Mediacology

As a mentor (no, not a member of that gawd-awful trash metal band of the ’80s who wore executioner hoods when performing live), I work with youth to guide and support their media activism. (You can read about it in the article I wrote in Clamor Magazine called, “School of (Punk) Rock.”) I hear many reports from younger people about feeling stifled by the corporate regurgitation of youth culture, and also the stagnant atmosphere engulfing post-9/11 activism. I feel their pain. Still, I was very impressed by the young activists I encountered at Bonnaroo (such as Clean Vibes) and have noticed a high level of media savvy among college activists these days.

Compared to my university days when all we had were those horrible inky blue mimeograph machines, activists now have blogs, downloadable PDFs, news conferences, Web sites, viral media and so on. They are plugged into an unparalleled vast, global network, something Paul Hawken lovingly calls, “The Other Super Power” (I highly recommend this podcast of Hawken and the Dalai Lama, and this article by Bioneers co-founder Kenny Ausubel, “Heeding the Law of the Land“). When 10 million anti-war/pro-peace marchers gathered and protested on the same day months before the US invaded Iraq, it was an unprecedented planetary event. I get shivers thinking about it.

Thankfully The Nation (a magazine I still read and respect) sponsored a contest for young activists to write about the issues that concern them. The five winners can be read here. “Project Corpus Callosum” by Sarah Stillman of Yale University was the top prizewinner. It’s beautifully written and is worth a gander. As she states, it’s all about networking our brain hemispheres:

“We must begin rebuilding the intricate connections between our collective left brain (where we house our analytical critique of twenty-first-century woes) and our collective right brain (where we harbor our dreams that another world is possible). Already, young people are building this cross-hemisphere bridge–performing guerrilla theater, conducting counter-recruiting workshops, creating community-policing initiatives, writing feminist blogs and building transnational ties with youth activists around the world. Before long, we will hit our stride with Project Corpus Callosum: a much-needed mission to restore the space within our collective conscience where our radical imaginations meet our commitment to everyday action.”