Paths to patriotism

Bronwyn Burnett doesn't fit the usual image of an American patriot.

Ask the student of fine arts if she'd be willing to serve in the armed forces, and she politely declines, explaining, "I would really not be able to be myself if I were in any kind of military."

Ask her if recent events have kindled an interest in the actions of her government, and the 20-something responds, "A lot of the politics out there isn't something that interests me."

Ask her how she feels about the war on terrorism, and she struggles to find the words: "I don't know that I can judge that," she says. "The whole situation is out of my hands, is what I feel like."

She is, in many respects, a spokeswoman for her generation. Long derided as individualistic, even apathetic, young Americans today seem not to have been changed much by the world-altering attacks of Sept. 11. While 8 in 10 Americans support the war on terrorism, only 57 percent of college students approve. Following Sept. 11, military records show, the enlistment rate hardly budged.

A second Pearl Harbor this was not, it seems.

But this July 4, don't tell Ms. Burnett that she and her generation don't love their country – and haven't been touched by Sept. 11.

For most, it has nothing to do with the daily routine. True, some have been moved to actions that echo the "greatest generation" – such as offering even their joint and sinew to the cause of freedom by enrolling in the military. But more are like Burnett, who sits outside the library at Portland State University in Oregon with no stars-and-stripes pin on her clothes and no thought of how she'll spend Independence Day.

Among these young Americans, children of unprecedented peace and prosperity, the change is something unrelated to festivals and fireworks. After years of being left to themselves to navigate through video games and parental divorce, political correctness and personal computers, they are now confronted with images and emotions they have never seen or felt. Sept. 11 might not have turned them into patriots in the mold of those who stormed the beaches at Normandy, but it is stirring unfamiliar – and as yet unresolved – feelings of conflict, as many young adults struggle to reconsider America and their place in it.

"It is a disturbance at a deep level," says Todd Gitlin, a sociologist at New York University. "It's not actionable – it's not working on [young] people in a direct way. It's underneath."

Never have these young Americans been called on to sacrifice anything for a greater national cause. Indeed, many have been taught mainly to question their country and its symbols – from McDonald's impact on the Brazilian rain forests to America's interventions in Central America and the Middle East.

Outwardly, as 20-somethings themselves acknowledge, the cynicism and skepticism that have come to define this group seems to be intact. Nearly three-quarters of college students say they think the patriotism and unity sparked by Sept. 11 will fade, according to a poll by the Panetta Institute at California State University in Monterey Bay.

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