[Peace-discuss] Training students for apathy

[Brussel Morton K.]

A pretty weak set of propositions/assertions.  Some highly  
questionable ones are outlined in red. The last two outlined seem to  
border on paranoia.
--mkb

On Sep 10, 2009, at 3:39 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> [What happened to the sixties student, from a student newspaper's  
> talk with Noam Chomsky, September 8, 2009.  I think this is right  
> about the universities of the 1960s and forty years later -- and  
> rarely said.  --CGE]
>
>
> When people talk about “the ‘60s,” what they are thinking of is  
> about two years: 1968-1969, roughly -- a little bit before, a little  
> bit later. And it’s true that student activism today is not like  
> those two years. But, on the whole, I think it’s grown since the  
> 1960s. So, take the feminist and the environmental movements --  
> they’re from the ‘70s; take the International Solidarity Movement -—  
> that’s from the ‘80s; take the Global Justice Movement (which just  
> had another huge meeting in Brazil) -- that’s from this century.
>
> Plenty of students are involved in these things. In fact, the total  
> level of student involvement in various things is probably as huge  
> as it’s ever been, except for maybe the very peak in the 1960s when  
> the war was a huge issue. Or the Civil Rights Movement in the South  
> that trained many students -— that was the early ‘60s. It’s not what  
> I would like it to be, but it’s far more than it’s been.
>
> I think [the current talk about passivity among students is] an  
> effort to induce passivity. The standard picture of the ‘60s that’s  
> presented is that it was a terrible time. It was what’s called “the  
> time of troubles” -- students were going crazy, everything was  
> falling apart, and so on. That’s not what was happening.  It was a  
> time when the country was starting to become more civilized --  
> thanks largely to the impetus of the activist students.
>
> Elite sectors and centers of power don’t like that lesson. They  
> don’t want that lesson to be learned. They want students to be  
> passive and apathetic. In fact, there was a pretty big backlash to  
> the ‘60s. One of the reasons for the very sharp rise in tuition is  
> to kind of capture students.  If you come out of college with a huge  
> debt, you’re going to have to work it off -- you’re going to have to  
> become a corporate lawyer or go into business or something. And you  
> won’t have time for engaged activism.
>
> The students of the ‘60s were [in college] at that time when the  
> society -- the culture -- was much more open. I mean that a student  
> could take off a year or two and devote it to activism and think,  
> "Okay, I’ll get back into my career later on."  That’s much harder  
> today.  And not by accident.  These are disciplinary techniques.
>
> http://wildcat.arizona.edu/opinions/i-applaud-your-protest-1.436185
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