I just submitted this to our campus free speech publication. It probably isn't of much interest to those unconnected to Hampshire.
Ralph Nader had a scolding applause line in the 2000 campaign, aimed at any young people in the audience: "if you don't turn on to politics, politics will turn on you." I arrived at Hampshire in the Fall of 2001, just before 9/11, anxious to take up his call. A funny thing has happened in the intervening period. Politics turned on us in any number of major ways (from cutting Pell Grants to the war in Iraq) -- and we're either yawning or gazing at our navels. If anything, Hampshire is a less politically active campus today than it was when I started here.
In fact, most of you have already turned the page to read the latest installment of barely-coherent drivel about reality television. Some of you are still focused on my simplistic and problematic use of categories such as "politics" and "us", a practice which is bound up in systems of hierarchy and social privilege. (That was sarcastic, folks.)
It could be because I'm a reclusive Div III just returned from field study, but I'm not even witnessing any extended serious conversations about our role in shaping the political future of a nation which is now almost completely controlled by the radical right.
It's possible this is the only progressive institution in America where those conversations aren't happening. Environmentalists are abuzz over a speech by the former president of the Sierra Club proclaiming the death of their movement. Feminists are arguing passionately about a recent essay calling for a radically different rhetorical approach to the political debate over abortion. Gay rights groups are struggling to settle on a new political and legal strategy in the wake of the anti-gay marriage backlash. Labor unions are considering huge structural changes in an attempt to become relevant again. Even the Democratic Party, in a political tailspin, just chose Howard Dean, who was something of a national joke this time a year ago, to chair its national committee.
All of this is happening out in the open, and not just among political elites: pragmatic, profound conversations about how to build a new American left are happening everywhere, from cyberspace to coffee shops. Virtually everyone I know at Hampshire has at least some interest in the political groups mentioned above. And the conservative movement, having seized control of the federal government and bullied the press into submission, is now turning its fire to academia, which means we have a vested self-interest in fighting back. But we're still not engaging in the realities of national politics, preferring to fight the same provincial battles and continue the same irrelevant conversations using an academic vocabulary that hasn't changed in decades.
Hampshire aims to "graduate men and women with the skills and perspectives needed for understanding and participating responsibly in a complex world." We're very good at the perspectives and the understanding. It's a shame we can't seem to get serious about the skills and the participation.
Posted by Michael at February 26, 2005 09:42 PM | TrackBack