Category Archives: 9-11 Problem

Class of 2020 Mindset List: Still No Obama

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The Class of 2020 Beloit Mindset List is out and, as usual, it’s awful. And as usual, we’ll be discussing items on the list and media reaction to it.

One quick observation: Although President Obama’s presidency has been tremendously consequential for the Class of 2020—he’s been president for almost half their lives—and it is almost over, the Mindset List still can’t bring itself to mention him. This is because of the list’s guiding assumption, which I have written about before:

Each year’s list is constructed—and this point bears repeating over and over—by a couple guys going to a library and looking at microfiche of things that happened 18 years earlier.

Clearly this makes absolutely no sense. A person’s “mindset”—their understanding of how the world works, their values and interests, and so on—tends to be shaped by things that happened to them once they developed an understanding of their social environment more sophisticated than a newborn’s. Things that happened ten or five or even one year earlier are going to be far more important to an 18-year-old than things than happened 18 years ago.

So Barack Obama has been mentioned only for something that happened before he was elected:

They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day. (Class of 2011, #17)

I call this the “9-11 problem” since it also applies to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, another tremendously consequential event that the Mindset List that didn’t mention until its Class of 2018 list, possibly in response to our criticism.

To the best of my knowledge, the BML has never mentioned the country electing an African-American President, the First Family, Obamacare or any other of the President’s other policies, or any of the cultural ramifications of his presidency.

It’s completely bizarre, but completely predictable given the list’s ridiculous guiding assumption.

#39 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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During their initial weeks of kindergarten, they were upset by endlessly repeated images of planes blasting into the World Trade Center. (Class of 2018, #1)

I’ve assumed that Messrs. McBride and Nief read Beloit Mindlessness because how could you not read a web site devoted to the destruction of your most famous creation, but item #1 on the Class of 2018 Mindset List clinches it.

The item appears to be a direct response to one of the most pointed criticisms we’ve made against the Mindset List (see here and here), the 9-11 Problem:

The Beloit Mindset List has never made a direct reference to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Or the subsequent wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. Or the rise in security procedures or any other policy changes that took place after the attacks.

But how could it? These events happened in the past 12 years and the central premise of the Mindset List is that the mindset of a birth cohort—its set of “cultural touchstones”—is concocted from events that took place the year its members were born.…

9-11 and its aftermath must be more significant for understanding the “mindset” of American young people than roughly 99% of the trivia on the Mindset lists, but the Mindset Method dictates that they can’t be directly referenced.

Indirect references are okay as long as they are connected to something that happened roughly 18 years earlier.

So, perhaps thanks to our critique, the latest Mindset List opens with a reference to 9-11— even though it took place while the Class of 2018 was in kindergarten! Thirteen years after coordinated terrorist attacks on American soil killed 2,977 people, resulting in two wars and countless other consequences, Messrs. McBride and Nief have come to the realization that the attacks actually affected people who were older than infants when they occurred. So hooray for that, I guess.

Of course, the item misses what was most significant about the attacks for the Class of 2018—it wasn’t being upset by watching the attacks on TV. Also, the rest of the list is the same brand of pointless trivia we’re come to expect from it. We’ll be digging into that in the days to come.

#33 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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Washington, D.C., tour buses have never been able to drive in front of the White House. (Class of 2017, #54)

This item is a clear example of the Mindset List’s 9-11 Problem:

The Beloit Mindset List has never made a direct reference to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Or the subsequent wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. Or the rise in security procedures or any other policy changes that took place after the attacks.

But how could it? These events happened in the past 12 years and the central premise of the Mindset List is that the mindset of a birth cohort—its set of “cultural touchstones”—is concocted from events that took place the year its members were born.…

9-11 and its aftermath must be more significant for understanding the “mindset” of American young people than roughly 99% of the trivia on the Mindset lists, but the Mindset Method dictates that they can’t be directly referenced.

Indirect references are okay as long as they are connected to something that happened roughly 18 years earlier.

The section of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was closed in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing. It’s a tiny bit of anti-terrorism security in one city, insignificant compared to all the security theater that followed 9-11 and shaped the lives of the Class of 2017, but it happened 18 years ago and that is what really matters.

Reason #3 the Beloit Mindset List is Worthless: Its central premise makes no sense

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The Beloit Mindset List has never made a direct reference to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Or the subsequent wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. Or the rise in security procedures or any other policy changes that took place after the attacks.

But how could it? These events happened in the past 12 years and the central premise of the Mindset List is that the mindset of a birth cohort—its set of “cultural touchstones”—is concocted from events that took place the year its members were born.

Each year’s list is constructed—and this point bears repeating over and over—by a couple guys going to a library and looking at microfiche of things that happened 18 years earlier.

Clearly this makes absolutely no sense. A person’s “mindset”—their understanding of how the world works, their values and interests, and so on—tends to be shaped by things that happened to them once they developed an understanding of their social environment more sophisticated than a newborn’s. Things that happened ten or five or even one year earlier are going to be far more important to an 18-year-old than things than happened 18 years ago.

9-11 and its aftermath must be more significant for understanding the “mindset” of American young people than roughly 99% of the trivia on the Mindset lists, but the Mindset Method dictates that they can’t be directly referenced.

Indirect references are okay as long as they are connected to something that happened roughly 18 years earlier. For instance,

Al-Qaida has always existed with Osama bin Laden at its head. (Class of 2009, #12)

Or how about this:

They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day. (Class of 2011, #17)

That’s all the Mindset List can offer about the election of the first black President, an event of great historical significance and of great personal significance for many young people. In 2022, the Mindset List (if it still exists) will inform us that for the Class of 2026, “There has never not been an African-American President,” or something similar. Until then, direct references to the election of Barack Obama are off-limits.

At some level, the Mindset creators must know that their method makes no sense. They must know that the al-Qaida attacks on 9-11 were of great significance. They didn’t read about al-Qaida’s founding in a 1987 newspaper—it wasn’t actually founded until 1988 or 1989—but they were looking for a way to sneak it onto their list. Ditto with Barack Obama’s election.

As long as the Mindset Method—the search for the mindset of 18-year-olds by reading 18-year-old newspapers—is intact, the Mindset List will remain completely and utterly worthless.