The recent pair of guest commentaries in the Emerald by Mariah Thompson (“Emerald columnist out of line,” ODE, May 3) and Cimmeron Gillespie (“Fight the good fight, be involved,” ODE, May 3) in response to a piece by columnist Thomas Kyle-Milward manages to disparage all of us who have not taken up the activist political causes on campus. Of all the reasonable rebuttals to Kyle-Milward’s opinion piece (“Artificial activism aids no cause,” ODE, April 23), such as defending the merits of goals of campus activism, it’s quite a stretch to claim that the opposite of engagement in the issues that matter to them is apathy.
Thompson asks “who ever changed the world, positively impacted their community or improved the livelihoods of others by zoning out, turning inward and cranking up their headphones (to avoid petitioners)?” The focus on headphones confuses the reason for not wanting to stop with the means of avoiding doing so, when there are more pressing uses of one’s time. But the shakier proposition is that by walking past the petitioner, one forgoes the opportunity to change the world or help their community and others. Gillespie asserts that Kyle-Milward’s narrow criticism of the particular brand of activism at the University amounts to an argument for apathy, thereby making it clear that he only advocates “involvement” when it comes to those issues that come parading into campus. Gillespie further claims there is no excuse to “deliberately avoid participation,” with no hint that his conception of participation extends beyond the political examples he lists, and seemingly oblivious to Kyle-Milward’s, again, narrow focus on campus activism at the University. Gillespie, is it inconceivable that some of us do not participate in the political battles you’ve set your sights on for much the same reasons that most of us (undoubtedly including yourself) have decided against joining the Coast Guard, attempting to solve the Navier-Stokes equations, and researching the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, among countless other worthwhile pursuits? You do not have a monopoly on virtuous endeavors, and the insinuation that the clipboard topic of the day morally trumps any of the reasons that I or anyone else came to the University is the real offense.
For the first time I had ever seen in the Emerald, Kyle-Milward was speaking to those of us sick of being guilt-tripped into signing a financial agreement covered in pictures of third-world children on the street between classes; those of us annoyed by desperately flirtatious peddlers plying for signatures on an issue we’re not keen to taking a position on after a one-sided pitch; and those of us deeply skeptical that this constant drumbeat of “raising awareness” of an endless array of issues by way of booths and demonstrations and solicitations in high-traffic areas could be anywhere near the point of suddenly precipitating a rapturous social epiphany in which everyone stops what they’re doing, throws aside their books and obligations, and collectively fires their Care Bear Stare at some over-simplified conception of the adversity, disaster, injustice, or intractable-sociopolitical clusterfuck du jour to finally, wondrously, and impossibly resolve any of these incredibly complex and systemic problems that require decades of hard, serious work before any real change can be achieved.
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