I actually had several interesting conversations today, but I’d like to mention two. First, I met Dr. Laxmi Ramasubramanian of the University of Illinois at Chicago. She helps to create exciting projects that involve residents–including young people–in mapping their communities and creating visions for the future. See, for instance, these Character Plans for the City of Oak Park. This is the kind of work that we’re gradually building toward with our own high school students in Prince George’s County, MD.

In the afternoon, I heard a good presentation by Hellmut Lotz (available here). Lotz argues that tyrants always have reason to fear for their lives. Others are afraid of them and may try to kill them in self-defense or to usurp their power. A ruler may be sure that he can ward off challengers, but sooner or later he will want to retire or to guarantee his children’s safety after his death. But even if he says that he no longer desires power, others have no reason to believe him. The dictator (and his children) are always potential rivals to any new rulers. For this reason, there are very few examples of safely retired dictators. In constitutional systems, however, leaders routinely retire to comfort and safety. Absolute power plus personal security would be best, but it is impossible. A constitution gives rulers limited power plus safety, and is therefore in the interest of rulers. And that is why we have a Constitution, according to Lotz.

When I was younger, I resisted thinking of “Generation X” is an important part of my identity. This was partly a personal trait: to the best of my limited ability, I wanted to be mature and not to follow reflexively the characteristic interests of people in their twenties. My resistance was also–paradoxically–a trait of Generation X. We were born in a demographic trough, outnumbered and often overlooked. We were at least somewhat alienated by our predecessors’ talk of a Generation Gap, a Youth Movement, a Sexual Revolution, and a campus counterculture. We couldn’t detect any major social upheavals that distinguished us from the late Boomers. In 2002, 54.4% of us (i.e., those who were then between the ages of 26 and 37) said that “There is nothing particularly unique or distinctive about my age group.” In contrast, 68.7% of the younger adults and 50.8% of the “Greatest Generation” people said, “My age group is unique and distinct from other age generations.” (The Boomers themselves were split almost 50/50 on this question.)

Now, in my thirties, I’m much more likely to think of myself in generational terms. Because of my work with CIRCLE, it’s my job to study age cohorts. In particular, I’ve been much impressed by Karl Mannheim’s theory. Mannheim noted that babies are born every minute, so it is somewhat arbitrary to divide individuals into discrete generations. He argued, however, that our political and social opinions are relatively flexible when we are young. (I would explain this in terms of “rational ignorance”: we must form opinions, but once we’ve got them, it’s usually not worth the effort to change them.) Thus, whenever a major historical event occurs, it most deeply affects those who are between the ages of 15 and 25 at the time, and they turn into a “generation” with lasting traits.

The classic case was the World War I generation; service in that unbelievable slaughter permanently distinguished an age cohort from those too old or young to be drafted. The Vietnam generation went through a faint echo of the same phenomenon. (Incidentally, the big generation gaps are marked by changes in hair–World War I vets shaved off the Victorian mustaches, goatees, and long tresses of their fathers, whereas Boomers let their hair grow long. We in generation X have been characteristically unsure how to differentiate ourselves, hair-wise.)

Mannheim explains that each generation plays an essential role in the healthy evolution of a society. The older cohorts preserve memory and experience, but the younger ones help by not remembering too much. For example, we Gen-X’ers don’t remember Vietnam well enough to let it overwhelm the rest of modern history. In the nineties, I knew many young Madeleine Albright fans–people who wanted to avoid repeating Munich and cared less about Tet or Kent State. Boomers, of course, play an equally important role by keeping alive the traumas of more modern history.

Meanwhile, at a personal level, I’m beginning to draw some guidance and psychological support from identifying with my age cohort. Some of my peers are fabulously successful, running important firms and organizations like the ACLU, writing masterpieces, or holding senior academic positions at distinguished universities. But most of us are in the middle ranks. We are frequently called– as parents, teachers, and supervisors of younger colleagues–to share memories and experiences going back to the seventies. At the same time, we have parents, teachers, and supervisors of our own, who remember and know more than we do. We play a mediating role at this point in our lives.

I spent the day–very enjoyably–at a meeting of people who have come together to create an advocacy Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. I’ll write more about that next week. When I got home, I found that my post about revitalizing the left had provoked two extremely interesting responses on other blogs: an essay by “The Decembrist’s” Mark Schmitt, and one by Matt Stoller. I haven’t had time to absorb their arguments (or the various responses posted by visitors to their blogs), but I’m certainly open to their criticisms.

In my original essay, I accused leftish bloggers of failing to develop a positive vision. A reader told me about Mark Schmitt, whom I would definitely cite as a creative and substantive blogger on the Democratic side. See, for example, his defense of John Edwards, which is an argument for a moral and optimistic populism. I now look forward to exploring Matt Stoller’s The Blogging of the President as well.

My blog gets moderate, steady traffic–but few comments or “trackbacks.” I meet regular readers, and they mostly turn out to be people who don’t visit blogs, but who come to this site because of my civic education and democracy themes, which concern them professionally. These are not people who naturally participate in public, online discussions. Neither do I, for that matter, so I don’t blame them at all. But I must admit that it’s enjoyable to provoke discussion in the “blogosphere.” I look forward to pondering Schmitt’s and Stoller’s comments and responding.

I’m mainly thinking about the situation in Iraq, but I have no special information or insights about that deeply troubling matter. Meanwhile, on a somewhat lighter note, the Times’ Keith Bradsher analyzes the political situation in Hong Kong for us. It seems that the Communists want to retain a constitution that allows only rich oligarchs to vote. Some of their main critics are Christian groups that are committed to preserving gay rights. At least these folks aren’t hidebound ideologues.

I’m at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at the University of Indiana. There’s an excellent conference here on “Scholarly Communications as a Commons.” I’m going to save commenting on that topic until tomorrow, when I’ll have more time for blogging and I may understand the issues a bit better. For today, I would like to praise the Workshop briefly (as I have before, in print). It seems to me absolutely exemplary as a home for engaged scholarship. The work of Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues involves close collaboration with communities; it generates information useful to those communities, while drawing on their knowledge; and it produces cutting-edge insights and methodologies of great importance to the social sciences. Ostrom’s insights could not arise without her community engagement. Thus she demonstrates that engagement can be more than just “service,” or a transfer of knowledge to people outside a university–it can be an essential form of inquiry.