[Peace-discuss] Training students for apathy

[Brussel Morton K.]

Yes: No argument on this.

--mkb

On Sep 10, 2009, at 12:26 PM, David Green wrote:

> Paranoid or otherwise, I would add that the whole structural change  
> to academia since the 1960s--reliance on grants, low-paid teaching  
> assistants and adjuncts, cutbacks on tenured faculty in the liberal  
> arts--is part of this process--neoliberalization, if you will.
>
> DG
>
> From: Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net>
> To: C.G.Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
> Cc: peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
> Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:19:49 AM
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Training students for apathy
>
> 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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>
>
>

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