Generation units and the life course: A sociological perspective on youth and the anti-war movement

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Winter 1998 by Dunham, Charlotte Chorn

GENERATION UNITS AND THE LIFE COURSE: A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON YOUTH AND THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT1

This research examines Mannheim 's theory of generational politics as it predicts political activism in a sample of California participants in the antiVietnam war movement (N=131) who were members of the youngest generation of a larger study (N=827) of Three Generation Families. The purpose of this paper is to test Mannheim 's theory of generations by estimating the relative influence of intergenerational continuity, generational consciousness and generational experiences in predicting participation in demonstrations for peace during the Vietnam era in the United States. Those with greater generational consciousness (as measured by political attitude and identification with the younger generation) were more likely to participate.

More than two decades have passed since the unrest at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 which marked a turning point in a period of large-scale protests against the war in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. It has been estimated that almost 50 percent of all college students participated in campus protests during late spring of 1970 (Gitlin, 1987; Lipset & Ladd, 1972; Wood, 1974). Many of the participants in the anti-war movement were young adults who provided rank-and-file members as well as leadership for the movement. The strong representation of young adults in the anti-war movement is typical of many social movements throughout history. Many researchers who have studied the student movements of the 1960s have used the theoretical grounding provided by Karl Mannheim (1928/1972) in his essay "The Problem of Generations." The purpose of this paper is to test Mannheim's theory of generations by estimating the relative influence of intergenerational continuity, generational consciousness and generational experiences in predicting participation in demonstrations for peace during the Vietnam era in the United States.

MANNHEIM'S THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

Mannheim states that generation is a social location that has the potential to affect an individual's consciousness in much the same way as social class. He describes an intersection between biology and society (Pilcher, 1994) in that "individuals who belong to the same generation, who share the same year of birth, are endowed, to that extent, with a common location in the historical dimension of the social process" (Mannheim, 1928/1972:105).

Kingsley Davis (1940) suggests that younger generations are imperfectly socialized because there is a gap between the ideals they have learned from other generations and the reality that they inherit. Mannheim's phenomenon of fresh contact provides a mechanism by which this might occur. According to Mannheim, members of each generation - beginning at about the age of 17 experience society differently from older generations. There takes place a "quite visible and striking transformation of the consciousness of the individual in question . . . a change, not merely in the content of experience, but in the individual's mental and spiritual adjustment" (Mannheim, 1928/1972:108). This fresh contact involves a transition from an emphasis on appropriated memories to a reliance upon acquired memories. Appropriated memories are those that are "taken over from someone else" (Mannheim, 1928/1972:111) and are less powerful than those we acquire on our own. Until this time, a person's knowledge of societal traditions is gained through the experiences of others rather than through his/her own direct interpretation of events. Fresh contact allows a person to develop his/her own meaning based on personal experiences within the social structure which is necessarily different from other generations.

This does not mean that all members of a generation interpret their experiences in the same way. Generations also differentiate into subgroups which Mannheim refers to as generation units. According to Mannheim (1928/1972:120), "youth experiencing the same concrete historical problems may be said to be part of the same actual generation; while those groups within the same actual generation which work up the material of their common experiences in different specific ways, constitute separate generation-units." Generation unit members share a common consciousness which "causes the members sharing them to form one group." The group develops collective ideas, slogans and experiences which serve "as vehicles of formative tendencies and fundamental integrative attitudes, thus identifying ourselves with a set of collective strivings." These fundamental integrative attitudes are important because they become the "basis of continuing practice."

Mannheim's generational theory of social change involves the following elements which can be combined to predict individual social action which has the potential to lead to broader social change. In summary, youthful activism occurs as the result of the following factors: I) intergenerational continuity results from socialization to societal values by one's parents; 2) when fresh contact occurs, those values are challenged by generational experiences; 3) the development of a generational consciousness results from this process; and 4) generation units are formed which become a political force for social change. The purpose of this research is to test the relative contribution of each of these factors in a value-added model that predicts participation in anti-war demonstrations in a California sample of young adults.