Can Naomi Wolf Replace Paris Hilton or Do We Expire in Convulsion?
Hey, Young Americans, Here's a Text for You
By Naomi Wolf Sunday, November 25, 2007; B04
Is America still America if millions of us no longer know how democracy works?
When I speak on college campuses, I find that students are either baffled by democracy's workings or that they don't see any point in engaging in the democratic process. Sometimes both.
Not long ago, I gave a talk at a major university in the Midwest. "They're going to raze our meadows and put in a shopping mall!" a young woman in the audience wailed. "And there's nothing we can do!" she said, to the nods of young and old alike.
I stared at her in amazement and asked how old she was. When she said 26, I suggested that she run for city council. Then she stared at me-- with complete incomprehension. It took me a long time to convince her and her peers in the audience that what I'd suggested was possible, even if she didn't have money, a major media outlet of her own or a political "machine" behind her.
This lack of understandin…