Attack of the Reagan babies.

[MadHound]

Back during the eighties I became aware of a huge sea change in our society. The tolerance and open mindedness of the sixties was giving way to hate, intolerance and violence. Fascism was making a comeback, and greed was celebrated as good.

I saw this reflected in TV shows, both for kids and adults. It was the rise of Conan, and He Man, where might was right. It was the belittling of the sixties, and the start of people's hatred for all things PC. Hippy punching came into vogue, both in TV and movies. All in all, the vast social movement that gave us civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, ended the war and changed society for the better was now being reduced to a series of cruel jokes.

At the time I started noticing the effect this was having on the kids at the time, kids who were becoming more cruel, more cynical, more self centered and less concerned with social change, social justice. I started calling these kids(which ranged from two to sixteen at the time) the Reagan babies, and feared that what they were absorbing would come back to haunt us. An army of Alex Keaton's if you will, marching forward towards the future.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who observed this phenomenon. Over the weekend a listened to an interview with David Sirota, author of "Back to Our Future". An interview that immediately hit home with me, one of those moments when you say, "Hey, I thought of that as well." Here is a link to the interview.
<http://www.wpr.org/book/110522a.cfm>

His basic contention is that the reason why our society has moved continuously to the right is that the Reagan babies grew up, and since they had already been innoculated by popular culture against that dread disease of liberalism, it became easier and easier for both the RW and society in general to become ever more conservative.

An interesting, thought provoking piece. I will probably go out and buy the book, but even if you don't want to, the interview itself is an eye opener. It starts about forty minutes into the podcast. Enjoy.

[Tunkamerica]

1. I was a Reagan baby as I'm sure many of the posters here were.

I watched 'The Young Ones' (on tape and in re-runs) and used to hate when Vivian called to "kill the hippies". Interestingly enough a show made by pre-Reagan babies.

[a la izquierda]

3. I loved "The Young Ones."

Didn't care for Vivian much, but as a punk rock girl I had a certain aversion to hippies in my teens that I've long since shaken off. I can't put my finger on what it was...

[PatSeg]

11. It could have been a generational thing

As a teen, we usually rebel against the generation that preceded us so we can establish our own identity.

[elias49]

2. Ronald Reagan was the anti-christ - if you cotton to these ideas..

what a pity that the pathologically devout weren't 'raptured' away in the 1980s.
My two kids were pre-teens in the 80s. I hope (and I believe) that I 'protected them' from the perversity of these bitter years.

[Cetacea]

7. even had the numbers to back it up

Ronald Wilson Reagan
Funny how they ascribe "666" to everything else...

[Angry Dragon]

20. I remember when raygun was going to leave office

and his buddies were buying him a house in California
and the address of the place was 666 and then they got it changed

[a la izquierda]

4. I'm a Reagan baby...

raised by a conservative mother. I've moved to the far left. I'm a transitioning vegetarian to vegan, learning to be a Buddhist, have a vegetable garden, and donate my meager income to charities. I'm a recently minted female PhD. I'm Alex P. Keaton's and conservatives' worst nightmare, because I think, I write, and I tell 'em exactly what I think. Try rewriting history on my, and my colleagues watch. It's not going to happen.


I'd like to have a conversation with this author.

[yesphan]

10. Congratulations

Dr. Left !

[a la izquierda]

13. Thanks...

I'm happy to be moving on to a real job.

[yesphan]

17. The Norman

riding community will miss you. Take care and ride safe !

[PatSeg]

12. We can't put everyone in a generation into a single

category. All of my generation weren't hippies and all of yours did not end up as Alex Keatons. My kids would have been "Reagan babies" too and they are open minded and liberal.

[a la izquierda]

15. Clearly...

I guess I just don't know a single "Reagan baby" who is conservative. I suppose I choose my friends wisely.

[PatSeg]

18. Glad to hear that

Though I understand what Sirota is saying, I think it is a bit insulting for one generation to lump another into an all inclusive category. Every generation is as diverse as the one before it, even though they may have shared some common experiences.

It goes both ways too. I've seen here on DU, the "Reagan Babies" generation put all the Baby Boomers in a "its all YOUR fault" category. Of course when I was young, my parents' generation was to blame for everything that was wrong in the world.

