The recent column by Mark Andriola '14 ("Who cares?" Oct. 12) mixes fallacy and apology with a healthy coat of solipsism. His argument is that since student protests are "silly," burdensome and "loud," we should be "more apathetic about being apathetic." We still care about others, he writes. We just "choose when and how."
My objection to this sophistry is that it blurs the paramount distinction between choice and responsibility. A choice implies an option: to engage the world or to ignore it. But caring is an obligation, spurred by empathy. It's a duty to act, a visceral indignation, and a love for humanity that transcends rational decision-making. It can be neither trimmed for convenience nor relegated to the free slots in our schedules.
This is more than semantics. Andriola's argument reflects a broader outlook that permeates the lives of nearly all Dartmouth students myself included. I don't mean to say we're intrinsically selfish or amoral. Instead, I think a confluence of forces developing over the past 40 years increasing college enrollment, globalization, the Great Divergence, grade inflation, advances in fiber optics and telecommunications have yielded a more vicious meritocracy in which achievement and academic success are more crucial than ever to our future well-being. The professional spheres have become the primary forum for self-expression and advancement, with almost everything else significantly de-emphasized. As the opportunity cost of focusing on activities we can't put on our resumes increases, we do less and less that isn't somehow for ourselves. If we're not rushing to the library, or Webster Avenue, or the gym or a job, it's probably already too late for us to march for gay rights or universal health care or world peace.
We are anxious like past generations. That much is true. But what scares us isn't a looming draft or a deadly famine or racial inequality. No, we're afraid of tests: SATs, LSATs, GREs, MCATs, midterms and finals. Even our social lives are based on the critical evaluations of others. Rush, like almost everything else, sorts us into hierarchies based on merit and performance. We can't escape and frankly, we don't want to. A second wasted is a second lost. We can't look forward when we're looking over our shoulders.
Successful change requires cooperation predicated on the understanding that the sum of a movement is greater than its participants. Protests require tenacity, energy and application. So does getting "A"s though, and that's a problem, given that global peace, financial security, individual freedom and equal opportunity are all public goods. They can't be denied to everyone once they are provided to anyone, and as such, our incentive is to sit back and let others do the job while we watch vainly from the stacks in Baker Tower. When involvement is a choice and not a responsibility, we can always pretend we'll make up for it later.
Let's be clear: the problem is not that "the protest and march culture of the 1960s is dead and gone, and society is better for it." For better or for worse, the Tea Party demonstrates that freedom of assembly remains a tremendous engine for social, political and economic change in the United States. The right to protest is a linchpin of our democracy, a way for citizens to hold officials accountable to their needs. When we dismiss it as anachronistic, we also discount our intelligence, Bill of Rights and capacity to shape the international landscape.
I neither exonerate nor indict us. Recognizing the situation for what it is rather than Andriola's misplaced justification or the misdirected rage of Sam Buntz '11 ("Blood, Toil, Sweat and Apathy," Sept. 28) is simply the first step towards improvement. Our challenges are real, but as some of the best-educated and most privileged people in the world, a lot of us (myself included) could be doing more to champion global causes. After all, when the will of the people is no longer the governing concern for those who govern, what else can we do?
