Government practice lags a generation behind the ideas that shaped its rulers

Evidence

It required the po liti cal ascension of those who had “picked up their convictions, and, what is of more consequence, their prepossessions, in early manhood, which is the one period of life when men are easily impressed with new ideas.” As a result, the governmental practices of one period were often attributable to the ideologies of their generational pre de ces sors, and countervailing opinions would be gaining infl uence within the intellectual classes even as politicians put the new conventional wisdom into practice. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 554

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: a generation-lag theory of policy — by the time a ruling cohort implements its youthful ideology, the intellectual avant-garde has already moved on; could frame pieces on why reforms always feel late or why apparent conservative era follows formative liberal cohorts.
• XREF: connects to: Ideologies are not what is shaped at power’s base; Politics reflects structural tendencies that may never become realized; Decades of ideas yielded nothing until backed by an executive proxy — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 613

Broader Connections

• Ideologies are not what is shaped at power’s base #complicates (0.75)
• Politics reflects structural tendencies that may never become realized #corroborates (0.72)