[PVnRT]

5. Uh....the Conan books were written in the 1930s and 1940s

Also, younger people, those "Reagan babies," are far more accepting of things like homosexuality and abortion than older generations...

And unless I'm wrong, it would have been the boomers and their parents creating all of those shows and other media in the 1980s, not the kids. Maybe you guys need to take a look at yourselves as well.

[themadstork]

6. The babies of the Reagan babies aren't oblivious to this.

I've seen so many of my generation dismiss out-of-hand RW cynicism and wholeheartedly embrace environmentalism. A lot of us, for whatever reason, it seems are growing up with severe mental diseases (maybe because we grew up in a culture all about Numero Uno), and there's nothing like the old locked psych ward to make one realize the importance of helping each other out.


It just now occurs to me that the earth may be the key to the resurgence of class solidarity. Experience of nature naturally exposes one to the underlying unity/harmony of all things (h/t Emerson), and working to preserve the earth is a cause that even right-wingers have a hard time undermining.

[RandomThoughts]

8. You say something in there.

and working to preserve the earth is a cause that even right-wingers have a hard time undermining.

There are some working on population control by thinking they should choose who has children, various dating services have a weeding out process, and some of the austerity is to try to limit people from having children. And there are some much more disturbing reports of some activities. Although saying if it is right or left is another topic.


What if you could help the earth by sterilizing or killing billions of people. That by some bias standards of some individual are thought that they should not live.

There are some that think that way.



I actually posted the arguments why that is wrong, and most actually know that, but they are still trying to use money as determining the 'pinnacle' of who should have children, and screaming that the poor folk have more kids, and some of the actions they do about that are really bad.

Maybe people more concerned with humanity, that do not obtain large amounts of money, are those that should be raising children.

[Zorra]

16. Not being "normal" in an insane society is often a good thing.

But until you realize that it can be a very painful experience. Some of the smartest kids I've known got "locked up in the psych ward" in one way or another and then figured out that it's time for the inmates to overthrow Big Nurse Ratched and take over the asylum.

I would guess you are in your early or mid 20's? My kids are in their mid-20's, and they both could have written your post.

I'm a lifelong proponent of alternative thinking, lifestyle, and culture (fancy way of saying "hippie", I suppose).

In many ways my kids have taken what I have tried to teach them, and they have expanded upon it, and very often, I am learning from them now; sometimes they have shocked me by pointing out something I missed that was simple.

It's impressive, and I'm glad that many of your generation see through the yuppie bullshit.

It seems to me that the Reagan babies had a tougher time because they had a truckload of Ayn Rand spew deliberately shoved down their throats by the pre-hippie generation old fucks that were scared to death of the change brought about in the 60's/early 70's and were desperate to keep the world from evolving any further. (Reagan himself is the perfect example of this). I was horrified at the amount of what was so obviously the deliberate conservative brainwashing of kids through media marketing in the 80's. I have had two relatively long term relationships with progressive thinking partners that were considerably younger than me, and they both clearly struggled to get through the sewage of Reagan-Randism that they had forced upon them. But I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, cuz these "Reagan babies" are both conscious progressive warriors out slaying the conservative dragon big time now, in their own ways.

I think it is really important for all the conscious people in all generations to work together and learn from one another, and make the world a safer, saner, healthier place for ourselves and future generations.

There might actually be hope for change after all.

peace!
:hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. I think you've got it

It was the Silent Generation types who still controlled the media in the 1980s, and they were appalled at the "lack of patriotism" shown by the Vietnam War protesters.

[G_j]

9. don't forget Rambo

& cocaine (the "Rambo Of Drugs", as Tim Leary used to say)

[CanonRay]

14. My niece and nephew are Reagan babies

and as liberal as they come.

[Recursion]

19. Yeah, I was just thinking the other day of how kind kids were in the 50s and 60s

:eyes:

We moved to the right because our country has both a liberal and a conservative tradition and oscillates between them every generation or so.

All in all, the vast social movement that gave us civil rights, women's rights, gay rights

In any of those categories, would you prefer to be back in, say, 1979?

