Over the past week or so, I have been reading about the unfolding Student Assembly drama that has been playing out in the pages of The Dartmouth. I've been reading about the "political" infighting between former Academic Affairs Chair Adam Shpeen '07 and President Tim Andreadis '07 and all their starry-eyed plans to reform the Assembly, Greek life and everything in between. As much as I would like to convince myself that I should care about the ins and outs of this heated debate, I simply can't shrug off the feeling that it is all irrelevant.
While Shpeen and Andreadis have been out for each other's proverbial hide this past week, I can't help but notice that their little catfight doesn't seem to affect life on this campus in any way. I went to class, did my reading and went about my business, just like I might do any other week. The high drama of the Assembly didn't even come up in conversation -- not even once. I cannot imagine that I am the only student similarly unaffected by this no-holds-barred slugfest to determine who our vaunted student representatives are.
In point of fact, this whole bout seems even more comical and irrelevant in light of the farcical nature of the Assembly itself. To my eyes, the Shpeen-Andreadis battle royale amounts to a fight over who gets to be elected to do absolutely nothing of substance. Shpeen and Andreadis can tear each other's hair out until the cows come home for all I care. At the end of the day, I'm confident that short of one of them establishing an Assembly dictatorship, my daily routine -- and yours -- will continue unabated.
If you are skeptical about my claims concerning the nature of the Assembly, I understand completely. We are all inculcated to believe that these people, who clog our inboxes and newspaper columns with empty promises, wasting so much of their time and ours, are actually capable of seriously representing us. But let's for a moment take a serious look at the nature of school-sanctioned student government and evaluate it for what it really is -- the machinery for student control. Honestly ask yourselves: What administration in its right mind would ever give students one iota of real power? The mere thought of it conjures up images of a constant booze-fueled holiday the likes of which you and I could just barely imagine.
The appearance of the Assembly as a functional political entity is an elaborately contrived charade developed by the administration to convince the student body that its genuine concerns and gripes are being attended to diligently and conscientiously, thereby neutralizing us as a potent instrument of disruption and protest.
Compare the negotiating power of 5,000 angry students occupying several administration buildings to a small body of elected "representatives" fruitlessly haranguing the college higher-ups for concessions that may or may not be handed over anyway. There really is no comparison. The Assembly is incapable of substantive achievement because it operates at the administration's beck and call, gleefully accepting the concessions it is dealt, powerless to attain anything more than what the college will willingly concede.
It is in light of this more honest reading of student government that I question the significance that the result of the Shpeen-Andreadis feud will have on any of our lives. You will all continue to go or not go to class, party or not party just like the Assembly will continue to serve as the administration's dutiful lapdogs. I can guarantee that life as you know it will not even feel the ripple of all their self-serving whining. I don't care who wins or loses. I don't care about their policies or promises. I just wish they'd handle this in the privacy of their personal time and call in when due process has decided who will continue to do nothing for us.
