Youth power and the progressive future
5:00 pm - December 9th 2008
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The last in the Guardian’s 2008 series of debates, fluffily titled Who Owns The Progressive Future?, was put down by its own keynote speaker last week as Caroline Lucas of the Green Party wryly declared that she’d rather share it. Lucas, Bea Campbell, Ken Livingstone and Aditya Chakrabortty made for an engaging panel, but the mood of the debate was distinctly glum. Who owns the progressive future? Not us, was the conclusion. I was going to be good. I was going to sit there and eat my sandwich and be quiet and grateful for my free ticket. But when the debate turned to blaming the moral failures of today’s youth for progressive political apathy, my fingers started to itch.
A man from the audience deplored the fact that he’d caught his teenage son stealing, and declared that the ‘post-Thatcherite’ generation were ‘politically vapid’ and lacked a ‘moral compass’, at which point I found myself yelling‘absolute rubbish’ across the hall.
Slander. Lazy, unthinking neo-liberal slander that tars a generation already unfairly dismissed as drunken, amoral, apathetic, selfish and useless, the 21st Century’s Gin Lane. I have no time for it. At no point in my political memory has this generation been apolitical. What we haven’t been is party political, and that’s a very different matter.
I’m sorry to go on about this. But when two million of us marched through London in 2003, demanding that our government refrain from following the United States into what we knew would be our generation’s Vietnam, and when we were utterly ignored, many of us ceased to believe in the power of government to change the world. For a lot of us, that was our first experience of direct political involvement – and it wasn’t a happy one.
No wonder, then, that we have reacted by abandoning the parties in unprecedented numbers. But as the youth vote has dwindled and membership of mainstream British political parties trickled into the low hundred thousands in every age group, membership of voluntary organisations continues to soar. It is estimated that a third of 16-25 year olds is directly involved in voluntary work. There are 20 million volunteers in this country, a figure that dwarfs party membership by several degrees.
Just take a look at Redwatch, the spotters’ site where fascists can go and wank half-heartedly over mugshots of wooly-hatted crusty lefties on demos (I like to think that this is BNP members’ version of the Man In Uniform sexual paradigm). Well, firstly, the leaked membership list now makes Redwatch worse than useless (come on, what are you going to do? Photoshop us? Go through our rubbish? Really? We know where you live now, so come and have a go if you’re going to. Are you going to write a letter to the Mail? Are you, really? Bring that storm down!). More importantly, fit young commies are increasingly making up the numbers: Redwatch is becoming young, taut and hot as under-30s flood the anti-capitalist, green, anti-globalisation, feminist and pro-equality movements.
More of us than ever are on the streets, and fewer and fewer are choosing to engage directly with the political process. In my many soul-destroying hours interning with think-tanks and in dealings with the leached-out little New Labour finishing school that is the NUS, most of the young people I’ve met who would call themselves ‘stakeholders’ in the Tory, Labour or LibDem parties are some of the most spineless, career-oriented, name-dropping, politically vapid slimy Whitehall dishrags I’ve ever come across, with a minority of real long-suffering radicals trying their best to keep their souls long enough to change the system from within (NB:I’ve not met young Claire Hazelgrove, and can’t comment on which category she might fall into!). The dishrag brigade are probably going to be in power in ten years, worse luck, and these will be the young people that MPs and political decision-makers spend most of their time with. But they do not represent the sum total of political energy amongst my generation.
Who owns the progressive future? Not Labour, not any more. But despite watching our politicians fail us time after heartwrenching time, Generation Y has still not given up on the idea of saving the world: more of us than ever are socially and politically active; we are connected; we care. We just don’t care about the political process anymore. It’s now the task of liberal parties to persuade us that our democratic inheritance is worth reclaiming.
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Laurie Penny is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. She is a journalist, blogger and feminist activist. She is Features Assistant at the Morning Star, and blogs at Penny Red and for Red Pepper magazine.
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Reader comments
But when two million of us marched through London in 2003, demanding that our government refrain from following the United States into what we knew would be our generation’s Vietnam
You sure about that? My recollection was that it was just people, not exclusively young people and certainly not just one generation of people.