The tolerance and open mindedness of the sixties

Eh? The 60's of Bull Conner and Mississippi burning? Of pre-Hajj Malcolm X (please don't flame; I love the guy)? The decade when people didn't just hold signs advocating "2nd amendment solutions" but actually took up arms and tried to effect them? (And, lest we forget, that was mostly but not entirely people on the right.)

[Zorra]

24. "the vast social movement that gave us civil rights, women's rights, gay rights

In any of those categories, would you prefer to be back in, say, 1979?"

In each of those categories, and in virtually every other positive, constructive movement promoting human dignity, liberty, and opportunity, we would literally be light years ahead of where we are now if it were not for the orchestrated hard core conservative movement of the Reagan era that is still having such a powerful negative effect on our world today.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. I could see the brainwashing as it happened

not only in movies like Rambo, Red Dawn, and Top Gun, but also in the pop music ("I Need a Hero," and a song whose name I have forgotten but which had the endless refrain, "You'll never change the world.")

Another factor was the slashing of all the formerly Federal financial aid for college...except for ROTC Scholarships. ROTC would cover all your tuition and books, and nothing else would. From 1982 to 1984, I taught on a campus with a huge ROTC program, and the cadets were almost all dutiful little Reaganites and tended to write letters to the school paper reflecting a thoroughly indoctrinated view of current issues.

[PVnRT]

27. ...and this is different from any other era of ROTC students?

Was there a time when ROTC students weren't predominantly conservative and indoctrinated?

I'm amazed that people here think this is all some new thing that popped up AFTER their generation, which did everything right, of course.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. The point is that before Reagan, there were OTHER generous Federal aid programs

that didn't require right-wing brainwashing.

The most notable of these was the NDSL program a program of student loans at 2% interest, with the principal 10% forgivable for each year you spent as a school teacher, in the Peace Corps or one of the domestic social volunteer organizations, or in the military. (Yes, the military was included, but so were non-military options.) If you spent five years teaching in a federally designated poverty area, the loan was 100% forgiven.

Pell Grants were much more generous back then, too.

Programs like that just don't exist anymore.

The loss of the other Federal aid programs put a lot of students into ROTC who might not otherwise have joined--non-political types who thought only of the free tuition and not about the fact that they were being brainwashed.

[Warren DeMontague]

33. Yeah, well, maybe you should have been listening to Lifes Rich Pageant instead of that crap.

Or seeing movies like Brazil instead of Red Dawn and Top Gun.

If you couldn't find the positive and progressive cultural stuff that was happening in the 80s, it's your own fault. It was there.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. Uh, I was aware actually, and I never saw Top Gun or Red Dawn

or Rambo. If you'd actually seen me over the years on DU, you'd know that I'm into art and foreign films.

But the car I owned ('69 Chevy Impala) had only an AM radio. I heard a lot of bad music.

And a LOT more people saw Red Dawn, Top Gun, and Rambo than saw Brazil or Blade Runner or The Year of Living Dangerously or Koyanisqatsi or Gallipoli or Das Boot or Gandhi or any of the other fine films that were made during Reagan's first term.

Maybe you and your friends were sitting around listening to New Wave bands and protesting the Contras and watching the latest experimental film, but most of the shopping mall crowd was NOT.

[MadHound]

37. Exactly,

Lots and lots of teens, pre-teens were into Rambo, Red Dawn, etc. Even lots of adults.

And even if you personally didn't watch it, such things became pervasive parts of the culture at the time.

[Warren DeMontague]

38. Er.... R.E.M. was a "new wave band"?

:rofl: Classic. If you had told Pete Buck that in 1985, he probably would have found a choice place to stick his Rickenbacker.

Maybe you know film, but your music knowledge could use an upgrade.

Let me guess. You're a Boomer, right? Dare I suggest that maybe your shorthand, cartoon view of what was taking place in the 80s might not be the whole picture? Even for the "shopping mall crowd".

At times I'm tempted to think that 'kids today' are all listening to Bieber and crappy auto-tone cheez whiz, but I'm sure the reality is much richer and more complex.

