Paula asked (a LONG time ago, message-wise): > In spite of the--very, very hopeful--activities the past year re WTO and re > various ecological issues, in fact other than an occasional expressions of "Oh > those dot.coms!" or "Hey, cool," very LITTLE political expression has come out > of campuses, at least > from what I've heard, recently. But I'm not in the academic world. What is > the sense of you on this list who are, on student political consciousness or > activity now? Overall, based on local campuses (about 6 in the Lehigh Valley, including my own conservative Lehigh University), there's the usual smattering of activist folks trying like hell to raise a little consciousness with relatively little impact on the campuses. The difference from the prior two decades (with a few exceptions --e.g. Gulf War), it seems, is that there are, in fact, some visible issues & mobilizations OUT THERE going on which local student organizing can link with in their audience's minds. It's just that there is a huge, and I do mean huge, set of institutionalized, long-socialized attitudes & perceptions that undermine this. Things like: (a) economic anxiety, fed for about 25 years; (b) the spread of consumerism which has socialized people into an increasingly self-focused perspective -i.e. liberation means I'll dress how I please; (c) the spread of a market/sprawl society which has over 55 years reduced more and more the "places" where people can bump into each other, talk about politics &local concerns as a matter of conversation, etc. --i.e., the sense of place and community that can give rise to imagining collective empowerment of the sort that existed in the civil rights, black power, student, antiwar, womens' & ecology movements (etc.); and (d) the particular media-culture 'mythologies' about the 60s --namely that they were about a generation's experiences & attitudes and, by the way, they failed. Good question, and a tough nut to crack. Ted Morgan
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