it seems pretty certain the generation now coming online is more conservative than liberal, and far more so than my generation. We can quibble for years waiting to learn how conservative they are. I will say that every generation only becomes more conservative with age, so, even if the difference is slim now, it will grow solidly conservative in time. To some this will be good news, to others …
Please remember, this is a report on someone else's work, and I tried to remain true to what the book is saying in my report on it. I did not feel it appropriate to impose my own ideas in this context. Where I injected my own take, it was to illuminate the book's themes or put them in context,; and not to over-write them with my own.
Comment by Bob Stapler | July 22, 2006
"Dan". The only tribe of Israel to be disowned (A prefigurement of Judas. 12 Tribes-12 Apostles. Get It?). You may be both. Please have the courage of your convoluted, contrarian convictions. When you open your gallery, I'm looking for to your lecture on the following: "Piss-Dan." "Defacating Dan." "Every Orifice Sodomized Dan". There are others I would like you to expound upon, but start with those first.
Comment by Joseph | July 24, 2006
When people of your ilk get to calling names, I "…dance for joy because your reward is great in heaven.." Tomorrow is lesson#2. See ya danny-boy!
Comment by Joseph | July 24, 2006