This is somewhat related to my last post, about "Apathy," and what I was trying to get at there is this question of protest and resistance.

Part of me thinks that it's no longer possible. That the 60's were both a time that saw mass protest, but it was also a time that the system learned to deal with it, a system that's self-regulating and self-healing, that learns on its own to deal with these burps called political rebellion.

It might be true that no one has built 21st century organizations to funnel resistance, but it also might be that the political and social environment has been so finely tuned, these institutions would be inconsequential.

It seems to me that Martin is right, that the domesticity of college students, the idea that resumes trump politics, is yet another sign that we've all simply Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Neoliberal Capitalism.

"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani

Ok, ok, enough with the
de-antiredisestablishmentarialismererer, there's
enough institutions out there already, marriage,
prison, mental, religious, educational, and
government, you guys need to find a hobby, or
something. Let's talk about the antithesis
of institutionalization(GOD I hate that word),
namely 'anarchy', or 'without control or
regulation'. Those are the two extremes.
You can either be citizen#2342342-AV234, or,
or, the crazy man with the football pads and
the feathers. Somewhere in the middle is the
part where average people don't get represented
adequately in all these discussions, namely
the TRUE conservatives, the people that believe
in limited government, well-regulated militia,
the 50 states, impeachment, stuff like that.
Oh, yes, I DID say the "I" word, and I'll
say it to you a SECOND time! Impeachment!
That's how you peacefully but effectively
reform government policy run amok. Impeachment,
it's not just for prezzynits with too many
oil-pals no more, no, you can impeach the
DOG catcher, too.

Here's a dictionary reference, helpful when
discussing institutions, institutionalization,
public reforms, and other matters of great
and profound public import.

Main Entry: 1im·peach
Pronunciation: \im-?p?ch\
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English empechen, from Anglo-French empecher, enpechier to ensnare, impede, prosecute, from Late Latin impedicare to fetter, from Latin in- + pedica fetter, from ped-, pes foot — more at foot
Date: 14th century
1 a: to bring an accusation against b: to charge with a crime or misdemeanor; specifically : to charge (a public official) before a competent tribunal with misconduct in office c: to remove from office especially for misconduct
2: to cast doubt on; especially : to challenge the credibility or validity of
— im·peach·able \-?p?-ch?-b?l\ adjective
— im·peach·ment \-?p?ch-m?nt\ noun

Institutionalize THAT! Yeah, baby! Woo-hoo!

America has always been good at co-opting political movements.  This is a reason for its continued existence.  America yields in the face of popular movements; it bends just enough to accommodate the opposition.  This should not be a cause for apathy, it should be a rationale for activism.

This was better understood in the 60's and was a common reason that the radical fringes of movements would press hard for the most extreme positions they were able to get the movement to accept as theirs.  This was done because they understood that even successful movements could only achieve the concessions the other side felt was the minimal necessary to make it go away.

You did not mention some of the other important 'borrowing'. The Beats, Delta Blues, Langston Hughes, and words from The Pledge of Allegiance: "with liberty and justice for all" taken to heart compelling attempts to weave them into reality. Plus a very important omission, one that so few seem to remember; McLuhan, and along him, an understanding that the media was the beast which would carry the message, but it was controlled by the other side, so care and thought towards what the media was likely to broadcast must always be a major part of an event's planning.

The biggest failure of the anarchists in Seattle was not their breaking into the Nike Town. The failure was their not placing sentries to guard it from looters afterwards. The media was able to splice footage of the anarchists in with the looters, portraying them as anarchists too. To seize the moment, one must freeze the image intentionally.

It seems rather self-important of the author of the essay AG quotes, that they think they have to confront all issues or none. Choose something, don't expect gratitude and be the best person that you can, even if it is something so simple as driving to work and waving someone in front of you, or using cloth bags at the grocery. Be kind to other people, that's always a step in the right direction.

