Any discussion that is a variation on "what's wrong with kids today" is bound to be more based on nostalgia and off the cuff cultural perceptions than it will on anything approaching historical or intellectual solidity. That is the basic reason that I never commented on Thomas "Suck On This" Friedman's "why aren't the kids marching in the streets" editorial, or really on Al Gore's "why aren't the kids lying in front of bulldozer's" comment a few months back. Rather than actual cultural inquiries, both the Freidman and Gore commentaries are generalized dismissals of contemporary youth for not conforming to pre-existing stereotypes.
The fact is, that large numbers of Americans under the age of 30, or whenever the "youth" line is drawn, are both politically active and quite progressive. Everyone knows that political campaigns and the netroots, for example, have heavy amounts of youth volunteer and professional participation. Political activism is actually well-up nationwide, and that includes among young people as well. Overall, this is the most left-wing and Democratic generation since the New Deal, and it turns out to vote in numbers roughly equal to young voters throughout the past thirty-five years. So, when I hear commentary from aging Baby Boomers about why aren't young people taking to the streets and engaging in civil disobedience, I chalk it up as a lazy comparison to a fuzzy, nostaligic view of their childhood, the bizarre expectation among older human beings that younger human beings should act according to those fuzzy, nostalgic memories, and the strange American obsession with an arbitrary identity concept known as a "generation." My eyes really tend to roll when I read passages like this:
I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be. I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be.
If the "they" in question were pretty much any other identity category other than age, such as gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality or sexual orientation, such a passage would read as an offensive relic of nineteenth century Sepncerist Social Darwinism. But, I guess, because we are talking about "age," it is OK to keep having these conversations.
There has still been a lot of commentary about Freidman's piece, just as there has also been discussion of Gore's comments. Ezra Klein, Courtney Martin, and Brian Beutler are just some of those who have offered commentary. The basic conclusions from these young progressives is that twenty somethings feel either overwhelmed or that past political tactics have proven ineffectual, and thus don't engage in the political tactics of the past. They all write from the "we" in this perspective, something that I am not sure I am still allowed to do at the age of 33. However, based on my personal experience, I would like to throw out another possibility for why political activism of "today's youth" isn't as visible to aging Boomers like Freidman and Gore. As I noted yesterday, in order to engage in self-starting political activism, usually you need to feel as though your "leaders" have failed you. However, successful self-starting political activism tends to help those same "leaders" more than it helps you. In essence, you end up doing their dirty work for them, and get nothing in return. That is endlessly frustrating.
Looking back over the past several years of my life, this is a pattern I can see time and time again. You help organize a union where you work, and lose your job for a while as a result. You help out with Howard Dean's campaign, and then the same Democratic establishment that the campaign railed against benefits from the new wave of small donor activism. You help organize new unions in a different state, and the powerful head of the local has all organizing positions cut because the new members threaten his position as local president. You run for Democratic Party office, and get harangued by the chair of your regional caucus at meetings for not just doing everything he tells you to do. You help raise $2M for Democratic candidates, push them to run on an Iraq withdrawal platform for more than a year, conduct Googlebombs against all their opponents, and help transfer $3M to the DCCC toward the end of the campaign, and you are immediately and repeatedly told on national television by the people you helped that this victory was a rejection of both progressivism in general and you in particular. Later on, you are condemned by the Congress you helped elect.
This is a serious problem with successful, self-starting activism: the benefits are often reaped by the same "leaders" whose failure caused you to conduct the organizing in the first place. This is what I meant in my Pretenders to the New Democratic Majority piece a few weeks ago. They get to govern because of what you do. In return, because of your dedication you get to see your relationships fall apart, you get to lose your job now and again, your bank account gets drained, your health care goes unpaid for a couple years, and you get repeatedly condemned either in Congress, national TV or whatever other forum comes to mind for being too left-wing, too vulgar, or simply unhelpful. This really sucks. I mean, one of the only reasons you started the activism in the first place is because these same leaders kept failing, time and time again. Union density was dropping, Democratic Presidents who passed NAFTA were being impeached for being too left wing, elections were being stolen, wars were being started, huge monetary giveaways were being made to corporations and the wealthy, the planet's ecosystem was being destroyed, the local Democratic Party had not canvassed your block in eight years, and the "leaders" in the relevant fields had utterly failed to stop any of it. You started getting active to help stop all of this from happening and, in the end, when you are actually successful, those same leaders get to reap the rewards.
Your life doesn't improve, but their's does. And then, when its all over, first they condemn you, and then they ask you why you aren't more politically active. While that makes me want to pick up my pitchfork and torch and engage in as many intra-party struggles as possible, I can understand why for many it would cause them to instead wonder what was on television, or to simply transfer their activism to volunteer social justice work and lifestyle choices. Really, what is the point of continuing to do their dirty work for them?
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