ian brown: illegal attacks
about two weeks ago, thomas friedman wrote an op/ed piece in the NY times about my generation, which he calls “generation q.” for me, generation talk has always been confusing– am i an X? Y? millennial? reality bites? regardless, i consider myself one of the “young people” he’s talking about. if you have a minute, you should read it.
in the editorial, friedman states that he is impressed by both our optimism and intelligence, especially given the fact that we have refused to allow the post 9/11 world to deter us from reaching out to the world:
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Whether it was at Ole Miss or Williams or my alma mater, Brandeis, college students today are not only going abroad to study in record numbers, but they are also going abroad to build homes for the poor in El Salvador in record numbers or volunteering at AIDS clinics in record numbers. Not only has terrorism not deterred them from traveling, they are rolling up their sleeves and diving in deeper than ever.
The Iraq war may be a mess, but I noticed at Auburn and Old Miss more than a few young men and women proudly wearing their R.O.T.C. uniforms. Many of those not going abroad have channeled their national service impulses into increasingly popular programs at home like ”Teach for America,” which has become to this generation what the Peace Corps was to mine.
It’s for all these reasons that I’ve been calling them ”Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad.”
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with the rise of community service centers on college campuses, as well as programs like teach for america, i definitely feel like our generation is truly trying to care for our community, locally and globally. we’re young, so we’re supposed to be idealists, right?
mr. friedman then goes on to express his bafflement with our lack of political engagement:
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But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good. When I think of the huge budget deficit, Social Security deficit and ecological deficit that our generation is leaving this generation, if they are not spitting mad, well, then they’re just not paying attention. And we’ll just keep piling it on them.
(and)
Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual.
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honestly, i felt pretty deflated after reading his words. i’ve signed online petitions and sent emails to my congressmen, but i can’t shed the nagging feeling that none of it really matters. then again, street marches and boycotts seem like relics from the past… would they make any sort of impact in our high-tech, internetted, 700 channel, globalized society?
then i read a response to the editorial, written by courtney martin. i think she’s close to my age, and she’s extremely articulate and smart and thoughtful. in short, i’ve deemed her to be my spokeswoman. read her retort, and join me in my crusade to nominate her for the (new) president’s cabinet.
instead of generation Q, courtney labels herself a member of generation Overwhelmed and says:
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We are not apathetic. What we are, and perhaps this is what Friedman was picking up on, is totally and completely overwhelmed. One of the most critical questions of our time is one of attention. In a 24-7 news climate, it is all but impossible to emotionally engage all of the stories and issues you are taking in, and then act on them in some pragmatic way. So instead, young people become paralyzed. (It seems that all of us are a bit paralyzed. After all, what are Friedman’s peers really doing? And aren’t his peers the ones with the most straightforward kind of power?)
My generation tries to create lives that seem to match our values, but beyond that it’s hard to locate a place to put our outrage. We aren’t satisfied with point-and-click activism, as Friedman suggests, but we don’t see other options. Many of us have protested, but we — by and large — felt like we were imitating an earlier generation, playing dress-up in our parents’ old hippie clothes. I marched against the war and my president called it a focus group. The worst part was that I did feel inert while doing it. In the 21st century, a bunch of people marching down the street, complimenting one another on their original slogans and pretty protest signs, feels like self-flagellation, not real and true social change.
When Friedman was young and people were taking to the streets, there were a handful of issues to focus on and a few solid sources of news to pay attention to. Now there is a staggering amount of both. If I read the news today with my heart wide open and my mind engaged, I will be crushed. Do I address the injustices in Sudan, Iraq, Burma, Pakistan, the Bronx? Do I call an official, write a letter, respond to a MoveOn.org request? None of it promises to be effective, and it certainly won’t pacify my outrage.
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exactly! how do we choose? and if we are able to focus our attention on one issue, what do we do about it? is there any way to make a change, or will the previous generation have to die before we can begin to shovel ourselves out of the debt, the pollution, the injustice?
courtney writes:
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We do our best. We pursue careers and seek answers to questions that we believe are important. So many of the young New Yorkers standing around my living room that night were professional activists — social workers and teachers and nonprofit workers. We discuss the latest current events, send one another links to our favorite blogs or videos on the subjects, grab drinks after work and hash it all out. We study like hell. My generation knows so much about so much. We read everything and anything that we think might point us in the direction of some kind of political enlightenment and psychic relief.