As to the rest of your comments, I can't agree more. I've heard so many students (and parents) complain that they weren't "taught that in my school" as though they're forbidden to learn anything not sanctioned by some "authority." Parents who complain that their children aren't being taught this and that are especially irritating - have they never heard of museums, libraries, theatres, art galleries, symphony orchestras and all the other wonderful ways in which they can supplement, teach and compliment their children's education? Why do people think that once they graduate, their education is finished? "The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school..."

It was so good it posted twice...

Huh? Did you read the post? I'm trying to base my argument in how social movements have actually been built. I'd appreciate it if you'd try to do the same, or at least flesh out what you're trying to say.

aMike, I don't think we really disagree.

It's absolutely correct that SNCC and SDS are exactly the kinds of organizations I'm talking about.

In fact, it was none other than Todd Gitlin who convinced SDS, at its national meeting in 1964, to turn attention to an increasingly troubling war in southeast Asia. By 67 and 68 when much of the rest of young America turned against the war, SDS had been organizing around the country against the war holding all kinds of events: teach-ins, sit-ins, speeches, protests, conventions.

Only with developed leadership structures who can sit down and hash out agreements

Dan K above quoted Andrew, who wrote the phrase I've singled out.

Forgive me, Andrew, and maybe it's the fault of the author whose book you're reading, but "a leadership structure" sitting down? People maybe. People who may be part of a structure perhaps. But... otherwise... you've lost me.

Also, I think Dan is making a lot of good points. Too much abstraction is not a way to reach people. Also, maybe the younger generation likes to be structured. But I can assure you that people of the 60's don't like to be told how to structure themselves.

And as for causes. I honestly think that people find themselves caught up in something. They have ends they want to accomplish, as Dan said. They find ways, either personally or within a structure to do that. But many need a structure that is extremely flexible, that allows for personal expression and creativity.

I can't speak for the younger generation or to it. But I think there are seasons in a person's life. College, in my day, was a very good time to be an activist. Starting out in career and family one finds smaller ways to make a dent here and there. Later on, as one has accomplished things professionally, one turns one's attention back to society at large. Eric Erickson called it "generativity," the desire to give, to give back. I think a lot of us from the 60's are doing that because we have more time now - not raising young children or starting careers. Time to stretch boundaries. To see that one field relates to another. Or to see that one's skills in one area are tranferrable to another.

I may not be responding to what you wrote. Maybe I'm just explaining where I'm coming from.

I certainly am impressed that Josh Marshall is so committed and, in my view, doing a kind of activism that was not available to us in the 60's. I have enormous admiration for all of you at tpm. This site and all it provides is like a "structure" - but really more like a scaffolding. You people provide the scaffold and we use it to build different things.

A lot is happening here.

And honestly I have faith that young people will find ways to contribute. It may take a while. It may happen differently than books say it should or could. And I think it will happen one by one - as people are touched by problems or suffering... and they suddenly find themselves on fire to make a difference... and it may even surprise them how committed they become.

Following along your comment and the one above, in the early 60's there was no pressure or need to really decide on a career when you entered college. Times were good. Everyone was pretty much assured of a good job after college. So banks and other corporations were hiring English majors and any kind of majors.

Also most college students were free from having to work their way through college. So people had lots of time for studying what they chose to study and free time for rebellions or whatever. And other than the pressure of being drafted, for men, there really was a relaxed view of the future in terms of career. (Though we did intend to change it for the better we hoped!)

In addition most colleges still had a very "liberal education" philosophy, so we got Greek literature along with existential literature. Etc. And I think people had a more wide-ranging and deep education. Also, there was no grade inflation yet and a lot was expected. (I found it far easier to get A's in grad school in my 30's than to get B's in college!)

So, I think all of these things played a role. More free time. Less pressure to do any kind of internship as jobs after graduation were plentiful. And a very liberal, broad-based education.

Then again, there is one more important thing, I think. In the 60's the dangers were really from within the society. People knew we were fighting for equality and justice, opposing sexism and sometimes the colleges and universities themselves. And so forth.

