World of Dennis

I have an idea for a club here at BU. In starting this club, I will gather a group of people together to endorse a certain company we all like, say Wal-Mart. During every meeting, we will read company press releases, accept them as generally being fact, promulgate them to the rest of the student body, and, when we get money, pay for people to come speak about how great the company is, and how nasty all of its competitors are.

Would people join my club? Probably not. If that is so, then why do political groups campaigning for political parties get so many members? Those groups do many of the same types of activities that my imaginary group would do. Instead of doing it for Wal-Mart, they do it for the Democratic or Republican Party. They hang up fliers supporting candidates on their side, and bring in heavily partisan speakers. Even when they have “debates,” they yell at each other armed with arguments from the party line, not from their own head.

Students probably choose to do this for a number of reasons: it is nice to be in a group of like-minded thinkers, it is cool to know that you are part of some sort of cause and, hey, you might even make a few friends while you’re at it. But I think the biggest and most disturbing reason why people join these groups is that it’s just easier to find a party you vaguely agree with, and let them decide your position on all those tough issues.

This is a terrible and dangerous path to go down for the educated persons of the future. The moment you surrender your ability to think and form opinions to some other body, you surrender your ability to be an intelligent and thoughtful person. Moreover, you lose all or most of your credibility. Think of those people who campaign for Lyndon LaRouche. They don’t seem to have gathered any information beyond the campaign’s literature, and nobody listens to them. People who are active for other political parties snicker at them as a cult, but do not realize that they themselves are part of a cult as well; it is simply a larger one. It is a cult of the mainstream, a cult of normality and a cult of unoriginality. The only difference between the students accepting Democrats or Republicans at their word and the students accepting LaRouche is that the Democratic and Republican students are part of a larger and more dangerous group that threaten us far more than LaRouche ever could.

This is because Republicans and Democrats actually control a lot of the political debate in this country. And so long as people continue to accept their programming and manipulation, our country will continue to be composed of two rival camps incapable of honest debate, original thought or independent analysis. We will never be able to solve our problems in an effective way, since each camp will continue to believe that the other side is simply using the problem to further its own presumably evil agenda.

Any decrease in this country’s destructive partisanship starts at the university level, and starts with students. Therefore, we students should not be bull horns for the left or right, reciting trite sayings so more can hear them. We should create our own special voices independent of the political parties. Those students who leave university without such an independent voice have failed themselves and society. They have failed in becoming a true citizen who can participate intelligently in the activities essential to democracy.

If our country is to ever become more than it is today, if some semblance of citizen government is to ever return, then we, as the intellectuals of tomorrow, must choose today to not join one of two choruses of war trumpets blaring at each other for superiority. We must choose instead to develop a national orchestra, deep and complex, with different tones and pitches, but all working toward a beautiful if chaotic harmony that thrives because of our collective individuality. Instead of canvassing for the candidate your party supports, read a book and find more about the world. Instead of using a loud voice to support a political candidate you think may be wonderful, reserve your judgment, and speak out on injustices that you know exist. Instead of joining the College Democrats or College Republicans, join a group where you are likely to meet people with different views and challenge yourself by seeking truth, rather than claiming you’ve already found it.