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i hope we’re doing our best. i really do. i try to read as much as i can, talk about things that are important to me, seek out other people’s opinions and perspectives. i *do* believe that we are the most “aware” generation that has ever existed, but now we have to figure out how to translate that awareness into change. the problem is that we don’t really have a model to follow. we’re crammed full of information, but we’re clueless. as courtney points out:
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We can’t be you, because we don’t live in your time. We don’t have the benefit of focus, the cushion of cheap rent, the luxury of not knowing just how complicated the world really is. Instead we have corporate conglomerates, private military contracts, the WTO and the IMF, school debt, and no health insurance. We are savvy and we are saturated and we are scared.
We are painstakingly composing our Facebook profiles because we did our daily round of news sites, and it left us feeling powerless and unsafe, like the only place to put our energies was inward. We are studying abroad because it feels like the only obvious way to interact with the world we care so deeply about. We are dancing at house parties on Friday nights because we talked about your op-ed, the war in Iraq, rape in Congo, but in the end, we just felt overeducated and underutilized.
You call that quiet. I call that coping.
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a-men, courtney.
so, guys, what do we do? i (honestly) have visions of hipsters pulling youtube pranks to send a message to washington, or pants world going hacker-style and messing with the bank accounts of congressmen while rollerblading through the streets.
any other ideas?
ok, i gotta go add some photos to facebook.
LINKS
my favorite current affairs series is back with a piece which compares china and the u.s. to pamela anderson and kid rock. i think china might have a little less silicon, though.
soccer moms just got a whole lot more badass.
lobsters escape imenent death! sounds like a new pixar movie…
the california fires ate up a large elvis memorabilia collection, but the *owner* of the collection is actually the most interesting part of the story.
BREAKING NEWS. ace of base and aqua are BOTH reuniting!!! thank goodness, cos i’ve been really hoping to get a song stuck in my head for 17 consecutive days.
meredith sent me this site which challenges yr vocab while donating rice to starving countries [insert rice university joke here].
Boooo Thomas Friedman! I don’t like you..for too many reasons to state in the comments sections of lovely Sarah’s blog
Enjoyed the entry. In some ways, I can identify with Courtney’s post. My life often feels like a consorted effort to remove myself from the endless squall of updates, events and this-just-in-we’ve-screwed-up-yet-again news stories. I feel powerless to affect change outside of my own simple life. Close the global view and focus energy in my own home.
It is as if we’ve lost all forms of catalysts.
s/e
The trouble with being oversaturated is that it lets you see every side of the issue, and that can only lead to paralysis.
If I feed every starving child in Africa, how do I make the planet capable of handling the extra population that will result from those sick children that would have died leading healthy, reproductive lives instead?
If I colonize another planet to make room for more resources, how do I make sure they are evenly distributed?
How the heck could I colonize another planet, anyway?
Is it even right for us to reproduce and spread all over the galaxy, even if we could?
I wonder what the next generation will be like? Probably snobby. I hate them.
Stop looking at me, baby. Now I don’t want to save the future anyway, because you guys are jerks.
*******
In a very real way, though, I feel like as a generation we (or you? am I too old?) are living as a collective Nabokov character. The boomers were the generation of boorish jocks, men of action. We’re left to be the bookish types, the ones pushed to the side, and therefore the ones who can see what a jackass that quarterback really is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t still jealous of him. Dang it.
Want to know my important issue as I go to the polls this election year? Whether Brazoria County should stay dry or go wet… Biggest issue to vote on since their isn’t a bond election for Alvin ISD.
Yeah, I remember having Thomas Friedman thoughts back when the War first started raging… that the blogging culture would lull the would-be activists into submission. Because aren’t we all just looking to be heard?…to be understood? And if you can blog about it and meet that basic human need through the comment section, the impetus to be heard on a larger scale subsides.
But I think a notable distinction between our generation and our parents’ is the disappearance of the draft. I don’t personally know anyone getting shipped off to Iraq. My father, however, lost 2 of his best friends from high school in Vietnam. My main problem w/ what’s going on in Iraq is the bullying stance we’re taking on an international level… not that my best friend came home in a casket. The degrees of separation between the people that I know and love and care about and the people being directly affected by the War are enough to allow me to remain a silent bystander. And yes… I am also very busy trying to pay my rent and deal w/ massive student debt being racked up in law school… and staying in shape… and avoiding high fructose corn syrup… and watching The Office… and reading your blog….
Hey kid,
you should vote for Kucinich or Ron Paul… you know who I like. Seriously a vote for anyone else makes you a murder, our most pressing goal should be to end a foreign policy of sanction and bombs. There is no lesser evil this time.
thats murderer
Yeah, but is being a murderer really all that bad? C’mon, man, think it through!