Today, times are tight financially. Students often work. They feel a need to pick a major early and focus on getting internships in order to be employed later. And after 9/11, instead of hearing - as we heard - "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," bush told everyone to "go to the malls." And there has been a focus on "dangers that lurk outside America." (Well, I believe the greater dangers are within... but you understand my point.)

So all of this played a role in why students may have participated more in rebellious activities in the 60's and today may need to work and focus on future careers much, much sooner.

As you know, one of problems in colleges is the shrinking of the tenure track. That, in itself, means that students are being short-changed. People with no healthcare, no benefits, are earning a pittance - harried by being overworked and underpaid.

If students want to be activists, ask for well-prepared professors, who are paid to teach, not do research. Who have time for students. Who are truly dedicated to enlarging their horizons. Being role models, not just task masters.

Many things need changing. Students can do a lot. Because, in colleges, they are the "customers." They can demand good professors. They can agitate for decent wages and working conditions for full-time faculty - rather than part-timers whose livelihood is forever threatened, who may fear to speak out or demand that students excell - for fear of not getting that next contract.

What goes on in colleges is related to the professors, the curriculum, your fellow students - from whom you learn a lot - and what's going on in the larger world. In the 60's I think the rebellions were related to all of that.

I honestly have no idea as to what it is you're trying to get at here. Are you saying that you don't know how to organize or someone should organize or that you're too overwhelmed to organize?

You know, I don't have fond memories of SNNC or SDS. In fact, I remember them as being pretty much assholes who were free to make grandiose statements and travel to college campuses, because we "girls" were running the mimeograph machines after we typed up their agendas, made the flyers, collected dues, provided food, painted signs, stuffed envelopes and pretty much did all the unglamorous grunt work that it takes to organize.

Then when we wanted help in pushing for womens' rights, we heard "we don't want to dilute the message" or "let's get this finished first or my own personal favorite, "Why? You girls have it easy, you don't have to register for the draft." So we did all those things for ourselves, and look at whose organizations are still going strong - NOW and Women Helping Women and look whose disappeared.

So yes, you need to organize for yourselves, but organization is 99% grunt work and "cutting ribbons" and "making signs"is "irrelevant" but that's the kind of stuff that keeps an organization growing and moving and while we'd all like to be the one making profound statements on campuses and being interviewed on t.v. and having brilliant solutions to all of the problems at one time, some of us have to do the grunt work.

(I was going to say that part of our "job" as the "girls" was to listen to their bullshit stories of great highs and telling off campus cops but it sounds so bitter now...)
and p.s. while some kids had college tuition paid by the state or parents, most of us were struggling to work and go to school and try to make a difference, but such is life and we must all do what we have to do to improve the quality of it.

I wonder if students feel the need to choose a major early, not because they are themselves are terribly insecure about their economic future, but because the colleges force them to choose a major.

This may be part of it, certainly, but at my school at least, there have been a lot of other factors working.  I'm in my 35th year at the same institution, and I've noticed that at least some of this is cyclical and driven by the practices of high school guidance counselors.  In the late seventies things began to change, and the peak of the change happened in the early years of the 1980s.  It seems that there was a an emphasis on career assessment and aptitude testing which grew during those years.  Students would come to campus voicing variations on the theme, "my guidance counselor told me I should be a [fill in the blank] major." 

During those years the number of undeclared students shrunk dramatically.  We called them "undecided" in the bad old days, which didn't help much.  Of course, once they got on campus perhaps as many as one/third or more changed their majors, some of them several times.  This really created an advising nightmare.

The pendulum began to swing back again in the mid-to late nineties.  I don't know why.  Every year since 2000-2001 more students have come in "undeclared"--We're not up to half, yet, but close to it--extract the disciplines which have very rigid four or five year programs (architecture, engineering) and probably over half come in without declaring a major.  And still today, large numbers change their mind once they see what we actually do on a college campus.  So I guess I'm "guardedly optimistic" at least as far as coercing kiddies into majors is concerned.

aMike

p.s.  You're right about trade schools calling themselves colleges--but then McDonald's calls itself a university. 

