Millennials & Activism

As a twenty-something political junkie, perhaps I am hypersensitive to charges that my generation is somehow not meeting the "activism" standard of previous generations.

Last year, Thomas Friedman labeled us "Generation Q", charging that we were too plugged into our laptops, too "quiet," and not active enough in the real world. The most recent jab at Millenials comes from Sally Kohn. Kohn is the Director of the Movement Vision Lab @ the Center for Community Change. She recently penned a piece in the Christian Science Monitor, "REAL CHANGE HAPPENS OFF-LINE: Millennials need to be activists face to face" (also crossposted on the site here). Both Friedman’s piece and Kohn’s latest lament that Millenials are not meeting their potential to create large-scale change. And what’s holding us back? That damn internet:

[I]nternet activism is individualistic. It's great for a sense of interconnectedness, but the Internet does not bind individuals in shared struggle the same as the face-to-face activism of the 1960s and '70s did. It allows us to channel our individual power for good, but it stops there.

Kohn does recognize that the internet has allowed a new generation of Americans to not only become more informed about national and world issues, but to also connect with others on a national and international scale. But this is not enough, she writes:

This is great for signing a petition to Congress or donating to a cause. But the real challenges in our society – the growing gap between rich and poor, the intransigence of racism and discrimination, the abuses from Iraq to Burma (Myanmar) – won't politely go away with a few clicks of a mouse. Or even a million.

I must have missed the memo that said that the burden of solving the world's greatest problems, from class warfare to racism to illegal wards, falls upon internet-loving high schoolers and college kids, and not also upon the millions of other Americans who also have an interest in solving these moral issues. And indeed, perhaps this is what I find most infuriating about pieces that call out Millenials for their perceived inaction -- that there is no corresponding chastisement of the Baby Boomers or the millions of other Americans who also have the ability to engage in "real world" activism. No, the slap on the wrist is reserved only for Millenials, who Kohn and others believe are too focused on the self and not focused enough on collective action:

The lone cowboy story was a myth. Our greatest accomplishments, as individuals and as a nation, have almost always come from hitching our wagons to others and working together, not just in going it alone.

To avoid eroding the values Millennials so appreciate, and to truly influence the world around them, they must transform their online activism into off-line communities and build an effective movement for change. From church basements to campus meetings to voters' doors, Millennials need to add face-to-face action to their innate sense of community.

The idea that any person—or any generation, for that matter—is advocating "going it alone" is a convenient strawman, for as the explosion of activism online has demonstrated, Millenials are not "going it alone," but are reaching out to strangers and friends alike to fight for change. The notion that Millenials don't appreciate the need for corresponding offline action is also ludicrous. One need only glace at Barack Obama's "events" page to see how active Millienials are offline.

These pieces feed nicely into the myth that Millennials are failing to meet some "activism" standard set by previous generations, or that by being tethered to our computers, we are isolating ourselves from a real world aching for change.

Yes, it is certainly true, our generation has generally avoided protests and sit-ins, the twin hallmarks of traditional activism. But it must also be recognized that unlike activists in the past, we do not have the draft nipping at our heels, a factor that unquestionably led so many in the 1960s to leap into action. In other words, politics decades ago were intensely personal – from civil rights struggles to being drafted - and there is no greater incentive for action than policies which have a direct and palpable effect on the individual. In this sense, although Kohn claims it is our "hyperindividualism" that shackles us, it is the closer connection between politics and the individual in the decades past that prompted youth to take action.

More critically, however, it is a fallacy to urge us to use tools from the 1960s activist toolbox in this digital age.

The protest has served this nation well, but there can be no question that it has lost its effectiveness. There is still a vital role for it, of course, but real change in the new millennium is not as simple as unplugging our computers and walking outside with a banner. The protest presumes that it will have an effect--namely, that the direct engagement of the powerful will influence them to take a correct form of action.

Yet the "powerful" of today do not resemble the "powerful" of the 1960s or 1970s. The last decade has proven that not only is our government -- at least at the federal level -- wholly non-responsive to the will of the people, but the corporate press has also minimalized the protest. Coverage of protests--when protesters are lucky enough to get such coverage--is usually a side note, and such acts of civil engagement are today reported on primarily as acts of street theater.

