American archetypes

John Zogby, who has been polling the state of America for decades, has taken his numbers and translated them into a forecast of where our society is headed. America is on the precipice of major change and Zogby is bullish about it, suggesting that citizens are adjusting to the new reality of the world and staying steps ahead of the politicians tiptoeing around difficulties.

His new book, "The Way We’ll Be – The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dreams," Zogby looks at a world populated with four distinct archetypes: the First Globals, the Nike Generation, the Woodstockers, and the Privates.

According to Zogby, the "First Globals" are the 18 to 29-year-olds who have passports: they have global perspectives; they are citizens of the planet before they are citizens of the United States. Their taste in everything from music to fashion is global.

Gen-X-ers, or the "Nike Generation," according to Zogby, is the first group of people not wedded, because of circumstances, to many traditional institutions. They were born into broken marriages and Watergate — a world of scandal and of institutions that were falling apart. Their motto, according to Zogby, is "libertarians with a small ‘l’."

Baby Boomers are "Woodstockers," and Zogby says, "We are a generation of which too much was made out of us, and we learned to absorb that."

The "Private" generation is the group with old fashioned patriotism, and a traditional sense of duty and honor.

Zogby would categorize John McCain as a "Private" and Barack Obama as a "First Global," and he says these are two very different paths for America.

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