How about instead of 'rebellion', try 'innovation', which is sort of the same
thing, but without the torches and pitchforks.

Being creative, reformatting processes and
practices and the whole general approach to
thinking and doing is actually kind of fun.

I think true leadership wastes very little
time on activism, generational pigeonholing,
and applies instead maximum effort to developing
a better way to do stuff? What stuff? Well,
just about anything, if you stop and think about
it, and the key ingredient in this 'revolution'
is the quantity and quality of information
and the sheer body of knowledge and history
that exists today.

Take, for example, the space program. The
stories about the X prize are pretty inspirational, they haven't all been successful
but are inspirational nonetheless. The Ansari
X prize, funded by cell-phone mogul Anouseh
Ansari, an Iranian-american, propelled the
team at Scaled Composites, a cross-generation
mixmatch of people, to develop and launch
Spaceship One. To me, that just ROCKS. It
kind of divorces away from the old-school
NASA paradigm and goes to small developers
with a Better Idea which might not have flown
at all under the old bureaucracy.

There've been many people in all walks of
life that've parted company with long-standing
institutions, Martin Luther is a standout,
the first old-school Protestant that basically
told the Catholics of the time where and how
to stick it with detailed instructions no
doubt, but there's others, a lot of the people
now heralded for scientific and social
advancement were mavericks, one-offs who
walked their own path and followed it away
from the herd, and maybe sometimes what you
need first, to get your feet wet, is some
experience working in the land o institutions
before you can 'earn your wings' so to speak
and set off independently. Bill Gates dropped
out of the institution he was attending, and
founded Microsoft. Henry Ford started his own
company so he could do things HIS way when
he was forty years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Company

Old institutions fall away, and tend to get
replaced by new ones. It's a People thing,
people like to do stuff, and typically the
way of expressing that is to form organizations
and companies and whatnot and then they hire
a lot of people to help em do it. Look at
Google. Poetry in motion, there. Also,
the people that are in the process of getting
a divorce from whatever institution has held
them captive for all these years sometimes
end up becoming billionaires.

So, don't start a revolution, revolutions go
around in circles and stuff, innovate and
go in an entirely completely different direction,
even if you have to walk part of the way
all by your lonesomenessness. That is the
path of creativity and invention, which is
Most Powerful and Positive. Don't marry the
day-job, decide where YOU want to go, and
don't think that age is a limiting factor,
either. Some folks REALLY start 'revolutionizing'
things when they're 50,60,even older.

Look at this old fart, and his 1,093 patents:
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bledison.htm

You kind of do, Bev, yes.

But frankly, you didn't have to "work and pay tuition and rent and buy food and try to jump start careers" in the same way we do.

Compare college tuition between today and 1967.

Compare rent in any US city between 1967 and today.

Compare the cost of health care between 1967 and today.

And than add the dramatic job in pay for the things that activists would likely do after a youthful bout of idealism: teaching, social work, non-profit work, and on and on.

Then, try to organize your fellow students when they themselves aren't subject to a draft.

Try to reconcile the competing interests of the long list of worthy causes that, as you yourself originally noted, were swept under the rug during an earlier age so that the "movement" could focus on just two, maybe three things.

Then add a considerably more conservative country with a considerably more entrenched culture of market-driven morality.

It's a very different time.

This is the kind of argument absolutely nobody wins, largely because it is inherently unwinnable.  I suppose I should drag out the "you think you had it tough!  I had to walk ten miles to school and back, barefoot, in winter, uphill, both ways" about now. 

I may have paid a lot less tuition, but on my research assistantship in graduate school my bi-weekly paycheck, after deductions for room and board, was $7.15.  I left graduate school, Ph. D. in hand, in 1972, $10,000.00 in debt, and accepted a salary of $9,600.00 a year.  I'll have to ask Jared Bernstein or someone else who can count better than I can what would be the equivalent in 2007 dollars.  I do know that I owed more than a year's salary, and without a government N.D.E.A. loan which forgave 1/10 of the debt up to 1/2 for every year one taught I probably would have gone bankrupt.

