NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman this week about “Generation Q,” what he calls the “too quiet, too online” twentysomethings who he thinks overdose on optimism and idealism and skimp on true political passion.
American needs a jolt of idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for—to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.”
American youth is anything but lackluster. We may have earned a rep of being apathetic and apolitical but we’re just a different kind of political.
Studies such as those published earlier this year by CIRCLE and the University of Chicago’s Black Youth Project suggest that large percentages of youth are engaging in politics but in less-traditional ways, that there is more local volunteerism than ever before, for example, and strongly asserted instinctive opinions of government and political power gained through niche cultural products and styles.
Yalie Nicholas Handler, the winner of a New York Times Magazine’s recent college essay contest, describes the reality of life in a post-everything world:
On campus, we sign petitions, join organizations, put our names on mailing lists, make small-money contributions, volunteer a spare hour to tutor, and sport an entire wardrobe’s worth of Live Strong bracelets advertising our moderately priced opposition to everything from breast cancer to global warming. But what do we really stand for? Like a true postmodern generation we refuse to weave together an overarching narrative to our own political consciousness, to present a cast of inspirational or revolutionary characters on our public stage, or to define a specific philosophy. We are a story seemingly without direction or theme, structure or meaning–a generation defined negatively against what came before us. When Al Gore once said “It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism,” he might as well have been echoing his entire generation’s critique of our own. We are a generation for whom even revolution seems trite, and therefore as fair a target for bland imitation as anything else. We are the generation of the Che Guevara T-shirt.
If anything can be taken from Handler’s self-aware observations, it’s that the world of “Gen Q” is vastly different than that of our baby boomer parents and shouldn’t be evaluated by boomer standards.
The landscape of public discourse and political power is shifting with every YouTube upload, every blog post, every two-faced message freshly screened on a “vintage” tee. But how can we truly affect change if the nation’s leaders aren’t tuned into our MySpace rants, YouTube spoofs and opinion-emblazoned wardrobe?
How do we spark a meatspace political revolution powered by the clickity-clack of Facebook campaigns and sporadic campus activism? How do we take the reins of the future into our hands? How do we crank up the volume?
Well, one idea is to VOTE. Even if we’re not ecstatic with the selection of candidates in any given election, if higher percentages of young people voted then politicians would be obliged to start catering to issues we deemed important. It’s a good place to start.