Production the root of it all
I felt dismayed after reading Mason West’s column “A Lackluster Cause” (ODE, April 11). His assessment of students’ protests against sweatshops reveals the alienation of people in this country from injustices in which we directly participate. West suggests that students have little reason to protest today, so they have to search for a cause. His article implies that people should only protest when they are “personally” subjected to injustice. How far has the cult of individualism come when consuming the products of exploitation is not seen as personal? The fact that so many goods in this society have been produced under conditions of oppression IS personal. WE are the ones consuming those goods! The United States is directly implicated in that system of production.
Choosing not to buy particular products under the suspicion of exploitation is not a good enough solution because these products are flooding the market. We need to change the conditions of production. Student protesters show not only solidarity and empathy with the plight of other human beings but also the deep realization that what happens to these people is not separated from our own lives. The causes these students are fighting for are not “pale in comparison to those of the past,” as West suggests. There is plenty of injustice in contemporary society and anyone who has his or her eyes open would see it. The fact that we try to deny injustice in order to be able to continue with our everyday life is a different matter.

Barbara Sutton

sociology

Still carrying the torch
I read Mason West’s column Tuesday (ODE, April 11), and while I agree that it can be annoying when people either appear to be hypocritical or under-inspired to recognize “their own issues,” I think West is missing a crucial point. The war our “hippie” mothers and fathers were “fighting” against involved violence that they found to be unjustified for whatever reason. But there are still just as many, if not more, evils in the world today that aren’t always as recognizable as a media-exploited war. And to discount those who have the courage to at least publicly state their problems with these evils, I feel, is failing to commend them for at least attempting. (And it does take courage because entities that impede democratic processes, e.g. the World Trade Organization, are even more insidious in the long run than a “police action” — trade officials consider ambivalent, apathetic responses to global problems a welcome stance.) Please research what is actually going on in the world — environmental disasters, continuing degradation of women and children, continuing degradation of a truly democratic process at the hands of corporate interests, increasing violence and crime worldwide, and realize that we are not copying our parents, we are continuing their protests. Before we make any significant progress, I would wager that our great-grandchildren will be following in those footsteps as well.

Alison Wise

C. Lundquist College of Business, MBA 2000