Tony Judt is someone I admire enormously and he is now, as this article says, “‘A bunch of dead muscles, thinking’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jan/09/tony-judt-motor-neurone-disease
Once I had got a little way beyond the shock and grief of knowing that he is dealing with the disease that devastated my brother Allen at about the same age, the topic of his next book began to explain something about people under, say, 50, that has puzzled me for years.
Judt was reflecting on the responses to a lecture he had given about the role of the state in our societies.
At the end of the lecture he was struck by how many young people came up to him expressing amazement at ideas they had never heard before. “This is the second generation of people who can’t imagine change except in their own lives, who have no sense of social collective public goods or services, who are just isolated individuals desperately striving to better themselves above everybody else.”
Judt now intends, in the time he has left, to devote himself to writing a book to help young people think collectively again. “It could really have an impact if I get it right. Something that will get the next generation to see there is a way to think about politics that is not just the way we’ve been habituated to do it. I care about that and I think I can do it.
Judt’s insight explains, i think, so much about my own experience since writing Gaian Democracies. Scarcely one member of the generation for whom John and I wrote the book has attempted to engage with the ideas, or relate the scenarios we outlined to the rapid deterioration of all the major systems on which their future lives and those of their children depend.
Its as if outside of the interests of a tight circle of friends and immediate family, thirty-to-fifty year olds who should be assuming some responsibility for the direction of their societies – as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents tried to do – are stuck in the mind-sets that previous generations grew out of in their twenties.
You can read a version of his lecture here. Please do so. Judt is trying to help us to think and act positively in a disintegrating world. He deserves to be heard.
By one of those happy (? ) coincidences, his lecture provides me with an invaluable account of the importance of Social Democracy in the 20thCentury that will be a great help for my blog on ” and the alternative to capitalism is…?”
Thank you, Tony.
After Obama?? 
Read the guardian article with interest. As one of the guilty generation I have a few comments for you to consider in terms of why, in particular in relation to climate change:
1 We are the first living generation not to have experienced war. We have no direct understanding of what it is like to have every aspect of your life determined by some all-consuming event completely beyond our control, or of rebuilding in its aftermath. We simply cannot imagine a point when we lose control of our own destinies. Our neurons do not work that way. Re-read Testament of Youth and you’ll see Vera Brittan was exactly the same – in the beginning.
2 We are too comfy. Our children are healthy, we drink wine every week, we can buy sofas on hire purchase. All our Maslovian basic needs are being met so we are reluctant to rock the boat.
3 Today’s problems are too enormous and non-specific. All literature on successful campaigning will advise you to identify an urgent problem and then offer a simple solution. I’d argue that when this happens we do act quickly and positively: give up aerosols, boycott South African produce, buy a charity single (none of which obviously need fundamentally affect our quality of life). This is a lot harder when media coverage suggests no-one can agree on the problem let alone a solution that may be within our power.
4 We are the superhero generation. No catastrophe is so, well, catastrophic that Bruce Willis or Will Smith can’t save the day. Thirty years ago you didn’t have the saturation of apocalypse that we now endure in the media. Be it the hole in the ozone, the Cold War or Terminator we have come to believe that whatever the threat to human existence someone (else) will make it all better.
5 We have no training. The point at which our parents became politicised – often around university – no longer exists. In fact you could say that with the diversification of subjects and entry requirements university now appeals more to drinkers than thinkers. Our education system all the way to the top teaches us to repeat not question what we are told.
6 Last but not least – we are knackered. Our parents (mine excepted!) tended to be in their early 20s when we were born. Now our selfish, immature, hedonistic teenage years extend until at least our 30s and often beyond. Parenthood, which logically would spark an impetus in us all to make things better, no longer coincides with the energy and ideallism of youth. Instead many of us will be in our 50s before our kids are even at secondary school.
That doesn’t mean that we lack a social conscious, merely that we can no longer salve it in the traditional way. I have the good fortune to live surrounded by compassionate, earnest humans who try to make the world a better place AND make school pick up. None are party members but many are micro activists, trying to make a direct and long-lasting impact in their own community,
The age of global communications, instant access and 24 news highlights to many the futility of attempting meaningful and lasting change through the political system. But in many ways it hasn’t made the world smaller – it has actually turned people’s focus once more on their immediate surroundings. If we can’t change the world, we can still do something about the way we ourselves live. James and I have consciously cut our carbon output by around 40% in the past year. We are actively engaged in discussions in the village on where to site a community wind turbine. Our school is run via an dynamic group of parent volunteers. Our village film club opened with The Age of Stupid (and then we all went back to the pub to discuss). The examples of collaborative working for common good are manyfold.
What does this mean to those rightfully frustrated with our lack of oomph? I don’t know exactly. Perhaps be intelligent with your expectations and tailor your battlecries? Don’t mourn the passing of the old ways without acknowleding the potential power of the new? Don’t give up hope?
Fascinating and very helpful.
For people like Tony Judt and me, and indeed for the Monbiots and Chomskys and Kleins, there’s so much to think about in what you say.
The question is whether we can “think” in the right way. i.e. whether we are stuck in ways of thinking that make false assumptions or are based on obsolete or unexamined truisms.
The temptation of course, is to refer to the fate of the frog in the saucepan in response to what you say. But, that isn’t at all helpful, We have to get beyond smart-arse cracks.
It is a very profound dilemma.
None of the ‘traditional ‘ways of running campaigns fits this situation.
Off-hand, I’m struggling to think of a model that would fit.
We have to be clear what is really being asked of your generation. Its not at all the same as the demands made on my parents and grandparents.
We’re not at all clear what ‘we’ should be asking of you. The kind of haranguing that comes from politicians, journalists, environmentalists and anti-globalisation campaigners is profoundly mistaken.
In effect, your comments suggests that we all need some kind of re-education, a way to incorporate radically different ways of thinking and behaving within a perfectly decent, rather admirable, life-style.
I’m humbled when you say:
“If we can’t change the world, we can still do something about the way we ourselves live. James and I have consciously cut our carbon output by around 40% in the past year. We are actively engaged in discussions in the village on where to site a community wind turbine. Our school is run via an dynamic group of parent volunteers. Our village film club opened with The Age of Stupid (and then we all went back to the pub to discuss). The examples of collaborative working for common good are manifold.
Its a terrific platform for moving forward – I’ll use that para as a starting point for a full-length response to what you say and the implications for the kind of political movements that could work with/for you.
Thank you so much.
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