Book Review - Do It Any-way: The New Generation of Activists

I recently read the book Do it Any-Way: The New Generation of Activists by the young author Courtney E. Martin. It is an easy read of 193 pages. I read it in a week, and trust me for an extremely slow reader like myself, that’s saying a lot.

I first saw it on the www.rabble.ca website when I was trying to get a good idea of what would be a good political book to read. My husband and I often talk hours on end about all the problems facing America (and by extension Canada and the rest of the world). Perhaps every generation egotistically thinks their obstacles are insurmountable and unprecedented in the history of time, but to me, it really does feel like our generation has tremendous burdens to cope with, not least of which is a planet in peril:

1. For starters we are less financially independent than our parents were at our age – many of us live at home well into our 30’s. 
2. The boomers are called the “sandwich generation” because they are simultaneously taking care of their children and their aging parents due to cuts in retirement programs, and as the retirement age and cuts continue to increase, there’s no reason to believe this will solve itself in the near future.
3.  Many of us are graduating with fewer job prospects and are forced to settle for jobs that under utilize our education and underpaid us; meanwhile the saturation in education is forcing us to surpass previously expected credentials forcing us to get endless degrees and work in unpaid internships, putting us deeper into debt and further from financial freedom.

The following is a list of things that are affecting us less directly, but are nonetheless threatening our quality of life. I’m speaking of the US here specifically, but as we all know policies in the US affect the rest of us, especially Canada considering we have a puppet Prime Minister in office (oops, did I just say that?). The following points were taken from a book called Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope by Chalmers Johnson, which I’m currently reading.

1. The US spends insane amounts of money on “defense” projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the US.
2.  Income tax burdens on the richest segments of the American population are kept at strikingly low levels.
3. The US has enabled the erosion of their manufacturing base and loss of jobs to foreign countries.
4. Because of the massive military expenditures, the US has failed to invest in social infrastructure – the money for universal health care and other social programs is there, it is just being spent in the wrong places.
5. The public education in the country has deteriorated.
6. The US (and Canada as one of its greatest allies) has neglected their responsibility in being the world’s number one polluter.

So that about sums up everything that will directly or indirectly affect us within our lifetime. Oh and not to mention our heavy dependence on a non-renewable resource, the eruption of wars and numerous uprisings on the other side of the globe, and the pervasive natural disasters due to global warming. Still with me? Have I scared you yet? I mean seriously, where do you being? Ini-mini-mani mo, I will take on this monster if you take that one? 

In addition to wanting to release a big sigh by now, you will also probably want to ask yourself: “Why aren’t more people in outrage? Why aren’t we protesting and starting rebellions when we see wealthy bank investors bailed out, like the people in London or elsewhere in Europe do at the first sight of government spending cuts?” I mean, sure there are sporadic instances of protests here and there (recall the recent protests regarding unions in Wisconsin that did gain considerable momentum), but why aren’t they more widespread? Why aren’t we more united?”

The thing that appealed to me about this book was that the author begs to differ with the well established notion that our generation simply doesn’t care. That we are too self-absorbed and caught up in our latest technological gadgets and distracted by consumerism and celebrity gossip to stop to consider what we can do.

“I think they’ve got it wrong,” she says, “We are not, on the whole, entitled, self-absorbed, and apathetic. We’re overwhelmed, empathic, and paralyzed.”

In other words, the book’s appeal to me was that somewhere, someone out there thought that our generation was not doomed, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. If anything good came out of the recent uprising in the Middle East, it is that a tool like social media can be used for things other than bragging to our peers about our latest vacation – that it is a democratizing tool that has the capacity to mobilize people into action.

But if you’re looking for some sort of solution, the book will prove to be a disappointment, for it doesn’t attempt to do that. Rather it is a collection of stories about 8 young activists who are out there, on the front lines every day, attempting to make their mark in the world, however insignificant it may seem.  Their missions vary from attempting to instill world piece, to fighting the education system to environmental justice and many more worthy causes. Most importantly, they do not allow minor setbacks to discourage them back into despair and inaction. 

It provides an honest account that activism and does not attempt to glamorize or sugar-coat the realities that is not just about the warm and fuzzy feelings one gets at the end of the day; but rather it is a path of constant struggle, testing your resilience on a daily basis. Whether you are a philanthropist, a full-time employee at a nonprofit organization, or working as a public servant, there is no way of knowing whether what you are doing is really the most efficient, more viable, more direct way to make a difference. It is this doubt and the reality that your work is never finished in the way that say a corporate project might finish, that prevents many people from getting into that line of work in the first place, but it is also this doubt that drives those who are committed and allow them to continuously question themselves and change their tactics accordingly.

The thing I took away from the book in light of these eight very different yet inspirational accounts of the aforementioned is that if we want to make a difference in this world, we first have to align ourselves and our energies appropriately. You can be the most intelligent person on earth, but if you are fighting for a cause you feel zero connection to, it won’t matter. The book illustrates this with one particular character who started working as a social worker, a very selfless and worthy career path by anyone's account, but finds herslef absolutely miserable, and therefore her efforts to help others are futile. Through a series of serendipitous events, she discovers that her true calling is filmmaking and when she succumbs herself to following that path, she realizes her ability to help others is much more effective. Not only is she able help more people through her brutally honest documentaries about social issues than she did as a social worker, she  gained notoriety and recognition among her peers in doing so, a not so easy feat in an industry that is heavily male dominated. It is my assertion that her success is owed to the fact that her talents/interests/skills (filmmaking) became perfectly aligned with her passion to help others.

The moral of the story is: if you are lucky enough to find this alignment in your lifetime, go for it, without giving it a second thought, the financials (if that’s what you’re worried about) will solve themselves.

But getting back to the book – it is definitely worth the short amount of time it takes to read. If anything it will reinvigorate you into thinking about the possibilities. There is a great quote in the book that quotes another book, Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer:  “We are whiplashed between an arrogant overestimation of ourselves and a servile underestimation of ourselves..." that I think nicely captures our generation's conundrum.