By David French
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
The lamentations of older generations about the
deficiencies of their children are a hallowed tradition. Everyone, everywhere
seems at some point to reach the age where the sight of young people makes them
want to mutter, “You kids get off my lawn.” And, let’s face it, Millennials
make the anger easy. The stereotypes are clear. Here’s how the New York Times began a much-discussed
recent story about the new Millennial workplace:
Joel Pavelski, 27, isn’t the first
person who has lied to his boss to scam some time off work.
But inventing a friend’s funeral,
when in fact he was building a treehouse — then blogging and tweeting about it
to be sure everyone at the office noticed? That feels new.
The Times goes
on to describe Millennial traits: “A sense of entitlement, a tendency to
overshare on social media, and frankness verging on insubordination.” Oh,
they’re also liberal. They’re very definitely liberal. And they’re less
religious. Taken together, this means Millennials need praise, demand social
justice, disdain institutional religion, and want to work on their own terms.
And it turns out that the stereotypes have a strong basis
in real data. Millennials are less
religious than previous generations. Perhaps not coincidentally, they show a
marked decrease in objective measures such as civic engagement that demonstrate
“concern for others” and a marked increase in “self-esteem, assertiveness,
self-importance, narcissism, and high expectations.”
For the last 15 years of my career, I’ve been blessed to
travel the length and breadth of the country speaking to college students and
law students at virtually every class and category of higher education
institution, from community colleges to large state schools to the most “elite”
Ivies. And I’ve seen the stereotype manifested in the flesh, even by Christian
and conservative students.
In one memorable incident a few years ago, I caused a
spasm of outrage to sweep a conservative Christian audience when I said they
should stop complaining about the brutal hours that dominate early-career life
at a law firm, and instead use that time as an opportunity to learn. How dare I
upset the work-life balance! There was a palpable sense that even the youngest
and most inexperienced attorneys were entitled to experience work on their own
terms and no one else’s.
But roughly five years ago, I began to sense a change in
the wind. I was encountering not one or two truly counter-cultural students but
entire roomfuls of young conservatives who were openly disdainful of the
dominant social trends in their peer group. Where their peers demanded
participation trophies, these kids threw them in the trash. Where their peers
dismissed traditional social conventions, these kids (particularly in the
South) were reviving the use of “sir” and “ma’am” in conversations with elders.
And most crucial of all, where many of their peers openly and intentionally
rejected studying the intellectual and moral foundations of Western
civilization, these kids knew more about the Federalist Papers than I did.
Indeed, rather than feeling an urge to kick them off my
lawn, I found myself amazed by the young people I was meeting at Young
America’s Foundation events, at Federalist Society speeches, and at schools
such as Colorado Christian University (where I just spoke on Monday). Compared
to my 20-year-old or 25-year-old self, they were far more informed, more thoughtful, and more committed to the
ideals and principles of the American experiment. I couldn’t tell whether I was
sensing a trend or confusing a series of favorable anecdotes with real data.
After all, I was hardly speaking to representative audiences with statistically
sufficient samples.
It turns out, however, that something is in the air. Something is changing.
Meet the anti-Millennial conservative Millennial.
Last week CNN highlighted the results of a paper by Jean
Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. Examining data on
10 million adults from three different prominent social surveys, Twenge found
that high schoolers are more likely to identify as politically conservative
than they were ten years ago, and that political polarization is higher in the Millennial generation than
in Generation X or the Baby Boomers at equivalent ages. In other words, though
young people today still tend to be liberal, when you compare like to like —
previous generations at the same age — Millennials are trending less liberal than their parents and
grandparents.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that this positive change
goes beyond mere numbers. It’s not just that there is a budding young
conservative counter-revolution, but that it’s in many ways of a higher quality
than the conservative movement of my generation. Part of this is the result of
generations of work, which has created a better conservative infrastructure on
campus. But an infrastructure is worthless without people.
Compare a Federalist Society chapter today with a chapter
from 25 years ago. The chapter today will almost always be larger,
better-informed, and more effective. Even some of the most embattled campus
ministries continue to grow, with campus ministers reporting that adversity has
actually renewed their students’ devotion to the Gospel. Interest in the best
Christian conservative legal ministries is increasing even as the American
legal establishment doubles down on political correctness and social conformity.
To be sure, no social movement is entirely positive, and
anti-Millennial conservative Millennials can sometimes be so disdainful of
their entitled peers that they engage in gleeful disruption and cause offense
merely for the sake of triggering the inevitable overreaction. But this new
counter-revolution is ultimately built on devotion to God, enthusiasm for our
nation’s founding principles, a healthy respect for tradition and our nation’s
most valuable cultural institutions, and hard work.
This revolution won’t be televised, but it will be on
Snapchat. In a bleak time — when so many members of the older “elite” have so
plainly failed — there is for once true intellectual hope for a new generation
of conservatives. They’ve already rebelled against their peers. Now they’re set
to rebel against an entire culture.
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