“my generation, one of the most enlightened, engaged, interesting bunches of young people ever to grace this undeserving continent”
Hmm. Certainly one of the most hyperbolic and self-aggrandising by that line 
It’s a folly of youth to think that they alone have a monopoly on compassion or on energy.
It’s a folly of the aged to think they have a monopoly on wisdom or insight (though they do have a monopoly on experience, which can be handy…)
At least by recognising the existence of “spineless, career-oriented, name-dropping, politically vapid slimy Whitehall dishrags” (nice phrase) among your generation, Laurie, you admit ‘your’ generation ain’t perfect. It ain’t disastrous either (pace the doom-sayers): it’s just what comes around every, er, generation or so: a new raggle-taggle of souls trying to make sense of their existence on the planet. Some will be wankers, some will be saintly, most will be an uneasy mixture. No generation is particularly better or worse than any other (except those bastard selfish baby-boomers [joke]).
“Who owns the progressive future?”
The people who own it are the people who are members of political parties and organisations: if we care about serious change we must care about the political process.
Direct action has its place in connecting people to the process, but surely it has to have some lasting impact on wider participation and coalition-building, otherwise it is just wasted effort. Going on a march or demonstration can’t be the end product – it has to be the starting point of something bigger.
Since I’ve been commenting here at LC it’s made me think again about augmenting my local efforts by joining a party or directly-political organisation, so it is certainly informative to read Claire Hazelgrove’s response for getting involved, but I’m still not convinced by her reasons for joining Labour.
I’d be interested to know what people think are the benefits of joining various different groups (partisan or otherwise) as a productive outlet for someone who doesn’t require the personal affirmation of being a candidate thenselves.
Suggestions and recommendations of groups worth supporting would be welcome.
Whomever the “progressive future” (which means whatever anyone wants it to mean) belongs to, it certainly isn’t “commies”, fit or otherwise.
It’s now the task of liberal parties to persuade us that our democratic inheritance is worth reclaiming.
Or else…?
I second Alisdair’s comment Laurie.; every generation of young people that comes along gets blamed for society’s ills. I’m of the punk generation, and I’m sure you’re aware of how well they went down with the oldies, and before us of course came the hippies – nuff said.
I do think that my lot were more politically engaged, but then we had had Thatcher to deal with, inner city riots, and mass unemployment. Give it a couple of years and I’m fairly sure it’ll all come round again, so brush up on those world saving skills (and get some throwing practice in :).
If you want youth with ideas and a plan, have a look at these guys:
http://www.voteliberalist.org/
Thomas: The advantages depends on the group. With parties, it also varies. The Greens and Lib Dems, you will get the opportunity to vote a range of internal party elections and participate in the policy making process. Labour also has this, but to a quite substantially lesser degree. In all cases, you could hopefully also contribute in some way, large or small, towards supporting a candidate locally who you think could help make a difference.
Its also quite the mixed bag with pressure groups. Some, like say Liberty, heavily revolve around experts. They do have an AGM and ways to participate, but it is likely you would just end up contributing monetarily- which is no bad thing. Others, such as say, Amnesty, are much more hands on.
I wouldn’t venture to point out specific groups without a greater knowledge of areas in which you might be intersted in becoming more heavily involved.
As to the main post: I am really not sure that more of us than ever are socially aware and active. I think much of what might have been done informally, through churches and other spheres, is now formalised: and NGO’s are much more slick so more people are participating on paper. The idea that we are part of a golden generation of activists, who are just disillusioned with politics, really doesn’t fit with my experience, or with the statistics.
I’d rather not look at redwatch, though I have before. It largely consists of the far-left, which has alway largely consisted of student activists with a lot of churn. They are, however, smaller than ever before- just like everyone else. Indeed, campuses in general are not experiencing a renaissance of involvement or of student activism, even through NGO groups. They are there, but there is nothing exceptional about it. Nor are there “more than ever on the streets”- indeed, I struggle to think of a march in the last year or two that really got impressive numbers.
