I just finished reading Bruce Levine’s article at Alternet: “8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance [1].” It is a rare day when I read a detailed article with which I so completely agree. Here are eight reasons why the great majority of young Americans passively accept massive social injustice, incessant warmongering, and a stunning amount of lying and betrayal by most of their so-called leaders:
1. Student-Loan Debt.
2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance.
3. Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy.
4. “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.”
5. Shaming Young People Who Take Education—But Not Their Schooling—Seriously
6. The Normalization of Surveillance.
7. Television.
8. Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism.
I highly recommend Levine’s article for more details on each of these reasons. I especially agree with his arguments that by fighting back, young Americans perceive that they are putting at risk their chances of engaging in the material good life that they crave. Fighting back, and even speaking out in person, can destroy one’s chances of getting a “good” job. Most people I know limit their “activism” to bitching about problems on social media, and failing to get out on the streets and in the faces of elected representatives.
I would add at least the following two items my own to Levine’s list, however:
9. A sense of resignation that the political process can no longer result in meaningful change, especially after the crushing spectacle of Barack Obama abandoning working folks, and crawling into bed with big oil, insurance, telecommunications, media and banks in order to pad his re-election war chest. Most people with whom I speak have no interest in engaging in the political process on the national level because it is almost entirely corrupt.
10. The powers that be have needlessly complicated virtually every aspect of American life, such that reform is a substantial investment in sorting through vast quantifies of misinformation, something that is made almost impossible without assistance from experts, including legal experts. In other words, becoming an activist in most areas these days is intimidating. For most people, getting seriously involved in a major political issue means that they will give much more than they are willing to offer to their country.
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