What Big Teeth You Have - the myth of apolitical youth; the myth of the post-ideological age

There's a big presence of a kind of cynical 'what do you expect of politicians?' that seems to run through the blood of a chunk of British public. They have seen people dismayed with the actions of their politicians, they have seen people fight back, and they have seen not a difference ever made. But positive change, like negative change, is a subtle affair. Who knows what the world would be like had no one protested Vietnam, or even the Iraq War - I choose examples here where the protest itself did not stop the thing happening at all, where protest could be said to have been a waste of time by the cynics - and environmental protests which, as of the time of writing, have not yet saved the world. The importance of people expressing themselves in these ways can not be underestimated, and those who attempt to curtail it need a serious telling off (ahem, kettling). This is not to mention the efforts of the suffragettes, and so forth, whom's efforts directly effected policy. We should question the way the protest as a 'right' is defended and encouraged by those in power, and contextualise this with their response when it gets out of hand. What is at stake for power and thus the efficacy of the protest in these respective moments?

The voice of many an angry folk is used when the people get the sense that they are not being represented, and this is why they are angry. They are angry not only at the politicians, but the union-based puppet-show which casually represents their respective groups - for the students, the NUS are like a group of self-satisfied elders, making assumptions as to what their village-folk actually want, against the blatant disapproval of said folk. The NUS become effectively a political group concerned with mediation, with all the inconsistencies and spin of the mainstream media.

I often hear a criticism levelled at 'today's youth', that they're apolitical, self- centred, they all want to be celebrities. So on and so forth. So when 130,000 of them, and people who are not 'the youth', it must be said, march against rising university fees and cuts to education and beyond, are they said to be not apolitical? Not quite - they are now 'naive', ('what do you expect of politicians,' again) naive to the political real. 'We've done it all before', says the lady from the Times, 'but then at least we were fighting for something.' The something in question being the Vietnam War. Apologies for not being born at the time, but governments don't only wage unjust wars against other countries, they target their own citizens (thank god we don't have oil or we'd really be in the shit.) If not naive, the 'students' who, according to much of the media are the sole perpetrators in the protest movements we currently are seeing, are only concerned about how much spare change they have to spend in the SU bar. Because that's what students do - get bloody drunk.

Of course, the students now will not be paying the new fee rise, for they are already in university paying a smaller, but still outrageous, fee which is binding. Why could they be marching then? They're OK, surely, with only 18,000 debt? Maybe it is the fact that they are struggling to find work, and have noticed from time to time a large Osborne swipe of the axe at various jobs in their local communities. Maybe they, since leaving university with whatever degree, have been dependent on their parents, or benefits, as they struggle to find a footing in the job market which offers them endless internships and so-called experience which is apparently great for your CV. Maybe, finally, they are not so self-centred and they are out in the freezing cold marching due to some principle they've conjured up, that education should be a right; that an educated society is a privileged society; and the whole range of interests and university programmes should be treated as having the same merit, validity, social relevance, etc. (I'm referring to the targeting of the arts and humanities here).

Education should, thus, be distinct from training, which is what it's fast becoming (become?), for there is merit in pursuing one's interests, and their should be, and is, a place in society for all of those respective interests to have total relevance. Education should not be changeable on the whims of the markets, wherein economic factors alone decide what courses are viable; where a workforce is created in an academic institution tailor made for the narrow consensus which informs the free-market ideal, and the companies who abide by this idea. What would happen to the opinion? Education is rewarding and influential. One of the benefits, no necessities, of it is that it provides a massive group in society with the experiences and apparatus to think for themselves about a whole wealth of issues, and the fact that some come out with marketing degrees and some come out with philosophy degrees is a good thing, for it allows difference of opinion, and that is vital in a productive society, and moreover is vital especially for a society which hopes to one day be 'fair', with all the little things that can be included under that big word.

In terms of the post-ideological, listen to this gent from the coalition of resistance, from John Hutnyk's fine blog..

http://hutnyk.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/the-future-is-going-to-come-true-buy-this-bloke-a-beer-said-my-friend-vij-future-presidential-candidate-for-the-united-socialist-federation-of-europe-i-reckon/

hear hear.

(more theory next time)