Nor is there anything that makes volunteering somehow a Liberal activity. The salvation army isn’t that Liberal. People of all political stripes and views volunteer, and I don’t see how you can use the total number of volunteers nationally as evidence of young people being more involved- its something people of all ages do. The fact that its reached record numbers is due to their being more interest in tracking and supporting this kind of community work than previously.
It is very true that the media and commentariat is directing an unwarranted level of hostility towards our generation: its pretty pathetic. However, declaring the continent to be undeserving of us is similarly so. Theres no need for wild generalisations in any direction on matters like this.
My experience is that we are no longer in need of a central government, national news broadcaster or media conglomerate to tell us what the hell is going on in the world, nor are the government the sole source of information as to why we are doing something as a nation. I wouldn’t call it political disillusionment or apathy that people are going through…the fundamental nature of how we engage with information, and the politics that arises from that, has changed so dramatically in the last decade that I do believe that there are generations of people now questioning party politics and questioning if “being political” is even the best way to do things.
Of course plenty of people then act politically, but it is on campaigning issues not on party ones. If they feel pretty angry about something that they hear, they can find out more on their own and join/support organisations that are going to further their need to feel like they’re helping something change. To me, in this way, they can go throughout a large amount of time feeling distinctly un-political while actually being more engaged in politics than previous generations have been by doing their “democratic duty”.
The only trouble I see is that (in line with the CIC debate we’ve been having) people just don’t have enough faith that they can change illiberal and authoritarian happenings through parliament in their country. We’ve got somewhat of an “ideal” in information availability, as much as there are those in government that would like to limit that information (you know, to stop the terrorists), now we just need to tally up the power of people’s voices to government.
thanks Tinter, but I ask not only for my own benefit.
I think it would be quite good to collate a list of organisations which Conspirators support individually so as to gain some idea about general endorsements and a sense of the wider movement in here and out there.
For example I know different people support various organisations such as Friends of the Earth or the Fabian Society (Jock, above, is clearly very interested in ‘geo-mutualism’ and land tax), but I know many people in my street who simply haven’t had any introduction to the political sphere or the vast range of ideas and campaigns at large (I freely admit the scope of my knowledge is limited), so I thought it might be helpful to throw this open and ask about local or national groups or organisations.
Perhaps Sunny might see this as a way to engage the more casual audience to this site and direct them into purposeful action by adding a page of contacts and links to ‘approved’ organisations.
At the very least this would show that we are open, inclusive and interested in constructive contributions. It would be more in keeping with site policy as outlined in the FAQs and it might also clarify what the broad coalition of the ‘liberal-left’ loooks like to a newbie.
Lee, exactly. Which is why navigation is so vital.
I applaud Laurie’s post.
I don’t agree that the political parties are beyond saviour, but I *heart* her devotion to progressive politics as a rejuvenated movement (many of us opposed Iraq, while still throwing our lot in with NewLabour post ’03).
We are no different to past generations, as Cath knowingly points out, but we are incredibly unrepresented.
I see a lot to praise in some of the Lib Dem’s more progressive politicians, if not the entire party. I’m not a socialist.
As for the Socialist Liberalists that are linked to. Okay – sounds good, but they need a decent copywriter (my services are very competitive).
Just read the entire Socialist Liberalists manifesto… I need to think.
Aaron – I came across them a while back. They look reasonable – sort of what the LibDems would look like if they didn’t trend into statist measures so often.
Aaron – did you look at the “who we are” type pages as well. My point was really that this is a party established by a group of guys, the leader of which doesn’t even have a vote yet. Their policies are almost incidental (though personally I quite like all of them – especially the core one of LVT of course!); the great, and in the context of his article it would appear, remarkable thing is that a group so young are being so entirely serious, pissed off with all the other offerings and prepared to do something about it. They have even made a fair stab at “costing” their policies. Would that more seventeen year olds were so enthusiastic!
“They have even made a fair stab at “costing” their policies. Would that more seventeen year olds were so enthusiastic!”
Oh Lord, they are smart. Getting into politics has just made me steadily more depressed.
