Page 1 of 1 pages
very thought-provoking. In fact, its inspired me to write a piece that I’ll try to circulate if I do get around to it. its on the “mea culpa” meme that I’m starting to see emerge from older activists. as a younger person who isnt waiting around for things to get better, I appreciate where you land, but I do have some questions and thoughts on some of the other substance in your piece.
__________________________________________________
“You want the news to be as brief and fast as Twitter; you would like classes to move along in some more amusing format like anim
Posted by carlosinhp on Nov 30, 2009 at 12:07 PM
“I observe your lives. You are smart and can do things via computer I can only dream of. But few of you read a newspaper or even online news sites. However, you are constantly texting and twittering
Posted by Matt Williams on Dec 2, 2009 at 11:06 AM
There is no outrage anymore, simply a deep ache for the ever growing weight of the world.
This is what occurs to me, a college student, as I read this article. I have mentioned the Coup in Honduras to many of my peers, and all of them had no idea what I was talking about. The fact is that being informed about the world seems to have become some sort of useless and painful experience. (I have been called masochistic for reading the news each morning.) Multiple intelligent, compassionate people have confessed that they simply can’t read the news everyday, as it makes them too depressed. Folks with big hearts, with eating disorders, addictions, those who are sexually harassed, overworked, under-loved, who find themselves in a world where all that suffering doesn’t begin to measure up to pain of the world.
I don’t push the importance of being politically informed on my acquaintances, because I don’t blame them for never being taught how to make that type of knowledge empowering. Instead we have been taught to turn this knowledge inward, to shop, to drink, to smoke, to cut, to snort, to gag, to steal, and most importantly, to hate ourselves, the failures.
You want to know why there isn’t a mass student movement? Because poverty, war, corruption, neoliberalism, capitalism, hunger, prison, torture, slavery, global warming, and racism has left some of your dutiful students a little overwhelmed. Some may attempt to join an organization: Cal-Pirg, Amnesty International, Socialist Organizer
Posted by Claire Williams on Dec 2, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Claire,
I completely understand what you mean. the lack of will by organizations (and not necessarily referring to the ones you listed) on the left to acknowledge the role of neoliberalism and the uglyness of what we’re really up against (hint: its more than one particular political party or one particular issue) is truly frustrating.
I encourage you to come to the next US Social Forum in June. Its a space where 100’s of organizations are starting to collaborate on building that better world from within the U.S. www.ussf2010.org
the first one in atlanta was amazing (over 13k ppl),and out of it new configurations and networks are emerging that I believe can add up to something greater, but we need to continue building it. I’ve not necessarily given up hope on change maybe coming from current strategies of larger and well funded organizations, but I definitely feel we need to be organizing our politics to scale if we want to present a real challenge that can potentially inspire those who have lost hope.
keep building….and see you in Detroit?!
Posted by carlosinhp on Dec 2, 2009 at 11:29 AM
I am British and we have a very similar state of affairs in universities here - or at least, did in the late nineties when I went to university. The Iraq war stimulated a bit more activity but still not much.
I got interested in politics at university and wanted to be involved in things. But there was nothing going on to get involved in. This made me very frustrated, even angry with my fellow students.
On leaving university I mixed in more activisty circles (still do to some extent) and it was only then that I began to wonder if the ‘apathetic’ students weren’t right. Because I went on demonstrations, and they were easily ignored. I did direct actions, and they achieved nothing. I joined political organisations, and found them to be irrelevant subcultures.
Overall, the impression I got (and still get) is a bunch of leftist organisations trying to follow a template of protest and ‘radicalism’ established in the 60s that - and here is the key point - failed. It didn’t stop more wars. It incited a reaction against feminism that has almost destroyed it. It propagated identity politics of a very divisive kind. It encouraged an authoritarian-tinged ‘liberal’ ethic that is happy to use power to enforce equality. All it mostly achieved in the end was to give the participants a feeling of freedom and empowerment that was, I can’t help thinking, largely false.
Gradually it dawned on me that perhaps it was my fellow students who had been right. There was no point in protesting. It achieved nothing (the PR machines of govts are now adept at out-spinning the protesters) and no one was sure what alternative we wanted anyway, so why pretend we are marching together towards some brighter future?
I am a radical, and I’m glad people don’t go on demonstrations any more. I am also glad that people use Twitter. Maybe Twitter is where real radicalism lies - who knows? I do know that we need to find new ways of doing things, not recycle the ‘radical’ forms of previous decades that have not, if we are honest, been entirely successful.
Posted by Jake S on Dec 8, 2009 at 4:49 AM
I read your article carefully, and felt it as an invitation to think. Thank you for that.
I find it less important that I don’t share your views on technology (I see it as the state of the world, Internet being the space in which the human consciousness develops, and has chances for new ways of connecting - even if it is not achieved yet, the chances are here.)
Your sentences and insights about teaching do touch me :
“... to see ourselves as mentors and partners rather than leaders. This is how I now approach education, but shifting my attitude meant that I had to relinquish much of my power in the classroom. And that in turn has forced the students to take charge of some of the teaching, to abandon their comfortable passivity. “
Relinquishing our power empowers others. Gives them space to go in their own rhythms. And that is the sprout of new, much needed ways. So, as I see it, what you did 40 years ago, you are doing now as well, on another field, and in other ways.
Thank you for inspiration.
p.s.
