How people view themselves - more specifically, how Americans view ourselves - changes from generation to generation.
The first generation of Americans after our nation’s founding primarily identified themselves based on the state they lived in, their broad ethnicity (European, Amerindian, African), and their religion.
After the Civil War, what state you lived in didn’t matter as much - it was more based on your region - Yankee or southerner (Texas and California being the outliers).
The subsequent waves of European immigrants added a new layer of identity to the newcomers: Irish, Italian, German. And for Catholic and Jewish immigrants, religion again became a very focal part of their identity.
During the Great Depression, European and Asian notions of economic class became more prominent in American identity. In the post-World War II era of rabble-rousing, political party affiliation extended out of the voting booth and into one’s identity - particularly for those who identified as or were accused of associating with Communism.
It seems to me that we’re in the midst of yet another realignment in how Americans self-identify - with those who feel they should be running the country identifying as part of the ruling elite, and everyone else pretty much identifying as not wanting any part of that.
For most of the 20th century, the press - and, after the arrival of radio and television - the media - focused on journalism: Reporting on the news in as even-handed a way as possible. If you were a reporter or editor, you identified with the little guy, as it was put then: The average citizen. You took a far more jaundiced view of those who held power, at whatever level. If you worked at the newspaper in Poughkeepsie, you were skeptical of anything the mayor or fire chief told you. If a local family was getting the run-around from the city or county, you naturally took their side. The same mind-set held sway at the state capitols and in Washington: The media viewed themselves not as the government’s enemy, but as its foil - there to keep public servants honest.
Over the past decade, there has been a seismic shift in how the media operates. We are now entering what I call a “post-journalism” world, in which most reporters and editors self-identify as part of the ruling class - and take a skeptical view of the little people.
Part of this is due to the fact that nearly every media outlet today requires a bachelor’s degree in order to get a job as a reporter or editor. Even a half-century ago, an aspiring reporter could start out as a stringer for the local weekly, prove themselves good at the job, get hired to a full-time position, and even move over to a daily.
When journalism was a trade or a craft, it’s practitioners obviously felt a kinship with their fellow tradesmen - and a bit of hostility toward those who held power.
Now that nearly every reporter and editor has a college degree, they quite naturally feel more comfortable with others of a similar background.
Today, if a local family is getting the run-around from the city or county, there’s a good chance the local newspaper and TV stations either simply ignore the story as unbelievable or unimportant, or they run a story about how the family is actually at fault.
Today’s media serves not as counterweight to government power, but as its guardian.
How Americans self-identify has always influenced how we vote.
After the last great political realignment, during the Great Depression, black voters largely migrated from the Republican Party - which had ended slavery - and to the new Democratic coalition being built by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Immigrants and trades unions also voted in large majorities for the Democrats, while small business owners and white collar professionals tended to vote Republican.
Over the past 20 years, though, as white collar jobs have become increasingly technological, more and more professionals began migrating to the Democratic Party.
At the same time, private-sector union households began voting Republican - even as their union leaders continued funneling campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.
And the last two election cycles, we’ve seen Hispanic voters move into the Republican fold, making common cause with the blue-collar whites who now comprise the largest segment of the GOP electorate. Black voters, too - particularly younger ones - are increasingly voting Republican. (It was fewer than a quarter of the black electorate who voted Republican two years ago (and President Biden did better than most down-ticket Democrats), but that was still nearly double the previous rate.)
Most telling in these ongoing changes in voting patterns is a little-discussed change in identity: Fewer and fewer Hispanics self-identify as such: They simply view themselves as Americans.
With fewer Americans identifying themselves by their heritage, we are seeing two camps of political identification: Those who strongly identify themselves by their left-of-center political viewpoints and their perceived place atop the political and social hierarchy, and those who don’t.
One of the reasons that the left has been so successful at seeing its values and theories adopted in academia, the media, and now the government is because there is no counterweight on the other side in terms of identity and passion.
Most conservatives simply don’t wrap up their self-identity in their political views to the same extent that many liberals do - or at least the subset of liberals who brand themselves “progressives.”
You see it on people’s social media profiles, announcing their identity to the world with terms such as “progressive” or “justice.”
Conservatives? They tend to self-describe by the roles they play in their circle: Mom. Coach. Entrepreneur.
So our current identity model, while largely based on political ideology, is also unbalanced, with one side identifying as passionate crusaders and the other side focused elsewhere.
But being annoyed with the other side and wishing it would go away is not the same as offering a focused, organized opposition.
So while the ongoing identity and political realignment in our country presents challenges to both parties, one side is holding clear advantages in having control of the conversation on our campuses and in the media.
And yet, that overwhelming control of messaging is still not stopping the realignment, despite the left clearly wanting to keep Hispanic and black voters on their side.
It will be fascinating to see how it shakes out.
Last week, we revisited the band Penguin Café Orchestra.
Another group that came out of that fertile 1970s - ’80s experimentation in music rather broadly grouped under the “new age” moniker was Shadowfax.
Coming out of the prog rock scene in the early 1970s, Shadowfax began life more rock-oriented than PCO. Their 1976 debut, “Watercourse Way,” was clearly influenced by bands like King Crimson, Yes, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, with classical influences interwoven with some pretty heavy rock.
G.E. Stinson’s stinging guitar leads played atop percolating rhythms that borrow from African, Latin and Asian influences.
But by the time the band’s eponymously titled second album came out six years later on Windham Hill, the band had forged an entirely new sound.
Co-founder Chuch Greenberg, who had started out playing reeds and flutes, had worked on the development of the first synthesized wind instrument, the lyricon. The ethereal quality of the instrument provided Shadowfax’s signature, while Stinson’s guitar continued to provide a sonic foil.
The band was in the midst of its creative peak, returning the next year with “Shadowdance” - a far more focused outing, with a title track that became one of the band’s signature tunes.
In 1984, the band released its third album in three years, “Dreams of Children” - the band’s creative highwater mark.
“Word From the Village” was perhaps the perfect encapsulation of mid-1980s new age / world beat, with its percolating rhythms, indecipherable vocals, and Greenberg’s soaring lines on lyricon.
Shadowfax continued to record up until Greenberg’s death in 1995, and even won a Grammy for 1988's “Folksongs for a Nuclear Village.”
As with Penguin Café Orchestra, Shadowfax was an exhilarating combination of experimentation, virtuosic playing, and strong songwriting. While the whole “new age” genre may have only had a brief window in which it was both relevant and popular, the bands that were among the best still stand up to repeated listenings 40 years later.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before ...
I was at Helen’s Book Mark in Escondido, browsing through the stacks not knowing what I was looking for - and found a first-edition sans dust jacket of “Up Front,” Bill Mauldin’s illustrated memoir of his time in the Army in World War II.
Mauldin was the young infantryman who became famous for his portrayal of front-line combat through his cartoons featuring the characters Willie & Joe. While the brass often dislikes his realistic portrayal of American soldiers making the best of their lot, like syndicated reporter Ernie Pyle he was beloved by the front-line troops - to the point that even Patton had to tolerate the fact that Mauldin was simply too popular to touch.
It’s a touching book, written and published while the war in Europe still raged. Mauldin lost buddies in the war, like most combat soldiers, and he wanted to make sure that the folks back home never forgot the sacrifices and awful lot of young men made in order to stop the Axis and make democracy possible for another generation.
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