In his previous response Carlson writes, "Only the wealthy and the highly educated [participate in politics]? What about the motivated, the interested, those who bother to show up at the polls in November? Can't they participate? Of course they can. They participate already, and likely always will. This is the beauty of the American political system: it is run by those who care enough to run it. Everybody else gets the government he deserves."

From Post & Riposte: "One of the questions left in my mind after reading through these postings and the engaging article in The Atlantic is how you can instill Gen X (of which I am a member) with a sense of ownership and, in turn, stewardship, of the political process. Clearly, a republican form of government is more legitimate and arguably stronger when there are higher levels of political participation. Yet political parties are openly neglecting young voters, and young candidates face immense fundraising obstacles to be competitive candidates. As much as I respect Ted Halstead's opinions, I don't believe that a third party is a viable alternative, only because of the institutional entrenchment of our current parties and the two-party system in-general. So, how do you get us to vote, and how do you get the best qualified ones to run?" --Brian Murphy, "Political ownership" (08/23) What do you think? Join the conversation.

In writing off with a single stroke half of the population, Carlson betrays an aristocratic sensibility that is Waughian in its dismissiveness. To be honest, in my darker moments (which is most of them) I feel sympathy with Carlson's underlying point: most people are stupid and indifferent, unmotivated and uninvolved, philistines and plebeians. And in these moments it's tempting to say, "To Hell with them, and let the devil take the hindmost." But we are, last I checked, living in a democracy, a society whose political basis -- and whose moral premise -- is in large part the idea that everyone's voice counts. Carlson fails to see the direct correlation between many people feeling that their voices are being substantially muted by Big Money in politics and their declining propensity to vote. Or to see that the optimal functioning of a democracy requires that those he sees as the great unwashed (and he seems to be implicating not just our generation here, but also the poorer and less educated half of the entire general population) have the opportunity to be heard in the political process. Carlson talks of the beauty of the American political system. But if half of all Americans have checked out of the political process -- whether because they're bored, frustrated, or ignorant -- couldn't that be a sign of the system's not being as healthy as it might be, rather than a sign of its "beauty"? Carlson's accusing Ted Halstead of "missing the point" is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

I hate to take up so much of my final response on a (strictly speaking) nongenerational tangent, but I'm not done with Carlson, whose defense of the Republican tax cut is, alas, as typical as it is preposterous. The people who will benefit most from the tax cuts --those in the highest tax brackets -- are not presently having any trouble going out to dinner or sending their kids to camp. And the people -- most of the rest of us -- who will be most hurt by the erosion of public investment or the withering away of social services will benefit hardly at all in absolute terms.

Returning to the generational questions at hand, I think Andrew Shapiro gets it exactly right when he says that rather than asking "What is the politics of this particular age group?" we ought to begin with "What is the politics of our time -- and what role do young people play in it?" These are not easy questions to answer. American politics in recent years has become simultaneously diffuse and constrained. Party differences on many questions do seem to have narrowed, and (as several of us have mentioned in earlier responses) there has not been a catalyzing political event.

Shapiro and I appear to agree that the growth of the Internet, and the digital age generally, are an important part of the social and political context today. But another important part is the economy. Eight years of economic growth have clearly had a deadening effect on politics: people who are doing well are less concerned with politics. Eight years of economic growth have made the proponents of welfare reform, for example, look good. And I certainly hope they continue to look good, even though this may mean a continuation of American politics' gradual tilt toward the right. But the persistence of the income gap, and the increasingly contingent nature of employment in the information economy, have engendered a deep uneasiness that lies not far beneath the political surface. When the business cycle turns down, and when the stock market falls, the politics of this country (and the politics of our generation along with it) may lurch to the left or the right -- or both.

The nature of this unfortunate situation -- in which continued prosperity perpetuates a rightward political drift and those left behind by economic growth are simply abandoned; in which only bad economic news will galvanize a resurgence of the left, leaving some Nation-types (though not Andrew Shapiro, I'm sure) awaiting a crash with breathless enthusiasm -- leads me to attach some hopefulness to Ted Halstead's ideas about a marriage of fiscal conservatism and progressive concern. I still don't know that generational politics is a plausible route to that marriage, but if someone can manage to awaken the heretofore politically quiescent X Generation before economic or social disaster does it for them, that will likely be a good thing.

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Scott Stossel is the executive editor of The American Prospect. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and other publications.