More often recalled is Adams’ observation that “too many of us … have grown weary and mistrustful” of the American dream. Pollster John Zogby does not disagree, but he argues in The Way We’ll Be that the American dream is undergoing a radical transformation.

Zogby’s conclusions are based on polling data on four age groups, wherein he sees significant generational shifts in values and preferences.

Each cohort reached maturity in the midst of one or more defining events, which determined their world view: the “Private Generation,” born between 1926 and 1945; the “Woodstockers,” born between 1946 and 1964; the “Nike Generation,” born between 1965 and 1978; and “First Globals,” born between 1979 and 1990.

Zogby is betting on the youngest adult generation, now 18 to 29 years old, to change the American dream. He finds that they are not only “hell bent on change,” but also a group for whom “tolerance and an expansive world-view are second nature.”

They are more concerned with the United States being an honest broker in world affairs than with being a superpower and “going it alone.” They are more concerned than their elders with the environment and human rights.

The First Globals, Zogby finds, are less likely to define themselves by their work and more likely to point to their leisure pastimes, avocations and passions. Income is less important to them than personal fulfillment.

They are less trusting of authority and government as problem-solvers and are more likely to rely on their own judgment and to act on their own or as members of groups or networks of their own creation.

First Globals have less faith that they will be materially better off in the future or that the nation as a whole will continue to be a “people of plenty,” a belief that has defined America for generations. And they are more willing to make sacrifices — consume less — if that is good for society.

Put another way, they have found a “silver lining” in evidence now plentiful that the United States is a nation in decline, in relative terms. They suggest that the nation may actually be better off for its diminished expectations.

Zogby reports that most Americans continue to define the American dream in material terms and that they continue to believe it is attainable. Roughly 7 to 10 percent, however, think that it might not happen until their children’s lifetime, while about the same percentage has concluded that it will never happen.

Zogby found that although “Traditional Materialists” continue to dominate, “Secular Spiritualists,” or those for whom “there is a higher meaning to life than accumulating goods” (but are not necessarily religious), are closing the gap, accounting for 36 percent of those polled.

Zogby is convinced that the First Globals are leading this emerging “new paradigm” — this transformed American dream. Indeed he argues that they are already taking us into “a new age of inclusion and authenticity.” Zogby’s portrait, however, is a snapshot of a very young adult population that will someday grow old.

“First Globals will change as they age,” Zogby allows. “Marriages and commitment ceremonies, births, retirement, serious illness, the death of a loved one — each of these seminal events along with life’s ladder — inevitably alters us. In time, perhaps, First Globals will be the sea anchor dragging against change at the other end of the age continuum.”

Zogby does not see this happening, however, because he says First Globals are “wired differently.” The actions of the 20-somethings in politics, environmentalism, international affairs and social issues support Zogby’s observations.

But the historical record of youthful generations past — remember the Age of Aquarius? — offers a cautionary note that can only be resolved with time.

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