The Kids Are All Right

It was a lucky coincidence that Freshmen Parents Weekend at my daughter's college, which was also my college, came right on the heels of the presidential election.

Lucky for me, because the weekend mercifully obliterated my nostalgia for the tumult of my own undergraduate career. Lucky for the country, because what happened there on election night occurred as well on campuses across the country. It turns out the kids are all right after all.

The college in question is Harvard. I was a student there during the '60s, an era that actually slopped over a bit into the '70s, and a time I have fondly thought back on as The Revolution.

Both my sophomore and junior years were cut short -- classes and exams were canceled -- because of student reaction, and administrative overreaction, to the Vietnam War, the invasion of Cambodia and the draft. My classmates, and sometimes I, picketed when Dow Chemical, maker of napalm, came to campus to recruit, and when the U.S. military, user of napalm, also came to campus to recruit. To protest the war, students did things like occupy buildings, which led to the protesters being tear-gassed and billy-clubbed. The killing of four students by national guardsmen at Kent State triggered a student strike. The end of student deferments and the institution of a Selective Service lottery prompted marches and mobilizations. Professors, dazed and confused, took to holding classes outside and turning them into "teach-ins" and "rap sessions."

It was disorienting, it was scary -- and it was wonderful.

Not to my parents, of course, who were clearly uneasy about my lengthening hair, widening bell-bottoms and anti-war mouth, all of which were alarmingly evident at their welcome-home-from-Vietnam party for my older brother.

Nor was it wonderful to the fledgling neoconservatives on campus and their fellow travelers beyond it, who dismissed our protests as drug-addled self-indulgence, promiscuity masquerading as liberation, privileged kids play-acting as proletarians and the consequence of too many permissive parents paying too much heed to Dr. Spock.

Nor was it wonderful to the college's administrators. A few years after we graduated, the Harvard president with whom we had crossed swords, divinity scholar Nathan Pusey, told a Harvard professor that my cohort, the class of '71, had surely been Harvard's "worst class ever." Worst class ever! What a tribute! When this lament appeared in an article in the Harvard alumni magazine, it so tickled my classmates that from then on the hats and T-shirts at our college reunions have been proudly emblazoned with the acronym WCE.

Since then, and until last week, I had regarded those years as the high-water mark of political engagement by American youth -- not just among my classmates, but across the country. The presidential election of 1972, which for the first time included 18-year-olds, saw the highest-ever participation by young voters. The peace movement may not have ended the war, but it marked the beginning of the end. Human relations may not have been forever transformed by our self-conscious consciousness-raising, but it is arguable that without it, neither feminism nor gay rights would have burst onto the American scene with the power that they did.

The downward trajectory of youth political engagement since then has been dispiriting. As the percentage of young people turning out to vote has declined, the mitigating straw I have always grasped at has been the concurrent increase in youth voluntarism -- the proliferation of service-oriented local activism that came to be called the "thousand points of light." But the rise of voluntarism among Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennials, however beneficial to its clients and fulfilling to its practitioners, has always seemed -- to me, anyway -- an unfortunate step away from the public square, from civic engagement, from actual politics.

Last week, that changed.

Don't get me wrong: The kids at Harvard still mentor fifth-grade girls in South Boston who need role models to become strong women. They still tutor immigrants preparing for their citizenship examination. They still work the counter at AIDS thrift shops. (I didn't pick those examples at random; it's some of what I learned my daughter has been up to in her first eight weeks at college.)

But these kids also do politics. During this past presidential election, they worked phone banks and walked precincts and raised money. They volunteered in campaign field offices and lobbied their bubbies to support their candidate. And they voted. Eighteen- to 29-year olds turned out in record-breaking numbers on Nov. 4 -- up to 24 million of them in one estimate, a nearly 25 percent increase over 2004. Their demographic was crucial in electing Obama. And when the networks announced his win, the lawns of Harvard Yard and the streets of Cambridge spontaneously filled with thousands of whooping and cheering young citizens.

It didn't happen just at Harvard; as I learned anecdotally, eruptions of student excitement occurred on campuses from coast to coast. And not just on campuses: As I drove across Los Angeles on election night, I saw clusters of teens and kids in their 20s celebrating on random street corners, high-fiving drivers at red lights. They may not have marched on the Pentagon to end the war in Iraq, but they have given the nation a new president who has pledged to do just that. For the first time since the springtime of the baby boomers, they have become not just consumers to be marketed to, but a political force to be reckoned with.

