Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

25-Mar-18 World View -- The Pivotal Generation (Generation Z) marches for gun control, tilting at windmills

Defining the generations -- Silent, Boomer, Generation-X, Millennial, Pivotal


** 25-Mar-18 World View -- The Pivotal Generation (Generation Z) marches for gun control, tilting at windmills
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e180325


Contents:
Florida school shooting causes millions of high school students to rally for gun control
The rise of the Pivotal Generation (Generation Z)
Defining the generations -- Silent, Boomer, Generation-X, Millennial, Pivotal


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Pivotal Generation, Generation Z,
March for our Lives, Millennials, snowflakes,
National Rifle Association, NRA, Silents, Boomers,
Recovery Era, Awakening Era, Unraveling Era, Crisis Era,
Summer of Love, Kent State University, Financial Engineering

John, Thanks. This an insightful article and as usual something totally different than what most are discussing. The topic of the importance of security with the Pivotals was something I had never considered before.

My experience with this group is a bit different and perplexing. For many years I worked with young men in Boy Scouts. I’ve been told by many that I have a unique ability to relate to young men and influence them positively. I was born in 1968 – making me a Gen X, though I suppose I have a bit of boomer in me, as I tend to be very traditional and was raised in a very stable family. About 4 years ago I noticed a change in adolescent males. The most obvious manifestation was that they weren’t interested in the same things that most 12 year olds previous to them were. They were glued to their phones and that completely changed how they interacted with eachother and their interests. I now find it quite difficult to relate to them. I suppose that corresponds with a birth year of 2001-2002 – which is close to, but not exactly the 1999 date you mentioned for the beginning of the Pivotal generation.

My wife (age 47) is a perpetual student, recently she was in an elite program where all the other students were in the 23-25 year old range (very hard working, studious kids). Those students viewed 18 year olds as completely different than them (in essence saying they were a different generation). They attributed the difference to those kids always having smart phones – whereas they hadn’t. That would correspond closely with the 1999 date you quoted.

As I associate with many boomers – and live in an area that is very pro-gun.. The older generation views these demonstrating kids as naïve, manipulated, entitled idiots. They probably relate to them even less than I can. Thanks again for your article, I hope these observations add value.

Regards, Jack

John and Jack;
John's pieces put together fragments of observations and experiences for me also. My Dad was a scout master. He grew up in the 1930's and spent pre-university weekends in a cabin with friends hunting and fishing. He passed those joys on to me, even though I now consider camping to be a hotel without room service. Ick to crawling and flying vermin.
Having fought my son's way through public schools, listening to his college mind processes and praying through his black ops years, I understand how the DC marchers succumbed to adult pressures. Teens these days do not bond in positive friendships as in the past. Their adult models are to a large extent rising up "against".
John's positive outlook for these Pivotals is hopeful. To solidify the marchers views, a summer journey to view the Auschwitz and Dachau memorial ovens might be a good learning experience. Weapons registration is the precursor to confiscation which inevitably leads to oppression and power abuses. Perhaps that tour should begin in Britain for up close and personal looks at English victims on feet, in cemeteries or vaults. These young people are growing up avoiding gangs and many being denied thinking and useful skills because of multi-language classrooms. Make no mistake: legal American citizens are accountable for allowing our children and civilization to be corrupted. Giving up my weapon is not thinkable.

John, you say the "pivotals" are "tilting at windmills," but you may underestimate the vagaries of chance alliances. The coincidence of the #MeToo movement and the #MarchForOurLives kids is an unpredictable occurrence. If all those women (the majority of white women voted for Trump!) are angry enough, and those kids register and vote, we could see a massive change in the constitution of the voting population, and in the results.

It's a coincidence that GD could not predict.

shoshin wrote: > John, you say the "pivotals" are "tilting at windmills," but you
> may underestimate the vagaries of chance alliances. The
> coincidence of the #MeToo movement and the #MarchForOurLives kids
> is an unpredictable occurrence. If all those women (the majority
> of white women voted for Trump!) are angry enough, and those kids
> register and vote, we could see a massive change in the
> constitution of the voting population, and in the results. It's a
> coincidence that GD could not predict.

The stuff on social issues and social alliances is not something that
GD analyzes. The material that I wrote on the political positions of
Pivotals was based on research that's been developed in the last two
years, some of which is in the links that I referenced.

The MarchForOurLives issue was largely a Pivotal thing, based
on personal security.

The MeToo thing is largely Boomer nonsense. Pivotal's can support
MeToo based on "equality for everyone and everything," but the only
thing that the Pivotals really care about MeToo is using it to help
them get laid or get a date to the prom.

The "tilting at windmills" remark refers to gun control. I don't
think that there's a snowflake's chance in hell that assault weapons
will be banned. We'll see.

I shall preface this with this: You (all-ish) know my "writing style" and expressed personality through my posts, and that impression of me is essentially correct. I accept, and "own", the fact that I like lightheartedness, irreverence, moderate flippancy, lampoonery, and also highly value deep reasoning and well formed argument, as well as compassion and empathy, and (oddly) making and following rules and harsh punishment for "wrong/evil doing". Goofy "conjecture" is also an "interest" of mine.

I was born mid-1958. My Mom was born in late 1935.

I was raised quintessentially as a "Gen-Xer". My Mom (notice Dad is not mentioned much) was raised thoroughly as a "Silent".

My Mom always "felt" more like a "Greatest", and I always felt more like a "Silent",.. as I "identified" with my Mom's "training", and she was "adultified" far too early and "identified" herself as (essentially) her own parent (who was a "Greatest").

I never identified as a Boomer. I identified with Silents and Gen-Xers, with this big "hole" between the two.

(I always most identified with those "conservative" SoCal surfers from the very early '60s from the movies/pop culture. As to whether those guys ever actually existed is a topic for another conversation. )

That weird ambiguity is what made me (and my Mom) the "border layer dwellers" that we are (or "were" in the case of my Mom).

As frogs, we watched the fish being fish, and the lizards being lizards, and couldn't quite fit in, as there was quite a dearth of fellow (age appropriate) frogs for both of us, for some reason. (She married another wanna-be Greatest [born 1932] who tried to live like a Silent after being in the navy out of high school but who "couldn't take it" and left the marriage to return to the navy for his remaining years, while she never married again.)

As regards the Pivots,.. I see them making the mistakes that my Mom made; she truly felt like a Greatest but couldn't claim that heritage, and became bitter, frustrated and "pathologically addicted" to nonsense-that-isn't-amusing (such as smoking, though she would have vehemently disagreed).

The Pivots think that their "role models" are late 1960's Activists, because that is what their parents and grandparents are pushing them toward thinking (either actively or "by contrast"). They "think" their role is to "fight the man", but they intuitively know that their role is to "BE the man". Therefore, they exist in a weird "dissonance" within themselves that they consider to be normal. When they discover the "power" of shutting off (or tightly narrowing) the dissonant noise (cough, techie social crap) that will be a true pivot.

When they find out they are being "steered", they will be pissed in a way only late adolescents can be.

But the Pivots are "true flippers", and will eventually "get" their "greatness" (after they "flip" from "make us safe" to "safe equals conquered enemies"), but they WILL be "kept waiting" by circumstances from their "greatness".

I vote for the symbol of Janus as their representation:



"Janus himself was the ianitor (Janitor), or doorkeeper, of the heavens."



Aloha! <shaka nui!>