2-23-05, 11:29 am

How long does it take to lose a democracy? One generation, it seems.

Last week, Time magazine reported that 36% of American High School students believe that newspapers (and presumably the television news) should have government approval before publishing stories.

That over a third of American High School students – students presumably familiar with the basic rights and freedoms of being an American – would even consider such limits on the freedom of speech is deeply troubling. Particularly, when we remember that only a generation before, free speech was the primary tool of the politically active young. In their hands, freedom of speech ended the war in Vietnam. Freedom of speech forced the resignation of President Nixon. Indeed, freedom of speech ensured the future of a democratic America.

So why have the young people of America people turned away from a fundamental democratic freedom? Is it ignorance? Do our schools no longer teach the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States? Or teach the long struggle to protect it? Is it misplaced patriotism? Do our young people, in this so-called “time of war,” somehow see freedom of speech as dangerous to the future of America?

The real answer, I suspect, is this: we are witnessing a generational shift in the context and meaning of America. That is, for Americans under the age of 35, the understanding of “freedom of speech” and “human rights” is fundamentally different than for those over the age of 35.

I call it the Digital Watch Effect.

Consider: about ten years ago, a friend of mine – an elementary school teacher – told me that many of her students could not tell time on an analog clock (with the sweeping big hand, little hand, and second hand). As a consequence, these children did not understand what a ten-minute period was or what an hour meant. That is, their “time context” was digital watch time – a precise number without analog meaning.

Of course, for those of us who do understand the analog clock, a digital watch offers precise information in a familiar context – analog time. That is, we live, work, and think in a set context of expectations – a conscious and unconscious understanding of how the world works relative to analog time.

But for the child, the digital watch gives information in a wholly different context, a context with new rules and new expectations. Ironically then, this “precise” technology breeds a form of deep ignorance of past context.

When we apply the Digital Watch Effect to culture and politics, we see the same deep shifts of context and meaning, and the same breeding of deep ignorance. This is what has happened to the young of America. The evidence of this was made clear for me while watching a recent CNN Crossfire program. The hosts of Crossfire reported on a poll that asked Americans the following question: who was the greatest American president? Typically, in similar past polls, Lincoln, F.D.R., Jefferson, and Washington found their way to the top. However, for the first time, another president gathered the most votes: Ronald Reagan.

When this was announced, the audience – largely a crowd of twenty and thirty somethings – wildly applauded and cheered.

I was surprised. Many of the young people in the audience were not old enough to remember the “Reagan Revolution.” Nor would they remember what came before Reagan. How could they possibly understand it, let along cheer it? Reagan was no Lincoln, F.D.R., Washington, or Jefferson, right?

Or was he? Did Ronald Reagan, in fact, create the conditions for a new understanding of America?

To have experienced the Reagan Revolution, within the context of the 1960s and 1970s experience, is a wholly different experience than to experience the Reagan Revolution as the context from which all things that follow are to be judged.

And that is the political and cultural Digital Watch Effect.

After 1980, the definition of “freedom of speech” and “human rights” came under increasingly hostile fire. The Reagan Revolution signaled a new way of thinking about the American ideal. Some called it a “culture war,” a term I once laughed at when I first heard it.

I’m not laughing any more.

While those over 35 fought the “culture war” with the ideals of freedom and democracy informed by their experience of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, they neglected to note that their children were growing up in a profoundly different context.

The Reagan Revolution, presently being fought and finished by George W. Bush, pursues an America where the preservation of the “State” is more important than the preservation of its citizens’ “Freedoms.”

The Digital Watch Effect means that the future of freedom, human rights, and social responsibility will be understood in the context of the Reagan/Bush vision of America. And from what we have seen thus far, we know that this ideal does not endorse the freedoms promised in the Constitution of the United States of America.

How long does it take to lose a democracy? Once generation, it seems.



--Steven Laffoley is a writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. You may e-mail him at stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca.

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