The Wretched Irony of Rainn Wilson's call for young people to "Shut up about politics."

“If you are finically supported by your parents you should shut up about politics,” tweets Rainn Wilson. There is a painful irony in this post-it to the noosphere. Purportedly, Wilson setup the dotcom “Soulpancake” with the express purpose of trying to get young people engaged in asking deep questions about existence. Yet, here we see the monocultural, snark-ridden sentiment that only a prejudice, media-baptized psyche can regurgitate in a moment of rage-blindness. For it is a denial of rights.

Bruce E. Levine opens a July 31th, AlterNet article with the observation that "Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements." Indeed young people are often the only ones in such a position to stand up to the established political atmosphere—often because they not only sense what they are slated to inherit though the current political paradigms, but also because they are not yet so crystalized, beat down, or seduced by the prevailing status quo ideologies. And that’s probably because they don’t have time, energy, or mind consuming jobs. In fact, one of the things no governmental body should want is a demographic of unemployed or under-employed persons, because that demographic is in such a position to become politically active. In this sense, democracy requires and political action demands a free body of unemployed or semi-employed or outside-supported individuals to dedicate themselves to a cause.

The names Bradly Manning, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, and Alec Loorz come immediately to mind as relevant political figures of our time, two of which were still living with their parents when they became activists. They had the time, the resources, and the passion to become active in the world dialog. Hacktivism has become a youth movement (as we can see with the international arrests of young people) and in many ways echoes the civil rights movement of the mid twentieth century. The recent Middle East revolutions are too youth culture, indeed youth tech culture movements.

Furthermore, everybody is financially supported by somebody else. I’m sure all adults of Wilson’s age are aware of the coercive schemas in place throughout society, within which whoever it is that signs his checks becomes the new daddy and you the new bitch.

What we have in this tweet is an example of ageism. One of the prevailing myths is that “if only you were older, then you’d understand.” Likewise, one could just as well assert, “if only you were younger, then you’d understand.” There is a pseudo-truth in these statements. I’ve met plenty of older people who still act like children, or are paid to play like children on TV. I’ve met older people who go out of their way to dress like children or think like children. I’ve met older people who evade the responsibility of being a creature endowed with thought, catapulted into the calamity of existence, and navigating throughout on the tightrope of choice and consequences. I’ve met older people that are really nothing but old—who have cultivated nothing from their length of experience other than awe at its length. I scantly encounter maturity on this rock and within this species. Rarely do I meet a hero.

One thing I’ll never forget about my own youth is how much useless non-truths older people had to say about youth and the youthful. So let’s not mollycoddle this age and financial stability thing like its some righteous merit deserving of exaltation. That is an ego-soaked notion hiding behind the phony-honorific decrepitude of the body and mind—the body and mind that’s waning away, more and more every minute. We’re all still sucking the same fuckstick of culture, no matter how old we are.

Elders, you do realize it’s your infrastructure, your mess, your lethargy, your greed, your apathy, your complacency, your value systems, your religions, and your ideologies that we’re inheriting here, right? Younger people haven’t been given time nor space to develop our own systems (maybe, outside of the Internet). The older generation merely shoves a world ridden with challenge and obsolesce into the hands of the newer generation as it passes into the void with a relieved “Good luck, kid.” And this younger generation, they must be intuitive, creative, intelligent, and moral enough to properly evade self-annihilation.

I wouldn’t have written this if Wilson didn’t have a marginal clout in contemporary Americana via an Americanized spin-off of a European television program. Basically, I wouldn’t want my peers nor anyone else to indulge this kind of prejudice, snarky, non-thinking--outside of a quick verbal spanking; “No, no motherfucker. We’re all in this bitch together thankyouverymuch.” For, if young people, unemployed people, or paternally financed people don’t engage politics, all we’ll get is the same dead ends courtesy of the feeble imaginations of folks that have already had plenty of time to think up and implement a compassionate, intelligent system actually worth living in. When the face sitting behind bars is a young face, it is obvious that it's the youth that makes movements look good.

But thumbs up for SoulPancake.

[Updated 5 pm]