And because they have already been deeply engaged in providing services to their neighbors and their communities, because they have seen the scale of social neediness with their own eyes, they know firsthand that neither voluntarism nor the market is going to be enough to meet the horrendous problems of society -- poverty, joblessness, bad health, bad schools and despair.

Of course, if you believe that the wrong man was elected president, you will find in my account yet more evidence that elites are antagonistic to the real America. But if you are still stunned, and happily so, by the outcome of the race, you may find hope, as I do, in a new generation's political engagement. I realized last weekend that I could safely retire my tales of the good old days on the barricades. These kids don't need encouragement to emulate us. They have come boldly into their own, and it is a deep pleasure for at least this one alter-kacker to make way for them.

(This is my column in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, where you can email me if you'd like.)

Comments

[roshni]

The kids are great, also the ones who were too young to vote but canvassed and phone banked for Barack anyway. They have taken back their future.

[provoice]

Dear Marty...

It is with great delight that I too pass the baton of the '60's and '70's activist to the younger set.

Granted, they have not seemed to act with as much drama and angst that came with our generation, but they have clearly risen to the challenge that responsibility for the world will soon be entirely in their hands.

For nearly 40 years, I have wondered what had become of the bright-eyed idealists that had flourished in our generation... our children seemed to be disinterested in politics to the point of being downright disdainful of our efforts way back then.

With each election cycle, I would get brief encouragement from an occasional new "protest song", yet most of those were still coming from people my own age like Springsteen and Mellencamp... not from any new groups or individuals.

Thankfully, things seemed to turn the corner with the current batch of students... they have suddenly seemed to recognize the tsunami of lies and distortions coming out of the military/industrial complex and have once again risen to the call of honesty and honor.

God bless them all!

[Helmsey]

Too right you are Mr. Kaplan.

Being a college student myself, I did my part passing out pamphlets and stickers to get out the vote,

but it was not at all like the revolutionary sixty moment. In a way working within the system is good,

because it does not burden society in any way, in another way it may not bring about as radical of

change as the climate of the sixties did. I see advantage in both of these methods.

[daddysboy]

Thank you. It was very illuminating to have these two moments in time contrasted by someone who has been there and now has family in much the same circumstances. Since I personally heard so many god-awful things coming out of the mouths of students in 2004 and in 2006 during election time I'll hold my reservations for a while but there does seem to be some hope that our nation's youth may be getting it. At the very least it is VERY encouraging to hear that good public service is being encouraged and possibly required of incoming students. I wondered if this is the case across the board or just in some colleges; I hope it is everywhere.

[noneIn2008]

Excellent, we will be able to end the war by sending more troops to Afghanistan? I don't understand how this achieves the promise of troop withdrawal, but I have faith. Pelosi and Reid promised the pull out in 2006, I have faith.
Why do you think Russia is now tweaking Obama? You don't think other countries might also "test" the new guy? But, no problem because we can talk.

[daddysboy]

The promise of troop withdrawal is a separate issue from our EARLIER promises to the people of Afghanistan. There and in Pakistan is also where those responsible for the attack on America likely reside. If you can manage to actually give the president-elect the same opportunity that bush was given in 2000 (remember back when he was getting the record for most vacation days of any president ever?) I think you'll find that America is in a MUCH better position to negotiate for peaceful relations than we EVER were and peaceful relations is the ONLY way we are going to be able to bring any troops home. For what it's worth, bush was "tested" early in his presidency and he clearly failed so miserably there will likely be nothing written of it except that he failed so miserably. I think I could listen to our president-elect talk for the next four years and it would take allot of talking to make as many empty promises as bush has.

[PSM42]

Millions upon million of us each doing their little bit, the stars in alignment and finally the certain assistance of various divinities ... and, yes, the kids last and certainly not least at 70% (or so) of the under 30s - Way To Go on 70%!

Which odd combination is, strangely enough, or not, exactly what got rid of Nixon and stopped the V i e t n a m war, when Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, got them published and Nixon's henchmen got caught burgling his psychiatrist' s office and home. The threat of the release of discovery documents showing the extent of the governments misdeeds (possibly including attempted m u r d e r, finally lead to his acquittal. From a certain sentence of 115 years in jail. An honourable man. A brave man. And a patriot.