And… how do you know you aren’t a murderer already? Especially if something as simple as a vote can make you a murderer. Then guess what? Every time you buy a cup of coffee you have to worry about not only where the coffee beans came from and how the megaconglomerate treats the farmers in that country, but also about who made the frigging cup, and the lid of the cup, and the shirts the employees wear, and the shoes that the people who made the shirts that the coffeeshop employees wear. It’s just plain ridiculous.
But then, so is voting for someone who won’t win just because you don’t want to be a murderer.
Besides, killing is only supposed to be hard the first couple of times, right? That’s what all the movies have taught me, anyway. And after you’ve killed more than three people you earn the right to have a permanent five o’clock shadow - even if you’re a girl - and you get to have this really cool and concerned furrowed brow ALL THE TIME.
I really like Ellen’s thing about how this war doesn’t really effect us (the educated elite) the same way the Vietnam War and its draft affected the boomers. Right now, I can ignore it, and my day to day life demands that I pay attention to the things that are impacting me directly because of all of the swirling complications that enter my head as soon as the question becomes one of predominantly moral obligation. But if you come over to my house and start killing my puppies? Fuck you. I’m going to be late with my rent this month and I will catch up on The Office when it comes out on DVD and all of my energy right now is going to be spent on figuring out how many times I can punch you in the face.
But then, that’s where all these wars come from, isn’t it?
First the difference in voting and buying a cup of coffee is pretty huge is the megaconglamerate probably is dicking the the farmer over on what he pays him… fuck the the farmer let him go join fair trade. As far as sweatshop workers go, more power to them I totally support sweatshops. There is a reason why sweatshop workers attack American protester… americans are idiots, but we can get into the economics of sweatshops later. If any one really feels that horrible about poor farmers and factory workers they should vote for someone that believe in equal and preferably free trade between countries. The equal should be stressed, otherwise you end up with mercantilism and why the Asian markets collapsed in 1997, You would also save lives that way as well as increasing the living standard for others as well as your own. Its not the full fix just a start. You also wouldn’t have huge companies if there was no government involvement
Voting for someone who is not running on a platform to kill people does make me feel better than voting for someone who is running on a platform to kill people. But I’m might be weird in that way?
Maybe Ellen is right, if we bury our heads in the sand long enough, we can go to war with a nationalist Iran, so when we have a so called terrorist attack we can say “Lets kill’em! They had no right to come here and kill my friends, just because we dropped a nuke on them,” Yeah because with the exception of a few all candidates said Nuke Iran is an option.
The effects are everywhere how she could say we feel nothing is crazy! The dollar is worth nothing, and I can’t get a WII. I have to get a national idea card that’s biometricly read , which is cool but wrong. The local cops here let me smoke weed, but if a fed sees, I’m screwed. Yes, I thought about leaving the country but they have expatriot taxes, so I still have to pay. Which brings up the fact when I stopped paying taxes the government said tey would send me to jail! I don’t know I’m tired, I talk about this all day at work and by now it’s pretty hard to focus so…. wait I like puppies, and Ron Paul is going to WIN! I’m also Irish, drunk and like to get hit in the face. night “Every generation needs a new revolution” Tom jefferson.
I have several comments. First, hats off to Henri for mentioning my favorite writer (Nabokov).
Second: I am not sure I agree with Courtney Martin on this:
When Friedman was young and people were taking to the streets, there were a handful of issues to focus on and a few solid sources of news to pay attention to.
Yes, there were only a few solid sources of news, but there were a lot of things to talk and think about because in any historical age there are a lot of things to think about and care about. Infinite sides of governance. There were reports of wars, etc., coming out of the wars around the world throughout the 20th century, albeit at a different pace. The reporting on the Vietnam War or even on Korea could probably be said to be more thorough and possibly fact-based than that on the Iraq War.
The difference is that our concept of ‘governance’ and what issues affect us has now become global. We no longer thing the infinite things we have to care about are just taxes, local politicans, segregation, racial issues, family structure… i.e., domestic issues. This infinite list includes those things, yes (although how much do most of us actually know about tax codes? arguably less than before). This list includes all the wars because it is now part of our accepted arguments that these things–wars in ‘other people’s countries’–now directly affect us. (Because they do.)
I thought Henri’s point about how the arguments are more complicated is true, too, and good. I.e., we are more aware of all the consequences a given moral choice might take. So maybe you buy only local produce to reduce food miles, but now a farmer you used to buy from is unemployed and if everyone did it he would probably be worse off. Or you buy organic food but then it uses more landspace.
