The Good Life

AlterNet: Whatever Happened to the Good Life?

Since we're accustomed to thinking of young people and students as the shock troops of social change, explaining youthful inertia has become a national preoccupation (sadly, we expect impassivity from the middle aged). Many point to the absence of a draft as a motivating factor. Others cite the lack of contemporary examples of successful collective action to inspire faith in the efficacy of protest. But more often than not, the problem is conceived as cultural. The emerging generation, of which I am part, is post-Watergate, post-Monica Lewinsky, and weaned on irony and satire. We expect the government to deceive us and are hardly surprised, let alone outraged, when these expectations are met. Others argue that young people aren't particularly self-absorbed or apathetic; they're overworked and indebted. Today's twenty- and thirty-somethings are so busy struggling to make ends meet, they simply don't have time to take to the streets.