Note: All the material on this page was published by Strauss and Howe in 1997, before the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal became public, before Clinton's impeachment and acquittal, before the contested election of 2000 and the ascendency of President George W. Bush [43] and his neoconservative administration, before the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, before the military operations in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003)--and before the pervasiveness of the World Wide Web. The text that follows, the authors' description of Millennial Generation young adulthood, entitled "Millennials Entering Young Adulthood: Power Rangers," is predictive, and--as it has so far (June 2003) turned out--surprisingly perceptive. I have retained the authors' future tense (even when referring to a future now in the past) and reserved for footnotes occasional references to Clinton's disgrace, Bush [43]'s neoconservative agenda, or other events of the unfolding Twenty-first Century. Here are some explanations to some of the authors' terminology:
"I promise as a good American to do my part," 100,000 young people chanted on Boston Commons in 1933. "I will help President Roosevelt bring back good times." These Greatest Generation youngsters were touted by Malcolm Cowley as "brilliant college graduates" who "pictured a future in which everyone would be made secure by collective planning and social discipline"--whereas, at the same age, Cowley's own Lost Generation peers had grown "disillusioned and weary" from hearing so much pessimism about their future. During the Lost Generation's peak coming-of-age years, the youth suicide rate rose by half and the homicide rate by 700 percent, while American youth showed precious little improvement in rates of illiteracy or college entry.18
A few years before the Crash of 1929, youth took the most dramatically positive change ever recorded. All of a sudden, young Americans turned away from cynicism, suicide, and crime and toward optimism, education, and civic fealty. A new vernacular spoke of trust and geometric order, of "level-headed" and "regular guys" who were "on the square," "fit in," and could be "counted on." "Underneath, we really thought we were all right," Gene Shuford recalled. If the souring economy dampened many a career and marriage plan, that only steeled the Greatest determination to act on the 4-H motto: Make the Best Better. Older people lent them direction and help. America "cannot always build the future for our youth," said FDR on the eve of World War II, "but we can build our youth for the future." Having received 80 percent of a huge youth vote in 1932 and 85 percent in 1936, by far the largest such mandates ever recorded, FDR proclaimed that "the very objectives of young people have changed" away from "the dream of a golden ladder--and each individual for himself" and toward the dream of "a broad highway on which thousands of your fellow men and women are advancing with you." Before long, the highways and seaways were full of a generation now fully in uniform, heralded by General Marshall as "the best damn kids in the world"--a world they proceeded to conquer. "The difficult we do at once," their Seabees famously proclaimed. "The impossible takes a little longer."19
This was the last time the Hero archtype entered a Fourth Turning.
Power Rangers are wholesome kid soldiers in bright, primary-color uniforms. No relation to the junk-fed mutant turtles of the Generation X child era, Power Rangers have provided the Unraveling's leading toy role models for children. When summoned, these ordinary youths transform themselves into thunderbolting evil fighters. Cheerful, confident, and energetic, Power Rangers are nurtured to succeed in the face of great odds. Whatever they do--from displaying martial arts to piloting high-tech weaponry--they do as a choreographed group. Their very motto, The Power of Teamwork Overcomes All, speaks of strength in cooperation, energy in conformity, virtue in duty. Their missions are not chosen by themselves, but by an incorporeal elder in whose vision and wisdom they have total trust. Come the Fourth Turning, coming-of-age Millennials will have a lot in common with these action toys.20
In the next Crisis, Millennials will prove false the supposition, born of the recent Awakening and Unraveling eras, that youth is ever the age for rebellion, alienation, or cynicism. As they break into their twenties, Millennials will already be accustomed to meeting and beating adult expectations. Basking in praise, they will revive the ideal of the common man, whose virtue is defined less by self than from a collegial center of gravity. Rather than argue with elders, Millennials will seek out their advice--about the ought-to-do's from old Boomers and about the want-to-do's from Generation Xers. But their style will be distinct from either generation. From the youth perspective, most Boomers will seem too unworldly and most Xers too undisciplined to be emulated.
New pop culture trends will be big, bland, and friendly. In film, young stars will be linked with positive themes, display more modesty in sex and language, and link new civic purpose to screen violence. In sports, players will become more coachable, more loyal to teams and fans, and less drawn to trash talk, in-your-face slam dunks, and end-zone taunts. In pop music, Millennials will resurrect the old ritual of happy group singing, from old campfire favorites to new tunes with simple melodies and upbeat lyrics. Whether in film, sports, or music, the first Millennial celebrities will win praise as good role models for children.21
Every youth domain will become more mannerly, civic-spirited, and emotionally placid. In college, Millennials will lead a renaissance in student decorum and appearance, making profanity as out of date as the backward cap. On urban streets, young adults will begin sensing that their best path to prosperity is to follow their peers, not their families. In technology, they will carve out fresh concepts of public space--by designing fewer and more centralized paths of communication and by using information to empower groups rather than individuals. In social movements, they will (initially) seem pacifist, hard to ruffle, their civic power as yet untapped. The media will miss no opportunity to celebrate good deeds they do.