I think the question of responsibility for murder is important, though. I think my friend Skye wrote a lot of blogs about these ethical questions (If you know someone will die and don’t save them, then are you responsible? If you could do something and don’t, are you responsible? If you don’t stop the politicians who are doing these things, are you responsible? Even if you can’t stop them, if you don’t try, are you responsible? etc.) based on Peter Singer’s arguments (the food ethicist, not the private military company expert). But I also think one problem that leads to a lot of ultimately more damaging policies is the idea we have the responsibility to ‘fix’ the rest of the world, which we often do by imposing our social-political-economic structures on them in ways that destroy other things.
And lead to overwhelmedness for us…
And I have gotten carried away. But I close with this comment my friend sent after I sent her the Friedman article:
Anyone who reads and whose first two elections to vote were 2000 and 2004 could very easily feel this way.
I’m not really entering the big debate, as for one thing the terms of the generational activism where I come from are very different. Anti-globalisation in Europe is much more conspicuous on a daily basis; I’m not trying to undermine the US, I know it’s a big deal here too, but in Europe, or western Europe anyway, there is a conspicuous and prevalent trend in linking political activism with supposed globalised ethics in response to a globalised economy. It happens here too, but in Britain in particular it’s virtually impossible to avoid, to the point where one would question how deep the appeal goes, if not how wide. It reminds me a little of the punk rockers I knew in secondary school who worked at McDonalds, and half of whom are now the very ’suits’ they claimed to despise.
I’m actually very sceptical of talk of ‘generations’ and so on. I think people are people, and supposed generation-defining incidents are just incidents, after all, though they vary in scale. I participated in the march in London against war in Iraq in 2003, and I’m glad I did. I don’t feel it committed me to particular stands in other arguments though, and it doesn’t give my generation any kind of cache. I have a problem with identifying protests against the Vietnam War or participation in World War II as something “we” went through and “you” didn’t. It’s ridiculous.
So, to cut a long story short, my comment is this: I am incredibly impressed Sarah, that you put up an Ian Brown song. The man is a legend. And an exceptionally appropriate song as well. I’m off now to wear a big coat, shake my head around like a deranged simian and tell people I’m “mad for it”.
I also had not realised that Americans spell ’sceptical’ as ’skeptical’ until now.
I only have one thing to say…ok, two actually: Wow. What a great, discussion inspiring post! Good for you Sarah!
Two: Ken, we vote with our dollars. In our capitalistic society where we can buy everything from hormone-laden milk to fair trade coffee to politicians, the market and the politics follow the money. Also, your second post/comment was very confusing and jumped around a lot, so perhaps I am not fully understanding your point in the first paragraph.
Shrug.
So am I generation X, Y, Q, or is there a new ad hoc over-generalization for who I am from some columnist out today? I need to know who I am and what I believe! Help!
First, yeah sorry I was drunk and pissed at an earlier conversation in the bar about how I’m an evil warmonger because I will not vote for Hillary? So drunk and pissed = a bit jumped around.
I would have to disagree with your first statement. We do not live in a capitalist society, we live in a society of Mercantilism. Markets should not, and do not follow money, the opposite is true. Politics/government try to force markets through threat of violence to their own designs. This is where most problems lay. A capitalist society would/should have no controls but be allowed to move unfettered. For more info check out Chalmers Johnson’s “Blowback” the chapter Meltdown.
I still say I’d totally vote for a murderer as long as they promised to kill the right people. And by “right people” I generally mean the people who were mean to me when I was growing up.
And I know, I know - if everyone voted that way then we’d all be murdered. But I don’t care. I don’t want everyone to vote that way, just me. Yay!
At the same time, I don’t know if I’d buy something from a murderer. That would mean I’d have to go into his store, where I’m pretty sure I’d be helpless. Or I’d be able to kill him…
So yeah, voting with the dollar still seems more powerful, even though politicians can send kids to war to protect their financial interests and blah, blah, blah. We *all* try to force markets through threat of violence to our own designs, it’s just that most of us don’t have much power. Until we join forces and stand together, of course.
And that’s why I need all of you to join forces with me. Let’s all go out and buy a Diet Coke Plus, because my dollar votes for Diet Coke with random vitamins added to it every time. It’s like Centrum Silver, but loaded with aspartame! What more are you looking for people?
I’m going to be sad if the market doesn’t support my beverage of choice and I have to go back to taking pills with my soda. It’s just not the same.
Wow, talk talk talk. I’m going to have to read a lot before I can leave a real comment.
All interesting points… but I’m still convinced that just like “Video Killed the Radio Star”… the internets killed the American Protestor. There needs to be a backlash - instead of “no shopping day” or whatever… have a “no blogging… take to the streets day”… who’s gonna organize it??? I’m kinda busy…