A recent article (i cannot remember what or where) suggested that the X voters are concerned with practical problem solving over political victory. I am not an avatar of my generation, but that is, indeed, how i feel. After seeing Obama on the Daily Show, i came away with a different view of him. Rather than policy pronouncements, he seems to be concerned with process. If that is the case, it explains some of his fluid policy goals. If this whole paragraph is true, then it points to the nexus of Obama and generation X.

However, turning that nexus into a generational conflict for electoral purposes is deeply flawed. Preaching to a small, often politically amotivated choir will only land Obama in the dustbin of history. Rather than letting himself get tangled in policy debate that he cannot win by virtue of being process, rather than policy, oriented, he should be standing on his process orientation. He wouldn’t lose the youth vote, and he might gain a wider audience. After all, it is not just the young who are fed up with politics as usual.

And the fact of the matter is that he will lose a generational battle. Jim Morrison, in the throes of his revolutionary youth divinity complex, cried that “they got the guns, but we got the numbers.” History has turned we into they; now they have both.

Others were interested in the environment and organic lifestyle; others the spiritual, such as post-psychedelic Zen. (If you’re wondering where I’m going, hold on, I’m getting there.)

Virtually nobody I ever met (just those I read about in magazines) combined free sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, the spritual, and the environment and vegetarianism in one.

To most, the counterculture was just one big buffet. And the political was like a Waldorf salad, passed over by most.

In other words, they weren’t holistic, if you will.

Obama, with his views all over the place, seems just as fragmented. Like the average citizen — no matter what his generation — he doesn’t seem to understand the importance of making his views consistent.

Ironically, generational lessons are what cause that. Kids learn from their primary influences–their parents, friends, and social groups–and develop behaviors accordingly. That’s why you see so many young right-wingers who weren’t even in grade school when Reagan was President picking up the worst habits of the Me Generation.

But they also reject those values as wholeheartedly as they embrace them. You should have seen Sam and I argue about an article describing so-called “Millenial” behaviors in the workplace, and how the current generation prefers friends, fun, and social activity to the corporate lifestyle.

The world is just too complex to tar with that broad a brush.

But does the dog wag the tail–am I thinking this way because of my generation–or does the tail wag the dog–are my thoughts becoming representational of my generation as a whole?

I would never cast myself as emblematic of my generation, even IF I believed we had some commonalities that could be cast across the whole breadth of the experience–I’m just too weird. But then again, I’m sure everyone thinks they’re the special one.

That’s why, in the end, I will vote (or not vote) for a candidate based on what they stand for and how they live up to it. Not because a generational dynamic tells me to, or a self-projecting pundit believes I should, or because they happen to fulfill a token demographic.

Now, let’s see, what do we know about Xers? Pragmatic? And, as Howe and Strauss note, the only thing you can get Xers to agree on is that Generation doesn’t even exist?

Of course this is what you think. You’re an Xer. At least acknowledge that you’re looking at the issue through a particular context.