And you know what? It works the other direction, too. For everyone in the 60s who was actually listening to the MC5 or Hendrix, there were 10 listening to Pat Boone or, at best, the Turtles.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. Pat Boone in the 1960s? LOL, no, actually ROFL

You may know your 1980s music, but you do NOT know the 1960s. Pat Boone peaked in the late 1950s and was passé, even with the shopping mall crowd, by 1962. We considered Pat Boone to be someone our parents listened to.

Maybe you were the coolest of the cool in the 1980s, but the suburban and small-town students I taught in the early 1980s (at two different schools) were completely into everything mainstream commercial culture dished out, especially MTV and the kinds of movies that play in megaplexes. The students who were less conformist usually transferred out after a year or two.

People with avant garde tastes (like listening to R.E.M. before they had their breakout hits in the late 1980s) are always in the minority.

By the way, Hendrix received AM radio play in the 1960s with "Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire" and his cover of "All Around the Watchtower." He coexisted with bubble gum rock (which no one over the age of 13 liked).

[Warren DeMontague]

41. And "Radio Free Europe" got radio play, too. We can do this all day.

See, if I wanted to make the kind of vague, generational slam implied in the OP, I would say something about how I know many boomers fancy themselves as having been in SDS or been at Woodstock when they weren't in the Haight hanging with Jerry and Pigpen, but the reality is that those, too, were 'avant garde' scenes, hardly indicative of where large portions of America were at at the time.

Or I'd commiserate about how I, too know that it sucks to get old, and it must be extra-rough if you're part of a generation that has felt entitled to be the center of attention its whole life.

But I won't do that, since I think these dumb-ass generational poo flinging contests are pointless and divisive (I like boomers and the good parts of 60s culture, actually) and besides, the core assertion in the OP about "Reagan babies" was decisively shot through with holes in the 2008 election, when those "Reagan babies" put Obama in the WH. AND, their views on stuff like LGBT equality puts your generation (and mine, but to a lesser extent) to shame.

As for Pat Boone, he most certainly was still making music in the 60s. What's absurd is calling, again, R.E.M. "new wave". Do yourself a favor; listen to Murmur and try to hear the synthesizers. You won't hear them, but what you will hear is a timeless piece of Americana and Rock and Roll, with a heaping helping of subterranean psychedelia blended in. :hippie:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. I never called R.E.M. "new wave"

:shrug:

And I stand by the assertion that my students in the early 1980s were overwhelmingly conservative--in a supposedly liberal state.

[Warren DeMontague]

43. Man, if you were in Minnesota, you have even LESS excuse for not being hip to better 80s music.

I mean, Husker Du? The Replacements?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. I was not in Minnesota at the time

I left just as Husker Du and the Replacements were becoming known.

[Odin2005]

23. WTF are you smoking? We are the most liberal generation in US history.

[krabigirl]

25. I'm a Reagan baby and am nothing like that description.

Also, pendulums swing both ways.

[vim876]

26. Socialist Reagan Babies Unite! nt

[MedicalAdmin]

32. Who is this Reagan person and how did he have so many kids.

He was a fertile man, I am thinking.

[GeorgeGist]

29. Forward thinkers saw it coming.

Backward thinkers never will. They'll be dead.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. You mean the Millennials? Who, unlike Baby Boomers, are overwhelmingly pro gay rights?

Who voted in huge numbers to put Obama in the White House?

Bullshit.

[treestar]

31. No, younger people are still more liberal

This just didn't work out this way.

[mrs_p]

34. kid from the 80's checking in

reagan was the anti-christ when we were growing up. i knew hardly anyone in my generation that liked him. in fact, we (like most teenagers) tried to be the antithesis of what we saw around us. it was popular to be pro-gay rights, pro-human rights, pro-environmental rights, pro-animal rights, etc. but, maybe, there is a geographical component to this? i'm from the seattle area and that might have something to do with it...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. There was definitely a geographical divide, or maybe an urban/rural divide

My students through the 1980s were mostly from small towns and suburbs, and they were "conservative" in the naive way that people who haven't been around much are conservative.

[Warren DeMontague]

39. Here's your "Attack of the Reagan babies", right here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27525497/ns/politics-decision_08/t/youth-vote-may-have-been-key-obamas-win/