As such, when upon millions across the nation and across the globe protested the invasion of Iraq, the government did not blink an eye. When yearly protests on the war flooded D.C., the press shrugged. And when, for example, Representative Conyers and other members of Congress marched to the White House to deliver over a half a million signatures from Americans demanding to know the truth about the Downing Street Memo, the world yawned, and Conyers wasn't even let through the gate.

Such in-your-face activism that was so successful in the past presumes that those to whom such activism is directed retain a modicum of respect for the people. If the last eight years have proven anything, however, it is that such respect for the will of ordinary Americans is non-existent. No, what the people want is irrelevant. What the people do in the voting booth is the only thing that matters anymore.

It is in this context that we should view movement politics in the digital age.  

Saul Alinksy, the champion of citizen organizing, reflected on change and movement politics as follows:

Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.

For many Baby Boomers and others, the "friction" which gives rise to movement politics can only exist in the "real" world, with in-your-face protests, or direct "face to face" contact with other citizens. This nostalgia for confrontational politics is most evident when Friedman writes that Millennials need "to light a fire under the country" and that they have to "get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them."

But in the digital era, we don't need explosions of conflict to create the friction necessary for change. In other words, change does not require bouts of large-scale confrontation. Rather, a smoldering fire in this day and age can arguably be just as effective as a high-octane protest, or a sit-in with chants, or a protest at the National Mall.

Modern-day friction which drives political change is occurring throughout the nation on micro-level, not on a targeted macro-level. It occurs on web forums, on Facebook pages, in instant messaging, and ultimately, in countless of offline interactions as well. In this sense, movement change is occurring ripple by ripple, rather than with a short-lived tsunami.  

Those ripples of change are YouTube videos or email forwards regarding politics. They're the debate you have with your friends across the nation--a debate you wouldn't necessarily have had without the ability to interact online. The ripples are the hundreds if not thousands of contacts you make online with real people, people who you may meet in person, or people who will forever remain an anonymous UID on the screen. Lack of offline personal contact does not mean lack of influence or lack of connectedness, as members of this community can  attest.

No Millennial, and certainly not this one, can claim that movement change can happen with digital tools alone. But it also cannot happen without the digital tools, tools which have allowed our generation to become more engaged than ever in the political process.

Protests, sit-ins, and other badges of traditional friction aren't there, but friction in the digital age does exist. Millenials are challenging the status quo, creating change that bubbles up from MeetUps and online organizing. Friction is about pouring into voting booths across the country at unprecedented rates and voting for the skinny black guy with a funny name. And friction is about arming citizens with the knowledge to directly engage their friends, families, and co-workers (PDF):

According to some observers, the Internet may have considerable potential to reach and engage opinion leaders who influence the thinking and behavior of others. According to the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, "Online Political Citizens" (OPCs) are "seven times more likely than average citizens to serve as opinion leaders among their friends, relatives and colleagues...Normally, 10% of Americans qualify as Influentials. Our study found that 69% of Online Political Citizens are Influentials."

Change in the digital era is less about directly engaging power brokers through a finite number of large-scale events, and more about directly engaging other citizens to change their worldview, and their perceptions about who should be in power and what policies we should have. It is about the power of information, and an appreciation that change happens when we connect with others--whether it be online or offline. In other words, it is about engaging in precisely the type of one-on-one interaction Kohn and Friedman and others wish for, but fail to recognize, because it isn't as flashy as that of the past, and because it happens to be conducted online as well as offline.

Millenials may not be protesting in the streets, but they are changing the face of politics. The change may be subtle, but it's happening. And when a Democratic president is elected on the backs of twenty-somethings, when this progressive generation helps to solidify a Democratic majority for decades to come, history will look upon us as the generation that helped to usher in a new progressive era for this country. Then, and maybe then, people will stop lecturing us, and we'll finally get a pat on the back instead of a slap on the wrist.