Generational Nix

Harvard students toil on a divided campus, but they are also part of a generation that is balkanized socially, culturally and politically.

That presents a challenge for activists who want to mobilize the so-called Generation X. The question facing leaders of groups like Third Millenium and Lead or Leave is whether, as many authors argue, twentysomethings are totally oblivious to politics.

"I don't think so," Richard Thau, executive director of Third Millenium, says when asked if he is preaching politics to a generation that has no use for them. "We're trying to create awareness that there's a crisis."

Thau represents a new wave of political activism: generational advocacy. Third Millenium is political group which sees itself as a voice for disenchanted twentysomethings.

Technological Tools

While young people in the '60s took over university buildings, advocacy groups such as Lead or Leave or Thau's Third Millennium rely on MTV, electoronic mail and other technological tools to push their agenda.

The groups tend to support such measures as reducing the deficit, means-testing social security, holding companies more responsible for pollution and lengthening school years to improve education.

Lead or Leave attempts to get congressional candidates to sign an agreement that if they do not make a substantial effort to reduce the deficit within a given number of terms, they will not seek re-election.

Thau's group, too, remains interested in government economics, particularly the deficit and the possible future bankruptcy of the Social Security Administration. Third Millenium leaders say they want to slow down the normally rapid cycle of politics and instead focus the nation's leaders on the long term.

"We're looking for a redirection from a 'next-election' to a next-generation' cycle," Thau says. "[Politicians] today are so short-sighted in policy making that we're putting future generations at risk."

Less than a year after it was founded, Third Millenium claims to have signed up 1,000 members. Newsweek and The New York Times have written stories about the group, and MTV regularly covers its activities.

But all that doesn't mean the organization has caught on among twentysomethings. In fact, several Harvard students questioned by The Crimson said they had never heard of either Third Millenium or Lead or Leave.

Thau, however, says numbers are not important; he is not, after all, trying to build a generational army. "The last thing we want is a generational battle," he says. "But leaders are fearful of a generational shift...[Young people] feel they need an external force to get things moving."

Lack of Support

Recent Ivy League graduates hold down four of the 14 seats on Third Millenium's board of directors, but the group has failed to win over Harvard students.

"I find their tone too hostile for my liking," says Henry Ellenbogen '94, who has served as campaign manager and later chief of staff to U.S. Rep Peter Deutsch (D-Fla.). "They insinuate that our age group should move in isolation."

Ellenbogen, like many students, says he is uncomfortable with generational politics. "Americans in general have become cynical about leaders, which is destorying the fabric," he says. "We need to work with the system. People in their twenties have a lot to offer...Congressmen recognize that."

Ellenbogen says those who criticize the political system for being unreceptive to the ideas of twentysomethings are wrote. "It's all merit," he says. "It's a question of being able to work hard to make up for experience."

Marc McKay '94, who is currently running for a seat in the Iowa state House, says he agrees with Ellenborgen's point. "People in the political scene are receptive to hard work... There's no need to transcend the system," he said from Iowa in a recent phone interview.

McKay, who once worked for Lead or Leave, doubts that his former organization and groups like it will transform politics because they lack both grassroots support and a coherent plan.

"They try to stay non-partisan but don't have a plan," says McKay, a Winthrop House resident. "They're more generationally sensitive than politically sensitive."

But Thau dismisses such criticism as ill-informed. "We're totally about a grassroots effort," he says.

And Thau argues that the membership of groups like Third Millenium is not limited to those who oppose the political system.

"We encourage young people to get involved in any way they can," he says. "Third Millenium is only the means to an end [of political activism]."

In the minds of many students, however, Lead or Leave and Third Millenium are little different than other political groups.

"They're supplements to other groups, like Young Republicans," says Trey Grayson '94, the former chair of the Institute of Politics' student advisory committee.

Jomo A. Thorne '97, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe College Democrats, says he sees Lead or Leave as a vague attempt to bring back the activism of the 1960s.

"They won't match the '60s, which is what these people are trying to do in a '90s kind of way," Thorne says. "The only way people are motivated to act is if they are affected directly. You don't see the deficit affecting you directly, whereas being drafted for war is direct."

But Thorne, unlike many other students, believes generational change is possible if twentysomethings can somehow overcome their apathy.

"There's so much we could be fired up about," Thorne says. "But people don't care....They don't understand the implications of issues today and how they will affect us in the future."

New and Old

Marvin L. Kalb, director of the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, says activist groups that assert the need for generational change are nothing new.

"This [generational activism] has been around since the 1968 [presidential] campaign," he says.

But Kalb thinks today's young people are unique because they are more aware of the world than their '60s counterparts.

"The experience from the '92 campaign is that 20-year olds are more interested today," says Kalb, adding that the end of the Cold War and the souring of the economy are catalysts for increased political awareness among the nation's youth.

Kalb, however, adds that twentysomethings feel less deeply about politics than previous generations.

"[Twentysomethings], despite their numbers, are superficially involved," he says.

And that make Generation X a particularly difficult target for political activists.