Don't You Want Me?

Of all the books/sources I've compiled so far, Kevin Mattson's Engaging Youth: Combatting the Apathy of Young Americans toward Politics wins some kind of prize ... for the most useless, disingenuous and slanted material yet.

Writing on behalf of the Century Foundation, one of those partisan think tanks that have sprouted like dandelions on our national landscape, Mattson's handbook would appear from the outside to be a call to arms to get young people interested and involved in politics. But this would only be half the truth.

Mattson wants young people involved in his kind of politics. No more, no less.

He and his friends in the Century Foundation are progressives, so I share many of their attitudes. But I fault Mattson's approach, methodology and general titular deceptiveness in this endeavor.

To his credit, Mattson admits his bias early on in the book. On page 5, he makes clear that the title of the book is only a facade for his true intentions:

While many bemoan a general civic crisis in America, I see a much greater crisis for progressive and liberal ideas. Since the rise of Barry Goldwater, conservative political philosophy has articulated distrust if not contempt of government. Today's distrust of government and the public sector is thus more damaging to progressives, who put much more faith in that sector.

That's nice, Kev. Say, we wouldn't distrust government because of things like, I don't know, Watergate or Vietnam? Endless political scandals? A parade of dishonest presidents? Nope. Must be the fault of a guy who got blown out of the water by LBJ in 1964.

Mattson waxes incredulous at young people worrying about Social Security. He talks about any number of GenX groups who rose (and, inevitably, fell) in the 1990s complaining about bearing the burden of a Social Security system that may never benefit them. Much like the folks at The Baffler he gets a fashionable dig in at Meredith Bagby for being some kind of covert conservative operative whose aforementioned Rational Exuberance book "showcased her successful friends (with attractive photographs)" and offered "flimsy" arguments.

I would agree with Mattson that private savings accounts in lieu of Social Security is a terrible idea, unless you want to see an ever-increasing gap between the haves and have-nots in the U.S. But nowhere in his argument does he even acknowledge that Social Security is indeed in real trouble, what with it possibly going off a cliff in 2038 or so. Worrying about whether we will ever see anything from the money we put into the system is a reasonable concern, but Mattson treats such fears as if it were some Limbaugh-generated bogeyman.

His reading (or misreading) of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is also curious. He says that Putnam's statistics show that "Generation X, in comparison with those who came of age during World War II ... and the baby boomers" is less engaged, as "this generation seems to be leading other Americans in terms of an overall civic decline." At one point, he chides: "Generation X now seems better labeled Generation Apathetic."

But sometimes you only see what you want to see. A more careful reading of Putnam's text shows that the big dropoff in participation preceded Generation X ... it started with those hallowed boomers. Putnam actually noted that "along the line to the boomers and then to the X'ers, this downward trend in joining, trusting, voting, newspaper reading, church attending, volunteering, and being interested in politics continues almost uninterruptedly for nearly forty years?" Really? "[E]ach generation that has reached adulthood since the 1950s has been less engaged in community affairs than its immediate predecessor."

The main factor at work in the decline of civic engagement, Putnam notes, is an inevitable one: death. As more and more members of the civic-minded generation die (or become too old to be as active), the level of participation declines. So the plummet began as the baby boomers became a larger portion of the population, and continued as Xers and boomers both far outnumbered the people who had been doing all the community work. So to some degree, it took years for this trend to be seen. And if we learn from our parents' example, is it fair to lay all the blame for not being as active in civic life at the feet of Generation X?

I could go on, but my point is a simple one: It seems like there is always someone -- on the left or the right -- trying to take advantage of one group of people. Sometimes they want to exploit their naivete. Sometimes they want scapegoats. While Mattson's plot isn't nefarious, I find his rationale curiously skewed by his ideology.

Could he instead have just written a book about how to get young people politically engaged instead of one just complaining that they need to be engaged in service of his political belief? We Xers may get a rap for being selfish, but Mattson one-ups us by putting out a book that raises self-interest high above public interest.