Hellraisers: the Next Generation
From the eco-MBA to the Christian hipster, college activism is alive and kicking—but what today's students care about might surprise you.
this spring, we posted a survey at motherjones.com to find out what our readers think about the state of student activism. How do today's campus movers and shakers stack up to their peace-marching, draft-card-burning, hunger-striking forebears? Among the respondents, the consensus was clear: 85 percent said students today are less politically active than they were in the '60s. So where have all the hellraisers gone? Many are online. Nearly half of current college students told us that the future of activism is digital. But nearly two-thirds also said the future is on campus. Flesh-and-blood action is far from an anachronism, but it's becoming unthinkable without social networking tools. To see how this mix of the old and the new works, look no further than Obama's young campaigners. They've got online organizing down to a science, but unlike the Deaniacs, they've mastered old-school skills like canvassing, door knocking, and phone banking. In November, we'll see if they pass their biggest test: luring their peers to the polls.
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This feels a little mocking of student activism. If you want to empower people to create change why in the world would you try to place them in these arbitrary boxes. Guess what? The computer activist also has a urban garden outside her 10th floor walk up and worms making soil on top of her tiny fridge. She may even support Obama or she could be a libertarian who thinks a truely free market (which we don't have)will solve world hunger. This 'cartoon essay' sounds a lot like what you may have heard at one point when you were an activist, "they look so funny and I don't understand them - they must be on drugs or silly". Pot meet kettle - Mother Jones meet your next generation of contributors (unless you alienate them as young people).
I wonder how the younger crowd will react when the draft is reinstated?
I'm for supporting whatever it is you believe in, but I'm also for reforming Sallie Mae to whatever extent necessary to make attending a college more affordable for more people. No reason you should have to indenture yourself for tens of thousands of dollars if what you're going to get isn't really going to get you hired on someplace that pays enough to make it worth your while. How many college graduate hydro-ceramic sanitation technicians are there? Save the activism for lunchtime, let's talk about professional development or forget it.
I have no idea where you're getting this from....I'm out at PSU there is no activism besides kids irking about sweatshops and random groups all about freedom for Isreal. This generation lacks unity. We should have a lot to say, but face it...our parents decided to abandon us by putting our generation in front of the television and dosing us up with drugs that wreck our souls. Eh it could be worse, right?
Bert...VERY true! Glad you mentioned it. What's the use for getting a degree you can't use? Then you'll have no money to speak up. Money = power these days, don't matter where you're from or what you believe. If you can't broadcast, travel, or donate to make your cause tangible...no one will listen. I think you should learn the facts for an extension of time, live the world, make money and invest in what you believe.
I'm surprised you don't have a Student PIRG organizer on the list. Their subtitle can read: "Burnt out idealist from middle to upper class privileged background". That's the issue with student activism today. There are plenty of young people that care about the issues that plague our country and want to make a difference. They're being misused by corporate organizing groups that aren't about making REAL change.
How bout an anarchist, communist, or other "smash capitalism" type?
I didn't think it was mocking. They are after all, caricatures intended to be humorous. I see pieces of myself in some of these. I think engergy is best spent if you take the issues more seriously than your self.
What about the talking snake? Where does he fit in?
The young people are the hope of America. They have not become jaded yet, like us old folk baby boomers, and I welcome their new and refreshing ideas. As for the draft, I pray that all of the old people that have control over this decision are dead and gone by the time they decide to reinstate it. Our countries economy needs to shift from a military industrial establishment to one that is humanitarian and takes care of it's own citizens. Health care and education needs to become a priority in the US or people will continue to try and move to other countries where it is offered.
when you cant go after race, sexuality, gender or religion...you go for age....because people assume the old are always wiser... ha
Speaking for the younger generation, it's not going to happen.
Speaking for the top most layer of the babyboomers, you young people have begun to 'get it' and carry on but your activism is far more global than ours was. All except the poor guy who got stuck in front of the tv and made to do drugs.....I see that not everyone will get it and get on with thier own lives to become a contribution, not a perennial victim! What always finally turns me off about activism is that the bottom line..the ultimate final good we were reaching for was so illusive. In many ways it reminds me of getting old. It gets so you just keep on patching issues and picking scabs because the final Utopia is inevitably not do-able given human nature. I think too of the 'Re-Create 68' people in Denver who are nothing more than old hippies who never really got it back then either. They just want to have a fun party and act the fool while serious business is happening. Causing trouble and playing at being world movers and shakers. Sorry to offend any old dudes out there.
