Friedman deliberately targeted students as the vehicle for generational political change

Evidence

Instead, he resolutely sought to affect the views of the young, whom he saw as the only demographic group open minded enough to develop new perspectives based on their encounters with his or his colleagues’ ideas. The “people now running the country refl ect the intellectual atmosphere of some two de cades ago when they were in college,” he told an audience of executives in 1977. “Most men’s basic ideas are formed in their teens. Very few people change their fundamental values and ideas in later life.” As a result, “the old theories still dominate what happens in the po liti cal world.” His goal was to present his minority perspective in a manner that would compel members of the younger generation to adopt it as their own. He believed that this pro cess of generational transfer, rather than any more immediate forms of advocacy, would prove the most effective means of engendering po liti cal change. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 556

Categorization

• SHARE: For anyone who studies how ideas become policy (or the sociology of intellectuals), Friedman’s explicit strategy of winning the young rather than the present ruling class is worth passing along.
• XREF: This strategic focus on converting the young connects directly to the reader’s Mont Pèlerin adjacency interest and to Gramsci’s long-war-of-position model of ideational conquest. — connects to: Political change propagates from a single thinker through schools to public influence over decades — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 554; Homeschool networks deliberately seeded the next generation into political power. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 433; Friedman’s school voucher proposal launched decades of policy debate — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 463 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Friedman’s rhetorical power fused critique of the present with utopian promise #expands (0.75) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 492
• Homeschool networks deliberately seeded the next generation into political power. #corroborates (0.72) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 433
• Friedman’s school voucher proposal launched decades of policy debate #expands (0.72) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 463