Ben
There’s more than one way into politics than just establishing your own party. I am concerned that the entire list of founders is just guys. Are they all mates or something?
Anyway, enough about that.
I do think there’s a lot of apathy and self pity in the UK, which really grates my nerves sometimes. We’re not as bad as Italy of course, where they bloody moan all the time and still let in Berlusconi, but we are nowhere near the level of civic engagement amongst Americans.
So enough of the complaining – let’s get down to business.
or media conglomerate to tell us what the hell is going on in the world
Erm, where do you plan to get your information from, and who will hold politicians to account? the Daily Mail?
“I do think there’s a lot of apathy and self pity in the UK, which really grates my nerves sometimes. We’re not as bad as Italy of course, where they bloody moan all the time and still let in Berlusconi, but we are nowhere near the level of civic engagement amongst Americans.”
Heh, I don’t see hundreds of thousands of Americans protesting against education policies.
In cheerier news, the Bank of America is beginning to capitulate over the factory sit-in. More of that’s needed in the US; Barack ain’t gonna do anything unless his arm’s given a twist.
Ben
It is quite true that young people are silent but the problem is that the few who are only compound the errors of the baby boomer oldsters whose self satisfied fashion politics has reduced the entire language to series of craven retro gestures . Iraq , stands as a sort of faux Vietnam , and so assorted pointless appeasers of genocide and cowardly US bashers turn up ( next to found yipping about O ‘ boring and his quasi Kennedy vacuities ). It would be more interesting if young people showed some balls and supported the States against the axis of evil rather than taking spoon fed the BBC crapola churned out by poll tax funded establishment.
Look at this Laurie desperately scraping around for some last teeny vestige of sexism to get her knickers in a twist about .Really what on earth is there left worth the trouble ?
Where are the young people protesting that Brown is mortgaging their future to save his vile slithering political career ? Where are the young protesting about the high taxes they will pay for years lost in public sector pensions and care they will never receive .?
The presence of Ken , a comedy lefty refugee from a 1970s sixth form debating society , just about sums it up. … Old and I suspect part of an ongoing plot by the Liberal elite to seduce the young into beliving poltics can never be about anything that matters and that a repetition of Liberal cliche is the only politics allowed .
“Erm, where do you plan to get your information from, and who will hold politicians to account? the Daily Mail?”
No? Was kind of my point.
No person can own the future. The most important people in the 300 years with regard to the future have been the scientists, engineers and inventors.
1.Fleming in developing penicillin and Florey in it’s mass production have done more for this World than anyone who ever went on a demonstration.
2.The 19C doctor who proved the connection between a septic tank , borehole and cholera in London. The development of sewage treatment and water purification systems are vital in improving the quality of peoples lives.
3.Pasteur who showed bacteria caused disease.
Those people who can increase food yield from semi-desert and arid areas without using pesticides and chemical fertilisers with only using very small amounts of water and who can design affordable water treatment plants for the developing world; will be those who are praised in the future. Hunger and water borne diseases are the greatest challenge.
So do not waste time in demonstrations, study medicine and particular diseases, civil engineering and public health engineering- sewage and water treatment , hydrology and hydrogeology and agriculture . Do something useful.
“I have had it up to here with standing by whilst my generation, one of the most enlightened, engaged, interesting bunches of young people ever to grace this undeserving continent, is slagged off as the root of all society’s ills.”
Every generation thinks that and every generation gets that reaction.
My personal view on the current generation of 20-35 YOs is they are the most neurotic, whiney, uptight, risk averse, health-obsessed, conservative (small c), bland, conformist control freaks since the medieval puritans.
Their cultural contributions have been the smoking ban, i-pods, coldplay and starbucks for f***ks sake……………
“It would be more interesting if young people showed some balls and supported the States against the axis of evil rather than taking spoon fed the BBC crapola churned out by poll tax funded establishment.”
Yeah, it takes *real* courage to gather on the sidelines and cheer on the world’s leading military superpower!
And what in blazes would be “interesting” about such an abject spectacle?
Sorry about this, but the future (at least in the UK) belongs to the old, not the young.
