From the beginning of this never-ending election season, I’ve always believed that this presidential contest is not so much about the direction of change, as it is the capacity to change. Not so much about where we’re going, as long as we’re simply … going.
While the national media remains euphoric over the re-emergence of the “youth vote,” it has obscured what seems to be a widespread identity crisis amongst our nation’s youths.
I’m as excited about the future as the next young voter. And, hey, it’s great that young people are voting – even though we’re sometimes depicted like zoo animals who’ve just awoken from hibernation. But I’m concerned, as you should be, with how little scrutiny has been placed on the actual motives of today’s youth vote. The problem isn’t that we stand for change, as much as we stand for nothing but change.
A change for what?
Similar to “neo-conservatives” (and, yes, I know it’s intolerable to be compared to Rumsfeld or Cheney), young voters often reject the reality-based world and construct their own reality. When asked to describe change, youths will casually toss out buzz words like “hope” or “unity,” and my favorite: “to live without fear.” But outside of a place called Utopia, I’m still unsure about where this change will lead us.
Liz Blomenberg, a graduate student George Washington University, recently told me that she believed the young voter demographic today represents a “transitional generation.” She equated it to Dissociative Identity Disorder, “a generation stuck between identities” or “ordered chaos.” (I have to admit that I immediately thought of Tila Tequila).
There is something real to this. Every time you try to label this so-called movement (or countermovement), nothing ever seems to fit. Is it anti-war; pro-peace? Or pro-green; anti –global warming? Issues seem to be nothing more than weightless causes for many youths. And unlike other modern youth movements – whether in Russia, Iran or elsewhere (who are ironically mobilized through their hatred of America) – there’s no unified focus for today’s youths.
This transitional identity can be exemplified by our lingering question of race. Today, Arkansas is still almost completely segregated, with blacks and whites cordially ignoring each other. But globalization has forced us to cope with new identities, whether nationality, faith and cultural (and so on). Today’s youths are a palette of complex colors and hues, in direct opposition to the black-white mentality of the past. But yet we still carry the marks of our parents – whether conscious or subconscious – as evidenced by the continuing racial divide in Arkansas (and throughout America) today.
Indeed, our nation currently seems to be in a period of adolescence brought on by the winds of global change, which has simultaneously been met by the forceful, charismatic leader of Barack Obama. One student at the University of Arkansas described Obama to me as a “weatherman of change.” Adding, “He instinctively gauges the change before it takes place, and artfully gives people that message.”
Or to butcher the ubiquitous Mohandas Gandhi quote: See the change, before you be the change.
Obama’s personal challenges with his own search for identity are well-documented. And today, the black/white, multinational and multicultural candidate sits squarely at the identity crossroads; touching many of today’s youths who have faced their own identity clash in some way.
For this reason, the change we speak of really does represent the change of tomorrow. Young voters today are laying the brick for the next generation of voters who will likely present a more focused vision of change – or more appropriately, ACTION.
But don’t listen to me. Why allow realism to disrupt your rooted sense of idealism? I’m just a hope hater, right?
But in your (and my) quest for change, I simply ask that we scrutinize our own motivations for doing so. As the proverb says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”