Which led to some of those working for Nixon to work for thirty years to reverse that stunning defeat. Which brings us to today. Deja vu all over again as they say. Funny old world.

[firstfreeze]

will end te war in Iraq? Bet it isn't as fast as you think or in the way that you visualized in your Obama fantasies. Been to Iraq twice and you can't just "end" it. That will not happen and then will all of you who signed up for that hold your candidate accountable? I would have prefered to have a leader who wanted to "win" it (and yes it can be won), instead of end it. The last thing we need is a larger ground footprint in Afghanistan (as proposed by Obama). If we get attacked again by terrorist agter Jan 20, I am sure that will Bush's fault (although we haven't had an attack since 9-11). Once Obama is "read in" on the real deals out in the world, I bet he moderates his anti-use-of-force tone. Somethings require a big stick and a force able to wield it. If and when Obama sends us to battle in other areas, I hope some of thsoe great Harvard students take a short break from the fifth grade tutoring, grab a rifle, and follow their leader to serve in a higher way.

[cvarner]

Right.. let's recap -- who was president on 9/11?? Who did such a *wonderful* job of protecting the country? Who told the FBI to stop wasting his time briefing him on terrorism??

Take a deep breath -- things will get better. The high school football mentality of "war as a game" belongs in high school.

[TivoliEclipse]

I am a Vet -- and picking up a gun is not a noble as you pretend. I hope Obama ushers in the equivalent of The Age of Enlightenment " which is essentially hope. The world [as you can see] wants freedom and peace " where reason reigns. There must be a way to coexist on this planet without murder and genocide for power and oppression in the name of God and sociopolitical terrorism. War is archaic!

[GoCards1978]

Amen! War as a video game is sick, simplistic and insane. The Bush legacy is an abominable list of destruction based on the decider's gut reactions to complex situations he lacked the intellectual gravitas to fully understand. It's about time we have a leader who actively appeals to the better angels of our nature, and setting this country back on track.

[aramos]

We'll see.....

In 4 years anything can happen, wars end and others start, we'll see.....

[firstfreeze]

when and if Obama sends us to a war, I hope all teh young precinct Captains follow their leaders call to sign up.

[daddysboy]

Was it 'country first' , or 'war first'? You almost sound excited by the possibility of strife. First of all, America can't AFFORD another war. The republicans now leaving our federal government in the spring have SPENT everything. Second, we won't be getting into more wars because we will have a fully functioning state department instead of routine 'bring 'em on' blather from a know-nothing president.

[Jessica Rudis - Huffpost Blogger]

I just graduated from a school in Boston this past May, and in my four years at school it seemed like there was a lot of political apathy -- up until this election cycle. Of course, there were lots of students doing amazing things (volunteering for ESL classes, Strong Women Strong Girls, etc. as you mentioned), but in terms of political involvement people didn't really tend to do too much.

Then again, with political activism it's much easier to join one of the thousands of politically-oriented Facebook groups than go out and actually do something.

I'm not sure if it was the collective frustration of the past eight years or campaigns engaging in new technology (texting, social networking) or something else, but it sure was inspiring to see so many people my age get so involved in politics this year.

[firstfreeze]

any join to serve in their nation's uniform?

[montemalone]

I hope that question is directed towards those who voted to elect Bush, twice, and attempted to elect McCain.
it seems that those young'uns are the ones who have "other priorities" (see Cheney, DICK).

[sarimn00]

I am a twenty-something, and I was volunteering for the Obama Campaign as a Team Captain. I was so excited to see all the volunteers come through for Obama. After making phone calls and knocking on doors until right before the polls closed, we watched the election results. When Obama was announced as a winner, everyone took our signs and celebrated out on the streets. It was an amazing feeling.

[firstfreeze]

good for you.take pride in making a difference and thanks a vet for the freedom to do it.

[TivoliEclipse]

I knew they would come through the front door on 11/4 -- not the back door with Absentee ballots... How symbolic is that? They made the difference. I love those m*therf*ckers!

[BobHiggins]

Marty
You're right, my son is 37 and I am proud of his growing political engagement.
The kids are OK.
I hear hope in your voice.