Throughout the tour for Virtuous Reality, I've tried, in conversations with people in different parts of the country, to define a post-political ideology more precisely.
These are, I believe, some of its core values and characteristics:
This community believes in the free movement of ideas and information. It has grown up in a culture where censorship is not only reprehensible, but impossible. Online communities for atheists, supporters of euthanasia, large people, Jesus satirists, sexual explorers, all thrive online, largely unhindered by persecution or interference.
Freedom of lifestyle. The post-political don't expect jobs or marriage to necessarily last forever, don't believe priests, rabbis, and mullahs have all the answers, don't necessarily subscribe to the American dream of conventional partnerships, two kids, two cars. The don't expect to retire on cushy pensions.
They might buy houses, or they might just sink the money into vacations and travel. They feel free to arrange their lives in ways that work for them, sometimes choosing marriage, sometimes not, having children when they want them, if at all. They are not self-conscious about their sexual choices - straight, gay, or otherwise.
Personal responsibility. Post-politics rejects liberal notions that we are all responsible for others' lives and fortunes. It insists that people take more responsibility for their own lives and moral choices.
Tolerance. This is the first generation for whom diversity and pluralism are accepted facts of life (except at engineering schools and the top floors of corporations). While enormous racial, cultural, and gender divisions persist, diversity is neither a shock nor a bitter pill for the post-political thinkers; it is the way the world looks.
Economic opportunity. This group was raised in a culture where education means employment. Although it doesn't expect job security the way previous generations did, the post-political expect to find good jobs, have mobility, and live comfortably.
Social Darwinism. The online world, studies tell us, is largely white, affluent, educated and technologically equipped, with middle-class African Americans and Hispanics, as well as women, coming online in substantial numbers. It has no response or agenda for dealing with most social problems, like the enormous numbers of Americans who are poor, badly educated and technologically deprived. This indifference threatens to split the country in the millennium, as digital technology more and more makes the difference between employment, education, community, commerce, and political clout. Or the lack thereof.
Popular culture. For this group, the vast, diverse spectrum of movies, broadcast and cable TV, Web sites, radio CDs, magazines and books is not just amusement. It's a central element of their lives - part politics, part religion and common language.
Cultural entities like MTV, The X-Files, or a rap label often define who people are, give them the means of identifying with one another, and offer them an opportunity to join common communities.
The post-political are aggressive consumers of cultural products of every sort. Although often techno-centered, they also buy more books and magazines than most people. They listen to more radio, including public radio, than other groups; they watch TV but dislike much of what is on.
New news. Although journalism has demonized the post-political young as apathetic, civically ignorant, and socially disconnected, the post-political are news junkies. They simply absorb information in different, more diverse ways. They don't sit and read a paper from to back, or sit down to watch an evening newscast from beginning to end.
They absorb news and information in disperse and diverse ways - on cable news, online, from friends, magazines, books, radio. They are superficially aware of vast amounts of information, and when they need or want to know more, they have the technological capability to delve more deeply.
Rationalism. This group has grown up in a journalistic and political culture that elevates confrontation, reducing all issues to left and right and almost never helping us resolve any of them. Technology has given the post-political young access to so much more information that they seek to confront social and political problems - abortion, gun control, economics, race, welfare - in ways that transcend the failed dogma of liberalism, conservatism, and the fake moral piety that overwhelms almost all contemporary American political discussion.
Using the linked, archival information culture of the Web, they can instantly check, cross-check, substantiate, or refute knowledge and information about almost any subject, subjecting it to the kind of instant scrutiny impossible in most mainstream journalism.
Rudderless. The post-political young have no idea how to translate their values and ideology into any sort of political action, in part because they have no leaders. Raised in the age of William Bennett, Bill Clinton, and Bob Dole, this generation took note of the fact that the most publicized speech during the presidential campaign was about nasty Hollywood movies. The post-political accordingly have little use for the false moralizing and ethical tap-dancing of political leaders.
The online world in particular is individualistic and idiosyncratic, mitigating against the emergence of political figures. As a result, the post-political inhabit a leaderless culture. "Who am I supposed to follow?" asked a caller to one radio talk show I was on in California. I had no answer.
Geekhood. The most engaging idea for me, perhaps for personal reasons, is the idea of a geek nation, deeply infiltrating the media machinery of America. In my childhood, being a geek meant you got beat up. One of the stellar miracles of the digital age is that being a geek puts you front and center of an informational, technological, and cultural revolution. On my book tour, I sometimes felt I was being beaten up all over again, in the time-honored way. But the difference was that other geeks were everywhere, running the sound or manning the cameras. They run the Digital Nation. Even in the TV age, which brought us blow-dried politicians and newscasters, maybe a geek leader could emerge.
What a sweet way to hit the millennium.
