Millennials And Political Being

   In the 1950s I used to drink in bars in Davis Square. One night after the bars closed, a friend helped someone in a fight. Afterwards the guy he fought came after him with two friends while I and another friend were with him having coffee. There were heated arguments and we almost ended six of us in another fight. That’s how it was then in Davis Square. All working-class. A lot of drinking. Fights. Davis Square has now a subway connecting it to Harvard Square. The working class has been replaced by educated millennials. I went to Davis Square after being away many years and into a Starbucks full of young people sitting around with their devices. Some students. Educated young people. I realized looking them over that they came from everywhere and they had no idea what Davis Square was like 50 years ago. When I was back outside in Davis Square, I confessed to myself that 50 years ago I knew nothing about Davis Square’s past either and for that matter I knew very little then, like the millennials in Starbucks, about America’s past. Anyone from anywhere is free to find out who they are on their own. But there is such a thing as a common political being. We have a public side to our being that has become what it is for definite historical reasons. I realized looking at the millennials that day that they do not care even slightly that they live in a union of 50 states or that their freedom to come from anyone of our 50 states and live in Davis Square with full rights as citizens of the state of Massachusetts provides them with a free and magnanimous political being that is astounding. I do care but their indifference is not their fault because it is the result of more than a hundred years of untruthful writings about American history. It took me many years of searching to discover my true political identity as an American. I and the millennials in Starbucks live in a union of sovereign states and our central government in Washington is not a state. It is astounding but true. It composes our political being whether we care about it or not.
Daniel McNeill