So my answer is to bloom where you are planted among the PEOPLE whose lives you can actually affect. Do good just for the good of it. Period.
You forgot the hip hop activist: focuses on domestic issues like the death penalty, post-katrina, affirmative action, police brutality and the prison system; listens to Dead Prez, The Coup and Talib Kweli; rocks nike dunks, "free mumia" hoodies and headphones.
Yes, there is less student activism now than in the 1960s, but many scholars who research student activism state that the '60s were the exception, not the rule. There has always been student activism and the approach now is more similar to the approach of students in the 1930s--working within the system rather than fighting the system. The problem is that we have come to associate the violent protests of the 1960s as the only definition of student activism, and if the national media doesn't pick up the stories than nothing is happening. One need only read individual campus newspapers to see that there are issues that activate students, and that these issues are ongoing.
Oh, my. I don't know where to begin. I agree that the Internet is the new meeting place for people to learn and discuss issues. The campus has long ceased being the foreground for activism and intellectualism.
But this just seems to poke fun at youth in general, implying that we are all superficial phonies, as though our parents' generation was any more real. Any more informed. Any more genuine.
Surely Mother Jones is aware of how difficult the public/mainstream dissemination of information is. That doesn't mean that there aren't informed youths. On campus or anywhere.
Anyway, while I agree that kids are lame and stupid, this seems like an idealist, misinformed picture of youth that assumes the Boomers were any more aware or active before there was a draft.
The Christian Hipster????
"ending sex slavery, starting Bible study in a bar" progress ending slavery and regressive bible studies, a typical Christian ploy attach something worthy to something dubious, like the missionaries who do good work giving people the necessities of life but in exchange they seek opportunity to indoctrinate their children. It will never end...
I know this was also a bit of parody, but why the need for all the labels and division and negativity? Has Mother Jones kicked the younger readers to the curb? Where else will we get "real" news? Don't think Gen X and Gen Y aren't paying attention! We are! Since we are all so disconnected from each other these days (how well do YOU know your neighbors?), we DO use the internet as a networking tool to meet people with similar views. The expense of college was mentioned, and I don't think that can be overlooked. EVERYONE is working to get by in these days of 2 income households, including college students. How much time, really, does that leave for burning bras you can barely afford in the first place? Not to knock our freedom-fighting predecessors...thanks for blazing us a trail. But please please please don't count us out yet. A new day is coming and together we will rise, but first we have to find each other and educate ourselves if we really want to make a difference. Anyone interested in joining/helping us find our voice can visit fightwithtools.org and see just one of the many groups organizing across the country for social change.
its very interesting especially for the global news alert im more knolegeable to all your featured news.more power..
This article is completely demeaning to student activists everywhere. As a student activist in Gainesville, Fla., I am offended by your archetypal renditions of the different types of students. You left out the students who are making names for themselves, independent of what previous generations did. You left out the students who are committed to what's right and the students fight for not just one cause, but for the general good.
I am surrounded by these people everyday - student government senators, independent student journalists, hunger strikers, demonstrators, organizers, etc.
Students as a whole may be more apathetic, but I would argue this is due in large part to the inadequate nature of the media and the complacency bred by mindless consumerism.
But this is changing. Students everywhere are starting to make change. We are banking on the energy created by the national elections and we plan to keep the fight alive after Nov. 4.
Which activist would best represent us in the above diagram? None of the above. We are a small, but growing, force fighting for the greater good.
You know, if there was 15 ways to depict youth activism now. Than truly the youth have progressed more than the singular activism of the 60's as depicted by guy number 7.
this spring, we posted a
this spring, we posted a survey at motherjones.com to find out what our readers think about the state of student activism. How do today's campus movers and shakers stack up to their peace-marching, draft-card-burning, hunger-striking forebears?
