Liberal public inspiration is in short supply these days. To be sure, withhis environmental, energy, and tax policies, President Bush is doing his best tounify moderates and liberals, and the Democratic Party may emerge stronger as aresult. But a believable progressivism that can inspire deep commitment as wellas win majority support requires more than a defensive coalition.
This summer, 29 college students from around the country confrontedthat challenge at a two-week program called the Century Institute that I helpedto organize in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Meeting independently of the staff,the students formulated a statement of their own "commitment to social justiceand the fight for equality," emphasizing a wide array of concerns that matter tothem.
The Williamstown statement discusses many familiar issues, beginning withenvironmental protection and responsibility, widening income inequalities, andthe need to raise living standards for the poor. The students continue to speakof "eliminating racial segregation" though that ideal has nearly disappeared fromnational debate, and they emphasize the value of community service in reweaving"the fabric of a greater American society."
In some areas, the statement clearly differs in its priorities from what anearlier generation would have chosen to emphasize. "We recognize theprisonindustrial complex and imprisonment as crucial issues in our time," thestudents write. As the new efforts to repeal the death penalty indicate, theharsh turn in American justice during recent decades has generated a growingcountermovement, especially among the young.
Another sign of generational change is the thorough integration of gayconcerns into the progressive lexicon. At one point, for example, the studentsspeak of protecting "the rights of people of all sexual orientations and minoritygroups," the sequence perhaps reflecting the felt urgency of threats to gays andunfinished struggle for the legitimacy of their rights.
The omissions from the students' agenda, while not necessarily intentional,also reflect a difference in priorities from the older generations that dominatemost progressive organizations. In next year's campaign for Congress, liberalDemocrats are sure to emphasize--as they should--the threat posed by theRepublicans to Medicare and Social Security, but neither of those issues figuresin the students' statement.
If the Democrats want to capture the imagination of young voters, they'regoing to have to break new ground. Although the students at Williamstown were notasking what their country could do for them, policies that provide some tangiblebenefit to the young might be in order. Federal social spending now flows largelyto the elderly, while much recent public attention has focused on children'shealth care as well as education. Relatively little goes toward young adults.
In contrast, federal policies after World War II, notably the GI bill, federalmortgages, and other veterans' programs, targeted their benefits to young peoplestarting out in life. The recent literature celebrating the "greatest generation"suggests that its members were admirable for their character. But during theyears immediately after World War II, they were also, at least up until thattime, the generation greatest in receipt of federal expenditure. In a lecture atWilliamstown, the political scientist Robert Putnam argued that their subsequenthigh levels of civic engagement--during the 1950s and 1960s, they voted more,joined more, and gave more relative to their incomes than people born earlier orlater--may have reflected a sense of reciprocal obligation. Which is an argumentfor doing more for young people at the critical phase when they are formulatingtheir life plans.
"We reject the social impulse to disconnect," the students at Williamstownwrite. But for young people today, part of the difficulty lies in figuring outhow to connect; American culture and public life don't readily supply models ofsuccessful progressive efforts.
That's one of the reasons for the Century Institute (now in its thirdyear, thanks to the sponsorship of the Century Foundation and the generosity of asingle donor, Alan Sagner). Given the dearth of contemporary inspiration, aknowledge of history as well as of current problems becomes especially important.My primary role in the program--with the help this year of historians SeanWilentz and Alan Brinkley--is to teach a course on "the progressive tradition,"which reflects my old-fashioned view that progressives ought to understand theirroots in American history, stretching back to the Revolution. It's not always aneasy case to make. Racism, in particular, looms so large in our past, includingits progressive phases, that many young progressives do not necessarily see theirreflection in history's mirror. Moreover, the record is one not only of gloriousachievements but also of sobering failures, and both aspects require discussion.The progressives least likely to be disillusioned, it seems to me, are those whostart out with the fewest illusions but are still committed to political change.
So it was music to my ears to read the students' words at the end of theWilliamstown statement: "We know that now--more than ever--it is important thatwe connect ourselves, our communities, and our society to the progressive legacyof American history.
"Ultimately, we embrace politics as a powerful means to deeply human ends. Ourintellectual commitment to progressive policy grows from a moral commitment tohuman dignity in the communities where we grew up and where we have worked acrossthe country. The task ahead is one of both head and heart." So it is.