So, if you're going to compare outgo, it seems at least fair to me that you compare income, as well.

Nor am I certain that there are all that many more "noble causes" today, though certainly the number of organizations to which one can contribute tax-deductible contributions has certainly increased.  But many of the organizations fighting the good fight today began even before the 1960s, regardless of the arena of battle.  Lordy, the Sierra Club goes back to 1892.  World Wildlife Fund?  1960.  CARE 1945.  And IS this a more conservative country than the country of 1960?  Is morality more market-driven?  I'm waiting for sources on those.

aMike

What trade, Andrew? Us oldsters suffered both!

I know this might sound a bit out there but as I try to step back and look at this from a distance a few more thoughts came to me that were not from a strictly economic perspective.

The first was to look at "innocence" as currency and that each subsequent generation has that much less left to spend. Now granted, what "innocence" actually is is difficult if not impossible to say. But I think that we might generally say that it is an inherent sense of optimism regarding the future with perhaps a dash of respect and wonder at the world as a whole. Yes I know, this is all very ethereal but I really have no better way of explaining it. But with those two general ideas in mind I think it's safe to say that we are running out of both. The following may be one of the causes of this.

The second thing that came to mind for me was overpopulation and the myriad of still unknown ways that it is impacting our lives. Mass migrations into urban centers followed by mass exoduses. Only there are more people in the exodus than there were in the initial migration. And they don't really return to "the country" from which they or their family may have come but rather move there and turn it into the urban center they abandoned. All of this over crowding, paving over and building up must be having some psychological group impact on us all. I know I pine for the days of my childhood in the "sticks" of NE Pennsylvania. But I don't return. I don't because there are other things that I've now grown accustomed to. Things that I think I "need". And that place (if it even still exists) does not offer them. In the end it seems to me that domestication is precisely what happens when you force a large number of people to live together in a small location. It seems almost natural. At what point do the people become the society or the society become the people. Is there a difference? I think there might be.

Both of these things together swirled in my mind upon reading this post again. I suppose that while I can certainly see some intentional manipulation occurring in our society and this "institutionalizing" would seem to be a manifestation of this. But I also see a larger current or force at work in which this institutionalizing plays either just a small role or maybe it's simply a symptom. Or maybe I'm just rambling and crazy. ;-)

You need to think asymmetric here. The big media conglomerates no longer control all major distribution channels. Google became a major player when they purchased YouTube, and they freely provide bandwidth for use in distributing media. Granted, it does not have the same reach as Major Network News, but is has a different advantage, and that is its ability to target very selective groups through reposting on various websites. Media using this channel for distribution could be widely dispersed to large specifically targeted audiences before it even was noticed as being significant.

Linking to a YouTube served video on a website has become a trivial pursuit for anyone who publishes content on the web, even persons who possess a very low geek-quotient. If you have your own blog, there are probably inherent native or easily installable plug-in methods to load the code automatically using nothing more than an URI.

TPM, under its Veracifier branding has its own YouTube channel, with regular broadcasts hosted by J.M. Marshall. It has been through Al Jazeera's YouTube account that I've learned they are a respectable International News Source, and even though they are a bit one-sided on some primary Mid-East topics, they generally allow for opposing views with more openness than is given dissent on Fox News. They are also very open with providing continued access to their previous stories. Why not, when it's on Google's dime? There are currently over 2100 Al Jazeera videos which can be viewed at YouTube.

For times when there is a need for distributing higher quality media for editing and then subsequent use in different locales, or for purposes of collaboration, The Participatory Culture Foundation offers a very nice platform and free bandwidth through their main project, Miro. Granted, this can only be utilised by individuals who have a broad-band connection, but for the purposes I just mentioned, this should not be an obstacle.

