Letters to a Young Activist (2 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
Letters to a Young Activist by Todd Gitlin. Copyright 2003 by Todd Gitlin
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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1 (CONT'D)

One other thing that seems wrong with the term activist turns out to be illuminating. Activist sounds misleading because of that profligate little syllable –ist that implies belief about how things are and ought to be: socialist, fascist, feminist, environmentalist, Islamist, what have you. An activist is a different sort of -ist, for it's not your beliefs that make you one but your beliefs hooking up to your activities. An activist refuses to take the world for granted. Faced with pain and evil, the activist is not content to deplore or rage or regret, does not just believe or wish or declare but thinks: I'm not an outsider to the world, and the world -- with all its persecutions, endangerments and wonders -- is not an outsider to me. History is not (or not only) something that other people do. My action and yours are the heart of the matter. If we act wisely, we become more than ourselves: artisans of the good.
So activist, though not a lovely word, is a useful one because it reminds us that the world not only is but is made: Human beings make history, though as a brilliant but monomaniacal prophet once wrote, not in conditions of their own making -- and, I would add, not always with the results they prefer, to put it mildly.

Suffering is a human condition. So is the desire to act against a sea of sorrows. I'm supposing that you're reading this book because you've already decided you want to do something useful against the crimes and sins, the starvation and massacre, torture and terror, ecological damage, disease, bigotry, the suppression of castes (women and racial groups among them), a whole multitude of oppressions. In the activist camp, you join a tradition both illustrious and indispensable, one with many successes to point to: against slavery, brutal working conditions, colonial conquest, unjust war, the humiliation of women and sexual minorities, racial discrimination and class degradation, the despoliation of nature -- and toward liberty, equality, fraternity and the right to pursue happiness, not to mention beautiful peace and a livable planet.

Where would the world be without agitators? Great ideals wouldn't stand a chance. Radiant goals that conservatives say they hope to conserve are not and cannot be achieved by conservatives. The Confederacy would not have abolished slavery. The eight-hour day, the minimum wage, Social Security, public funding for medical care and higher education, clean water, rain forests and species preserved were not dreamed up by corporations or status quo governments. The federal bureaucracy and pharmaceutical companies did not put anti-AIDS drugs into the hands of millions of infected people out of good will, without a raging activist movement. It's obvious when you think about it but neglected in the conservatives' self-congratulation: without the disrupters, campaigners and ideological pests, all noble words amount to nothing but blackboard dust. This is not to justify every activity undertaken in the name of activism but to state a plain historical truth: no noise, no improvement.
Activism as such is not sufficient for improvement, but damned if it isn't necessary.

So for joining the activist camp in the face of an immensity of pain and crime, congratulations and thank you. You've departed from the path of least resistance -- a clue to good character and the promise of a life well spent. You have the nerve to face reality in a culture that, every day, hands out innumerable good-timey means of evasion. Facing the world's travails, you aren't content to stop at taking notice or bearing witness. You aren't satisfied to deplore, weep or yell. Your response to the day's bad news is not, Isn't that awful? but What am I -- what are we -- going to do about that?

I'm tempted to write -- in the spirit of the resonant commencement address -- that never before has activism been more necessary, and this might even be true. Later, I'll have something to say about the unprecedented size and scale of today's dangers. Yet given the vast amount of unnecessary suffering in the world, the important existential truth is that anytime is a good time to try to change the world. Perhaps it is too late to save humanity from the damages already suffered and done, but it is never too late to see about making the future more tolerable. You're indignant that misery should be the common lot of billions of people, and you're not one for close calculations of the percentages of lives at risk, because complacency and rationalization aren't your game. You don't want to put up with suffering that might, after all, be helped.

Your longing for a better, more just world requires neither apology nor excuse. It is not a sign of geekiness or unhipness. To face reality is only realism -- real war, real racism, real ruination, starvation and all the rest -- whatever others may think, know or feel. You've discovered that activity brings exuberance and you rightly suspect anyone who passes off your pleasure as a neurotic symptom, a flight from your proper private pursuits, a drying up of your own well of happiness, a hand-me-down from your parents or some other accident of existence. Refusing to feel at home in a world of stupendous inequality is nothing to be ashamed of. Cambodian children can look forward to living 47 years in full health, and children in Sierra Leone (where 28 percent die before their fifth birthday), 29.5 years. An American can expect 67.3 years, and a Japanese 73.8 years -- not to mention the inequalities within each country.
That Planet Earth is filling up with instruments of mass destruction, that they can even roar out of a splendid blue sky in your neighborhood, should be taken seriously. This potential is not just a feature of the world since September 11, 2001, it has become a standing feature of the world as we know it and as our successors will know it. Let anyone call you a loser (pettiest of American insults) for feeling that your cursed spite is to set the world right: You can reply that this is how you affirm membership in the human race. Besides, you're forging a way of life full of pleasures and even marvels, not least the thrill of bending history, pulling it your way.

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