"There's people coming in who've never done any politics at all, who've never been in a trade union, they've never been in a political party, they've never done anything, but they do feel a kind of urgency"
About this Quote
The line bristles with a familiar activist ambivalence: delight at new energy, irritation at new amateurs. Susan George is sketching a changing ecology of political engagement, where urgency is abundant but apprenticeship is rare. The repetition of "never" is doing quiet heavy lifting. It’s not just a list of missing credentials; it’s a drumbeat of disbelief, a portrait of people who arrive at "politics" without the old infrastructure that once trained, socialized, and disciplined dissent.
The trade union and party aren’t name-dropped as nostalgic props. They signal a whole model of power: collective, procedural, slow, often boring. George’s subtext is that movements built on vibes and emergency can burn hot and then evaporate, or worse, be easily steered by institutions that do know how politics works. “They’ve never done anything” lands like a scold, but the pivot matters: “but they do feel a kind of urgency.” She’s acknowledging that urgency is real - probably produced by crisis politics (austerity, climate breakdown, debt, globalization) - and that the traditional gateways have failed to absorb it.
Intent-wise, it reads as a warning to both sides. To newcomers: feeling urgent isn’t the same as building leverage. To legacy organizations: if you’re only offering bureaucracy, you’ll keep hemorrhaging people into looser, more volatile forms of engagement. The quote captures a modern paradox: the collapse of civic institutions creates the very conditions that make urgency rational, while also making durable politics harder to learn.
The trade union and party aren’t name-dropped as nostalgic props. They signal a whole model of power: collective, procedural, slow, often boring. George’s subtext is that movements built on vibes and emergency can burn hot and then evaporate, or worse, be easily steered by institutions that do know how politics works. “They’ve never done anything” lands like a scold, but the pivot matters: “but they do feel a kind of urgency.” She’s acknowledging that urgency is real - probably produced by crisis politics (austerity, climate breakdown, debt, globalization) - and that the traditional gateways have failed to absorb it.
Intent-wise, it reads as a warning to both sides. To newcomers: feeling urgent isn’t the same as building leverage. To legacy organizations: if you’re only offering bureaucracy, you’ll keep hemorrhaging people into looser, more volatile forms of engagement. The quote captures a modern paradox: the collapse of civic institutions creates the very conditions that make urgency rational, while also making durable politics harder to learn.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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