To use the lessons learned from history, one must be able to apply them in present circumstances. McLuhan should not be viewed from just a perspective of broadcast television's limitations. The media is the message. What is the message when media distribution channels are open-sourced, free to be used by all with a minimal amount of restrictions and viral?

What is the message when media distribution channels are open-sourced, free to be used by all with a minimal amount of restrictions and viral?

I've grown much less enthusiastic for democratizing potential of participatory media. It's not clear to me how "The big media conglomerates no longer control all major distribution channels" -- they actually do. Google, if you haven't noticed, is a big media conglomerate. There's nothing inherently altruistic about them -- they bow to censorship and intellectual property rights, just like any other corporation. 

I'm not saying things aren't possible, or that the case is closed. It's just not obvious that "free media" is actually free.

“Institutionalized rebellion” would seem to be an oxymoron, wouldn’t it? It sounds like the political activist’s version of paint-ball. You go to the IR building on campus and for a small fee you can strap on one of any number of causes and have at it. The IR staff maintain various obstacle courses that the player can engage for points. Like paint-ball it has all the excitement and none of the risk. When it is over no one is harmed and the player can return to their droll existence, with no harm done to their career path or to the institutional status-quo.

In 1964 Mario Savio and Bettina Aptheker suggested that one of the world’s great universities should have a physical place for students to express their thoughts. The response from faculty and student body alike was “Why? Students don’t talk, they listen and that is as it should be.” The “Free Speech Movement” was both a claim to a right and the assertion of a moral responsibility. The FSM argued that the right to free expression required the institution to provide a place to gather and a place from which to speak, no more and no less. But it was also argued that students had a responsibility to think and to publicly state those thoughts. UC Berkeley was then as it is now, a place to learn a trade, a McDonald’s university on steroids. As such there was little desire for or understanding of academic freedom, both then and now. Such freedom is both a right and a responsibility. It is a right that should be guaranteed by the institution. It is a responsibility that the individual should accept along with the consequences. Anything less is just play.

What this brings to mind for me is of course those cages (oh sorry I meant free speech zones) that were built for people to protest in starting in colleges then and which have become popular again recently. Imagine for a moment if we were to apply this same sort of treatment to something like religion - you're free to worship who or whatever you like except you can only do it (or talk about it) at home or in a "church-zone". Anything else and you run the risk of get arrested. It's an individuals own fault if they did not abide by these fair rules and keep their religion in the appointed location correct? I'm not so sure that would sit too well with many people, nor should it. It certainly doesn't strike me as something you'd find in a free society.

I find it interesting whenever I see or hear the phrase "individual responsibility". Whenever it's invoked it's generally used to subtly attack the integrity of a large group of people due to some extreme actions of a minority of that group. It thus labels all as a part of this extreme behavior. It's done far to often and it's incredibly reckless in my opinion. No one would ever argue against personal responsibility so it's use immediately puts the opposing position on the defensive even when it has no reason to be there. I heard this phrase used on a local "news" show recently regarding US Airlines loosing their liquor license. A man drank so much on a flight, and continued to be served even after obviously drunk, that when the plane landed he got into his car and killed himself and I believe 5 others in a car accident. Please not that US Airlines was operating at the time on a temp license having already getting in dust-ups with the law regarding it's serving of alcohol. The anchor whipped out this phrase in what felt like a defense of the airlines and an obvious (and easy) attack on the man involved. No one would argue that the man in this case was responsible. But the point is that this "individual responsibility" phrase attempts to circumvent the fact that the airlines are also responsible. It's not an either or thing...it's a both thing.

I'm not sure whether you are invoking it in this manner here or not (it seems like you might be). But in this case few would argue that freedom (of speech) is both a right and a responsibility. It certainly is. But it's the word consequence that raises my fists for a fight. That's a very vague in insinuating word as used in this particular context. It implies some manner of wrong doing (even if unintended) and places the blame on the "individual" for whatever manner those consequences might manifest themselves. This is not something that should be tolerated for it opens the door to abuse and injustice and then blames the victim for it.