Activism on campus self-righteous

Marvin Campbell Guest Writer

In response to the recent spate of articles that have examined and analyzed the political atmosphere of this campus, only one phrase seems appropriate by way of response: Give me a break. The tirade that lionized the fracas at the CIA recruitment hearing (Max Shmookler’s “CIA Recruitment on Campus Unethical”) remains the only article that has managed to capture the nature of such an atmosphere properly; albeit unintentionally.

The fact that not only such an event happened, but, more importantly, that its participants regarded it with so much self-congratulation, draws into sharp focus something I had only glimpsed about the nature of those who consider themselves politically active on this campus: they are the most morally unserious people on the planet. Make no mistake, I say this not because, as a staunch Republican, I support the CIA and sympathize with the recruiter, Jeanmarie, who simply sought to do her job—though I do on both counts—but rather because that display of self-righteousness can’t represent activism on this campus, and perhaps more depressingly, activism at its finest.

Setting aside even the morality of attacking someone hired to perform a function entirely unrelated to defending the legitimacy of the CIA, I propose this challenge to their supposed desire for “dialogue”: if you were really interested in debating the merits of America’s foreign policy, then why did you not invite someone—either from the CIA or someone similarly willing to defend its modus operandi—and pursue the matter? I’m kind enough to save them even the necessity of answering; you do not want a rational debate, only a soapbox from which to berate unchecked. If she had responded with eloquence, conviction, and most importantly, rationality, the game would have been up. But knowing in advance such a thing could not happen, they remained at liberty to take aim at a target not only lacking the power to retaliate but even to take flight.

I will not lament the fact that a true diversity of ideas does not exist on this campus. After all, the left owns academia—notwithstanding certain individual professors and institutions—and though I am not pleased with such a fact, I do not demand to hear any conservative speakers before I graduate. I will, however, ask one thing of you, though I know it shall fall on willfully deaf ears: do not parade around as if you are true activists. Though the editorial staff has weakly attempted to foster this collectively held image of idealistic students committed to thoughtful engagement with political questions, that image is nothing but a delusion. Not only is there no engagement with an opposing viewpoint, there is no engagement, period. In a certain sense, then, though not in the way she intends, Judy Jarvis [“Vassar Bubble is an inaccurate term”] is correct when she states the bubble has become an outmoded term: Vassar is a vacuum.

Tabling in the College Center, sponsoring a Mug night, speaking out angrily in a political-science class, sneering at yet another Bushism during the electoral debates, wearing a Kerry-Edwards button in the days leading up to the election—these gestures are hardly proof of your involvement. Of course, I do not long to see the heady days of Berkeley and Kent State reborn, but surely some level of engagement exists between nothingness and violent agitation, and before you whine that those protestors had Vietnam and Nixon, you certainly have Iraq and Bush. That is one aspect of the parallel dilemmas most everyone has seen fit to miss and yet remain worth noting, because—although the anti-Bush hysteria is immense—politics still remains little more than a passing concern for even those young people who consider themselves politically active. Indeed, in our present age, membership in a campus group, a trip to New York to participate in an antiwar protest, and a drive to Ohio to rally swing voters for Kerry serve as sufficient proof of one’s devotion to liberal principles. How times have changed.

In all fairness, I know some people here remain committed to real involvement, or at the very least, think about such a subject in a meaningful way, but the majority of those who make such a claim, I am afraid, are not even slightly so. What drives them I do not know and do not care to even probe, but—to borrow the words of Voltaire—I will issue the truly political this warning: you can protect yourselves from your enemies, but God save you from your friends!