Taking cues from the next-gen

John Merli
Published: August 27, 2008

Tonight, if all goes according to plan, a stadium full of Obama supporters (and curious onlookers such as the media) will join the delegates of this week’s National Democratic Convention in Denver to hear
from the party’s primary-anointed candidate.

If nothing else, beyond the sheer spectacle of such an event, it will at least present an all-inclusive activity that goes beyond the restrictive confines of the Pepsi Center, which has been ringed with quite
noticeable ultra-security precautions for much of this week.

Most of the throng inside the stadium tonight (it would be interesting to know exactly how many) likely will be younger people, many of whom may never have cast their votes for any office, much less the
presidency. And whether they realize it or not (and you hardly have to an Obama supporter to qualify), the 18-29 year-olds in attendance make up the core of a new world order, of sorts, that John Zogby
(as in the Zogby Poll) refers to simply as “First Globals.”

According to Zogby, the typical mindset of a First Global should signal to the rest of us that whatever human shortcomings plagued earlier generations (including my own, to be sure) over the decades —
such as racism, bigotry, class snobbishness, a pathetic lack of world-view, and good old fashioned materialism — will not continue among First Globals. At least not in great numbers.

Zogby finds this 18-29 age group of Americans and other nationalities (even accounting for the prerequisite youthful naivety and idealism) not enamored with luxury and wealth, but more attuned to simple
comforts and one’s natural surroundings. In other words, this post-high school, twenty-something group is the least biased, most accepting generation in American history, according to Zogby’s new
book, “The Way We’ll Be.”

These healthy changing attitudes toward inclusiveness of everyone contrast (more than I care to admit) with the sharp lack of inclusiveness that many of my generation were undergoing at about the same
young and tender ages.

While high school might have been (and very likely still is) just about the least-inclusive social structure ever devised by humankind, my generation, entering college in the mid-’60s, saw this lack of
inclusiveness just keep on coming. The Greek system of fraternities and sororities at the University of Oklahoma (and echoed on hundreds of other college campuses) represented the epitome of non-
inclusiveness.

Despite the worthiness of today’s professional Greek clubs whose only goal is to do good for others, the social college fraternities and sororities of my generation, in retrospect, were as much about
keeping some candidates out, as allowing some of us to enter with full approval of the house elders. To be accepted into the social circle — at the sometimes-cruel exclusion of others based on such
shallow standards as physical appearance, race, physical disabilities, and even religion — was all that mattered. In other words, First Globals we were not. For the most part, we cheerily engaged with
those who were most like ourselves, and the rest of the world hardly mattered.

So for me, tonight, it will be interesting to note that this all-inclusive political bash of 75,000-plus in Denver will provide a bit of irony as I think back on my generation’s younger days with some alarm over
its intolerance and exclusivity (even coming as it did, oddly, in the ‘60s — one of the most tumultuous decades in American history).

Because it happens that the stadium tonight to be filled to the rafters with all sorts of people is the home of the Denver Broncos, the NFL team owned by a guy named Pat Bowlen — today a successful
executive, millionaire and philanthropist — who just yesterday was one of my fraternity brothers in that small frat house on the edge of campus in Norman, Oklahoma, that we all shared, albeit sparingly,
with the outside world.

I don’t know for sure and I don’t know his politics (we haven’t spoken in 35 years), but I’m guessing Pat had something to do with tonight’s very inclusive party.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984, and a Potomac News columnist since 1985. He has worked in the media for more than 30 years. E-mail him at: .