Estimated 2005 election turnout by age:
18-25 — 37%
25-34 — 49%
35-44 — 61%
45-54 — 65%
55-64 — 71%
65+ — 75%
http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2006/Davidson.pdf
as cited in http://www.politicalbetting.com today.
But don’t worry, you’ll be busy enough for the next couple of decades paying off Brown’s borrowing binge as well as paying for those public sector pensions.
Oh to be young…!
“…paying for those public sector pensions.”
Mmm. It will be gutting having to ensure that people have a decent retirement income after a lifetime of work and are not forced to eat cat food and hang around in libraries to keep warm.
Simply gutting.
Unfortunately unfunded public sector pensions are a Ponzi scheme which (as the population ages rapidly) cannot deliver the current level of promised benefits.
Shocking as it might sound, everyone is eventually going to have to *save* for their own pensions.
Mmm. It will be gutting having to ensure that people have a decent retirement income after a lifetime of work and are not forced to eat cat food and hang around in libraries to keep warm
Whiskas is all I have in store since Brown removed my pension , give to my charity if yoj are feeling generous
“Mmm. It will be gutting having to ensure that people have a decent retirement income after a lifetime of work and are not forced to eat cat food and hang around in libraries to keep warm.”
It will be gutting when we spend decades paying for that for other people while also having to pay for it ourselves because the system isn’t sustainable.
Paying to support those who are poor is, I would hope, mostly not a problem. The issue is we will be paying for people who may well have earned more than us, but were not required to save in the way we will be.
You believed that the power of (our) government could change the world? What on earth made you even begin to believe that in the first place?
Iraq isn’t – nor ever will be – our generations Vietnam. I’m sorry but I personally can’t even entertain the idea of a comparison. You can’t use the moral questions as to our right to be there in the first place, otherwise you open a Pandora’s Box for each and every time we stick our noses in abroad.
I am a member of this generation. I am apolitical. I do believe we are reclaiming our democratic inheritance by leaving it to those ‘dishrags’ you describe to play at their little games. I’m happy for now to leave them to it.
Personally I’ll stick to trying to help change those things I personally believe to be morally worth my time, effort and money. The UK political process does not even come close.
no future is progressive without being green first, get out and vote for the referendum!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7yiDmZYiPCw
Sorry Noel. I live and work in Manchester and I vote NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! I’ve read through every bit of literature I can get my hands on with regards to the Manchester congestion charge and although the environment is a key issue for me, I cannot bring myself to vote yes here.
The proposed charges / changes are f******g dire. It’s going to cost me and arm and a leg each month simply to get me old mam about, and thats going nowhere near the city centre. To boot… unless they make the local public transport safer then I’m unlikely to go anywhere near it. The environment isn’t worth another broken nose courtesy of a group of skanks for the £20 I had on me, nor is it worth being spit on or being verbally abused time after time. Use the 201 / 192 / or the 50 for a year then please come back and tell me it’s a great idea to give the bus company even a dime. Seems to me like many things, it lacks any basic common sense.
However, in saying this I can’t see any other result other than a yes vote. I personally would prefer a more simplified version of the proposed congestion charge in place. But, guess in the overall picture there’s more important things to worry about than all this once all is said and done.
Hi
Sorry to turn back the clock a bit on the discussion – just wanted to answer some questions about the Social Liberalists.
First off, there are girls and women in the party, and one of the founders is a girl, but she’s decided to be just an ordinary member while university applications are going on, as otherwise there’s a bit too much going on for her – probably just proves that some girls take academics more seriously (rightly) than some guys do.
Some are mates, but most (of the 100 members and counting) I only met after it was founded and it had spread a bit – the treasurer in particular. So no, it’s not just a group of mates from one school – most people from my school only knew about it AFTER we were in the papers.
Aaron: I’d be more than happy to get into contact with you about copywriting. However, we don’t have many funds yet, so perhaps we’d be unable to compete for your services just yet! So far, we’ve been relying on volunteer work.
By the way, even if you’re not members, please take part in our policy forum! Its purpose is to respond to criticism – which would be more than welcome from all of you.
Cheers,
Anton
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