I live and work in Zagreb, Croatia, Europe. I am thirty six. I work as therapist (my call) and as business trainer (my earnings). English is my second language. I’ve never been to US.
Posted by smich on Dec 13, 2009 at 5:51 AM
“Call me old-fashioned, but I don
Posted by Gregory A. Butler on Dec 16, 2009 at 11:29 PM
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very thought-provoking. In fact, its inspired me to write a piece that I’ll try to circulate if I do get around to it. its on the “mea culpa” meme that I’m starting to see emerge from older activists. as a younger person who isnt waiting around for things to get better, I appreciate where you land, but I do have some questions and thoughts on some of the other substance in your piece.
__________________________________________________
“You want the news to be as brief and fast as Twitter; you would like classes to move along in some more amusing format like anim
“I observe your lives. You are smart and can do things via computer I can only dream of. But few of you read a newspaper or even online news sites. However, you are constantly texting and twittering
There is no outrage anymore, simply a deep ache for the ever growing weight of the world.
This is what occurs to me, a college student, as I read this article. I have mentioned the Coup in Honduras to many of my peers, and all of them had no idea what I was talking about. The fact is that being informed about the world seems to have become some sort of useless and painful experience. (I have been called masochistic for reading the news each morning.) Multiple intelligent, compassionate people have confessed that they simply can’t read the news everyday, as it makes them too depressed. Folks with big hearts, with eating disorders, addictions, those who are sexually harassed, overworked, under-loved, who find themselves in a world where all that suffering doesn’t begin to measure up to pain of the world.
I don’t push the importance of being politically informed on my acquaintances, because I don’t blame them for never being taught how to make that type of knowledge empowering. Instead we have been taught to turn this knowledge inward, to shop, to drink, to smoke, to cut, to snort, to gag, to steal, and most importantly, to hate ourselves, the failures.
You want to know why there isn’t a mass student movement? Because poverty, war, corruption, neoliberalism, capitalism, hunger, prison, torture, slavery, global warming, and racism has left some of your dutiful students a little overwhelmed. Some may attempt to join an organization: Cal-Pirg, Amnesty International, Socialist Organizer
Claire,
I completely understand what you mean. the lack of will by organizations (and not necessarily referring to the ones you listed) on the left to acknowledge the role of neoliberalism and the uglyness of what we’re really up against (hint: its more than one particular political party or one particular issue) is truly frustrating.
I encourage you to come to the next US Social Forum in June. Its a space where 100’s of organizations are starting to collaborate on building that better world from within the U.S. www.ussf2010.org
the first one in atlanta was amazing (over 13k ppl),and out of it new configurations and networks are emerging that I believe can add up to something greater, but we need to continue building it. I’ve not necessarily given up hope on change maybe coming from current strategies of larger and well funded organizations, but I definitely feel we need to be organizing our politics to scale if we want to present a real challenge that can potentially inspire those who have lost hope.
keep building….and see you in Detroit?!
Check out what
I am British and we have a very similar state of affairs in universities here - or at least, did in the late nineties when I went to university. The Iraq war stimulated a bit more activity but still not much.
I got interested in politics at university and wanted to be involved in things. But there was nothing going on to get involved in. This made me very frustrated, even angry with my fellow students.
On leaving university I mixed in more activisty circles (still do to some extent) and it was only then that I began to wonder if the ‘apathetic’ students weren’t right. Because I went on demonstrations, and they were easily ignored. I did direct actions, and they achieved nothing. I joined political organisations, and found them to be irrelevant subcultures.
Overall, the impression I got (and still get) is a bunch of leftist organisations trying to follow a template of protest and ‘radicalism’ established in the 60s that - and here is the key point - failed. It didn’t stop more wars. It incited a reaction against feminism that has almost destroyed it. It propagated identity politics of a very divisive kind. It encouraged an authoritarian-tinged ‘liberal’ ethic that is happy to use power to enforce equality. All it mostly achieved in the end was to give the participants a feeling of freedom and empowerment that was, I can’t help thinking, largely false.
Gradually it dawned on me that perhaps it was my fellow students who had been right. There was no point in protesting. It achieved nothing (the PR machines of govts are now adept at out-spinning the protesters) and no one was sure what alternative we wanted anyway, so why pretend we are marching together towards some brighter future?
I am a radical, and I’m glad people don’t go on demonstrations any more. I am also glad that people use Twitter. Maybe Twitter is where real radicalism lies - who knows? I do know that we need to find new ways of doing things, not recycle the ‘radical’ forms of previous decades that have not, if we are honest, been entirely successful.
I read your article carefully, and felt it as an invitation to think. Thank you for that.
I find it less important that I don’t share your views on technology (I see it as the state of the world, Internet being the space in which the human consciousness develops, and has chances for new ways of connecting - even if it is not achieved yet, the chances are here.)
Your sentences and insights about teaching do touch me :
“... to see ourselves as mentors and partners rather than leaders. This is how I now approach education, but shifting my attitude meant that I had to relinquish much of my power in the classroom. And that in turn has forced the students to take charge of some of the teaching, to abandon their comfortable passivity. “
Relinquishing our power empowers others. Gives them space to go in their own rhythms. And that is the sprout of new, much needed ways. So, as I see it, what you did 40 years ago, you are doing now as well, on another field, and in other ways.
Thank you for inspiration.
p.s.
I live and work in Zagreb, Croatia, Europe. I am thirty six. I work as therapist (my call) and as business trainer (my earnings). English is my second language. I’ve never been to US.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I don
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