Quates from "Radical Future"

·       It would be nice to say that the institutions of global governance are restraining the interests of an increasingly powerful transnational capitalist class of non-doms, oligarchs, CEO‘s, media moguls and their attendant armies of lobbyists, PR wonks and pocket blogers, but the truth seems to be the opposite: internationally, the obscenely wealthy tends to get their way. (Ben Little, p.7).

·       We need to change not just pur electoral system and political parties (important as they may be), but change the way we think about politics. (Ben Little, p.10)

·        The lack of a sense of political purpose within the generations under thirthy requires the development of a coherent politics to replace the failing ideology voted in by our parents. (Ben Little, p.15)

·        Under the terms of previous generations‘ logics we saw our institutions, both public and private, transform theirselves – from operating within a principle of universalism, based upon a concept of a society, to a principle of choice, based upon a concept of individual. (Ben Little, p. 26)

·       Every generation says its young people are feral and ill disciplined compared to what they used to be. (Chris Huhne, p. 30).

·       In order to engage young people you need to have a very clear vision, and that vision has to be one of society that is environmentally sustainable, and has jobs. (Chris Hehne, p. 32)

·       We tend to envisage the first trip to the ballot box as a rite of passage – the opportunity to vote, to elect represantive, to have your say on how the country should be run. (Richard George, p. 41)

·       The historian Winthrop Jordan remarked that the growing emphasis of individualisation in the twentieth century was a necessary precondition for the emergence of adulthood, and that our notions of maturity, mastery and independence have developed within a particular political-economic frame. (Kate Crawford, p. 51)

·       The notion that a rising tade of mental distress amongst young people is a result of socio-economic pressure than generational weakness is an uncomfortable one for baby-boomer generation who are curently making the bulk  of policy decisions. (Laurie Penny, p.61).

·       The idea of community has been politicised in this new discourse of communities in a way that ignores the reality of their complexity and denies the possibility of their equality. (James Graham, p. 79)

·       Something needs to be done to re-engage all young people in learning, and to recognise that all are capable of developing ( no doubt in different degrees) the kinds of knowledge which enables them to have an intelligent management of their lives; and to develope respect for the practical know-how is as much part of a fully developed person as the much cherished theoretical understanding, as well as the dispositions and sensitivities which enable them to direct that knowledge and capability to wortwhile ends. (Richard Pring, p. 102)

·       In discussing the impact of online organising by young activists, „In an increasingly information-centric society, politics become more about spectatorship and less about participation“; Obama‘s young army „share links rather than link arms“. (Joss Garman, p.113)

·       Today, the hegemony of neoliberalism is mostly lived in a form of a structure of feeling which Mark Fisher has called „capitalist realism“: the belief that there is simply no alternative to free market capitalism in any area of social life. (Jeremy Gilbert, p. 120)

·       The consequent decline of democratic institutions is perhaps the major obstacle to young people‘s full participation in politics today. For years now, it has been a cliche to observe that young people prefer to engage in forms of politics which do not involve them with „traditional“ institutions of politics: parties, unions and local government. (Jeremy Gilbert, p. 120)