On the job, Millennials will be seekers of order and harmony. They will delight employers with their skills, work habits, and institutional loyalties. They will have a knack for organization and hierarchy more than creative entrepreneurship. Young workers will revitalize trade unions and treat co-workers as partners more than rivals. The Millennials' entry into the workforce, combined with the Boomers' exit, will produce a sudden surge in productivity--quite the opposite of the stagnation that arose from the Awakening's Boomer entry and Greatest exit.
The Great Devaluation may occur right around the time Millennials fill the twenties age bracket, just as they are emerging as a truly national generation, the pride of their elders. Whatever their new economic hardships (and they could be severe), Millennials will not rebel, but will instead mobilize for public purpose. Older people will be anguished to see these good kids suffer for the mistakes of others. Boomers and Xers will together urgently resist the prospect that a second consecutive generation might be denied access to the American Dream. No matter how shattered the economy, no matter how fiscally stretched the government, places will be found for the rising generation. To accomplish this, the status of young workers will be standardized, their job titles shortened, and pay gaps narrowed. Millennials will respond with a cheerful patience reminiscent of Depression-era Greatest. Government will play an important role in their lives, as people of all ages jointly resolve to remove any barrier to a bright Millennial future.
With youth coming of age so willing and energized, older leades will be inspired to enlist them for public actions that in the Unraveling would have felt hopeless. Young adults will see politics as a tool for turning collegial purpose into civic progress. Millennial voters will confound pundits with huge youth turnouts, massing on behalf of favored candidates--especially elders who, like Lincoln or FDR, can translate spiritual resolve into public authority. They will reject the negativism and cloying affect of the political campaigning they witnessed as children. When young adults encounter leaders who cling to the old regime (and who keep propping up senior benefits programs that will by then be busting the budget), they will not tune out, Xer style. Instead, they will get busy working to defeat or overcome their adversaries. Their success will lead some older critics to perceive real danger in a rising generation perceived as capable but naïve.
This youthful hunger for social discipline and centralized authority could lead Millennial youth brigades to lend mass to dangerous demagogues. The risk of class warfare will be especially grave if the 20 percent of Millennials who were poor as children (50 percent in inner cities) come of age seeing their peer-bonded paths to generational progress blocked by elder inertia. Unraveling-era adults who are today chilled by school uniforms will be truly frightened by the Millennials' Crisis-era collectivism. As Sinclair Lewis warned of the Greatest in the 1930s, older Americans will look abroad at rapidly ordered societies and wonder whether, among youth with so much power and so little doubt, It Can't Happen Here.22
Wherever their politics lead, Millennials will become identified with a new American mainstream, a fledgling middle class just waiting to assert itself. They will vex Hollywood's Unraveling-era elite with their cool rationalism. They will vex feminists by accepting a new mystique between the sexes. They will vex free marketers with their demands for trade barriers, government regulation, labor standards, and public works.
Just as the Unraveling's political agenda centered around children, the agenda of the Next New Deal will center around young adults. In exchange, old Boomers will impose a new duty of compulsory service, notwithstanding those elders' own youthful draft resistance. Millennials will not oppose this because they will see in it a path to public achievement. If inducted for war, Millennials will cast aside any earlier pacificsm and march to duty. Like Power Rangers, they will not be averse to militarized mass violence, just to uncontrolled personal violence--quite the opposite of Boomer youths back in the Awakening. National leaders will not hesitate to mobilize and deploy them in huge armies. Where Boomer youths once screamed against duty and discipline, Boomer elders will demand and receive both from Millennial troops.
Near the climax of the Crisis, the full power of this rising generation will assert itself, providing their society with a highly effective instrument for imposing order on an unruly world. They will appear capable of glorious collective deeds, of conquering distant lands, of potently executing any command that may be issued. Quite the opposite of the Boomers' Awakening-era casualties in Vietnam, which weakened the public will to fight, the Millennials' heroic sacrifices will only add to the national resolve. As a Crisis-era President commits the society to clear a path for a bright future, the political juggernaut of Millennial youth will stand squarely with their beloved commander-in-chief. This generation of young heroes will follow wherever the Gray Champion leads, whether to triumph or disaster.23
This page was last modified on 09/11/2025 07:19:22