Rethinking "Activism"
As I recall, last September I declared in this blog that I had had it with activism, at least the university variety. That is still true for me, but only partially. It is not activism itself that I'm tired of - far from it. After all, ordinary citizens working for important liberal causes are the reason why we're not still living in 1950. I thought recently that the problem was one of priorities - students putting too much time into their causes of choice at the expense of their Yale education. But actually, I'm realizing, it's a beautiful thing for a student to feel so committed to making a difference that she or he treats it as a course unto itself. The problem is not in students' activism; it's in how they choose to act.
Let's face it - most Yale progressive groups are pretty annoying. My own included. You can spot me from yards away as I prowl cross campus with clipboard in hand and no place to go. "Do you have a minute for the environment?" I ask as you speed up and feign an incoming cell phone call. You really don't want to talk to me. Maybe you want to talk to the people at the "Students Against A Nuclear Iran" booth, because they have hot chocolate and a committment-free petition. But only then do you realize what it is you've just done: consumed 120 calories and added your name to a somewhat ineffective looking list. It might as well have been "Students Against Really Cold Days." Nobody likes really cold days, but a list of undergraduates affirming this fact is not going to make May come any faster. Then there are the door knockers and the dining hall stalkers, all trying to convince you why you should care about X,Y, and Z. Walking by them induces guilt; stopping for them makes you feel like a sucker. It's a lose-lose situation.
Finally, there is the rally. A rally can be a great thing. For example, the entire Civil Rights movement. Alternatively, it can be an ineffectual and even laughable spectacle. Rallies depend on three things for success: a worthy and attainable cause, a critical mass, and a realistic audience. Thirty people marching for financial aid reform just a year after the university made significant improvements in financial aid policy with the stated intention of stopping there does not come across as inspiring. It comes across as uncompromising, tired, and naive. I was encouraged to join in this exact effort by a good friend. I'm still in find-an-honest-excuse limbo.
So how do we convert our desire for social justice into meaningful action? Here are some ideas.
1. Choose the right issue. One of the good things about the first financial aid movement was how called for it was. It had support not only from the radical UOC, but also from the YCC. President Levin had shown a surprising lack of compassion in an open forum, and comparisons with comparable schools were not in Yale's favor. By contrast, see the aforementioned Students Against A Nuclear Iran.
2. Choose tactics that make a direct, noticeable impact. Voter registration produces one of the most annoying waves of clipboard crusaders, but in the end you have actual registered voters, the bread and butter of progress. On the other hand, the ever-popular "phone banking" leaves you no guarantee that the person you have pestered is going to follow up. Conferences rarely amount to more than preaching to the choir, and sit-ins, like noisy rallies, really only work in special circumstances.
3. Unless the issue at hand pertains directly to Yale, skip the student campaigning and go for direct community service. This is not unheard of at Yale. Among other things, SLAM, a prison system reform group, provides buses for inmates' families to visit them. The Environmental Education branch of YSEC used to visit elementary schools and teach ecology. Amnesty International writes letters to world leaders. The truth is that the Yale students who really care about issues are already involved in activist groups. "Raising campus awareness," in the long run, is no substitute for results.
This last point is, I think, the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, too rarely activism at Yale is just a way for students to pick a button to identify themselves by and raise a self-contained storm about it. It is easy for us to get caught up in the glamour of "justice" when in truth we're serving no one but ourselves. But when "activism" takes the form of actual action, it is worth our time just as much as that anthro midterm, if not more so.
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at 8:10 PM EST
