Thursday, February 18, 1999
Self-absorption generates rampant campus apathy
STUDENTS: Individuals worry only about themselves, ignore
problems of society on whole
Examining student apathy is like eating dinner with the ghost of
Jeremy Bentham. With every conversation, every nuance, things
become clearer. England’s most popular child prodigy was right, and
we never realized it. Everyone is out for themselves, and no one
else.
One may debate that comment, but ultimately it is hard to deny
the less-than-idealistic atmosphere pervading American collegiate
campuses today. Students have become apathetic. The source of this
disenfranchisement is the students themselves, a generation of
extreme and utter materialists who seek only selfish gains.
Indeed, student apathy is a large dilemma with a complex
mannerism. The greatest problem remains the indifferent student
body – or should I say the unpredictable student body? There is a
penchant for activism in the strangest places. Race and sexuality
issues have religious status to the individual, with good reason.
Civil rights won in this area constitute hard-fought battles that
have not faded in time. Yet, something is quite surprising.
Noticeably absent from the scene at college are protests about
the actions of the Federal Reserve Board. Sure, this has no direct
bearing on the school superficially – but it does. The national
rediscount rate determines the commensurate rates for all loans
paid in U.S. dollars. Now, how may students have loans? The
die-hard activists would rather rally to the aid of the imprisoned
Mumia Abu-Jamal than their own colleagues.
I suppose it takes a situation like Vietnam to arouse a level of
indignation with a group as incongruent and skeptical as college
students. Circumstances wherein your friends from high school come
home for Christmas in black nylon bags instead of a fraternity or
sorority sweater like yourself.
My concern here is not a normative argument. I recognize that it
is much easier to ask a question than answer it. You must look out
for yourself.
Being self-absorbed has consequences, though. The current
generation has not gleaned what their parents realized in the ’80s,
once characterized as the "Me Decade." Remember Gordon Gecko in the
film "Wall Street?"
"Greed is good," he cavorted in front of his competition.
For those who thought Gecko died in 1987, surprise – the devil
has been called forth again, rattling in the bones of the children.
Everything is up for grabs, so take it! To the world’s heir
apparents, happiness has a price, and they recite this fact by
heart. You say, "What a pessimist Thomas is!" I say, "What fools
they all play!"
Such an exacting critique of things is hard to accept. Of all
information, the truth is the most difficult to take. In this case,
I doubt many will agree with me. Admittedly, from the vantage point
of logic, my discourse appears as a giant supposition. When you
find a body, the whole town is at first suspect. As the
investigation escalates, it becomes clear that the behavior of the
residents provides an indictment of sorts. My evidence in this
argument arose from the repeated and observed behavior of the
student body.
In lecture, I hear one question more than any other: "What part
of this will be on the test?" I have heard this in every place,
from my general education credit courses to my preparation for my
major. What more proof does a person need here? Do not students
value learning, and the joy of becoming enlightened?
Apparently, they relish more the professor’s response: "Don’t
worry, just general questions," having the class end five minutes
early and the thought that the weekend is never more than four days
away.
In fact, I find the whole approach to instruction depressing.
The focus for the participant is always "knowing," and never
"learning." We would rather memorize and absorb a concept, take an
exam and then purge that temporary file folder for the next
quarter.
Understanding something is highly overrated, it seems. To them,
answers are the only important form of information.
Students believe that knowledge attained by thought and hard
work is less valuable than knowledge which is acquired, because it
is easier to absorb information than to develop one’s own thoughts.
Knowledge becomes another means to an end. To the trained eye, this
is quite alarming. Without constant and critical analysis of
scholarship, a stagnant air pervades things, and theories that
could be wrong are acclaimed as factual or proven. So you see, this
is not a casual problem.
Lest we limit observations to the classroom alone, consider that
more and more students work in college than before. The
institutional spin is that more children from low-income families
attend higher education and need to support themselves. I would
argue that plenty of high-income family students work so that they
can keep up with the Joneses’ progeny.
Separated from the generous allowances of their parents, these
dependents work insofar as to continue the high lifestyle they
enjoyed before.
Does none of this remind you of someone you know?
This argument is not an assault on capitalism. To expand my
argument and accuse an economic system of guilt is absurd. I merely
concentrate on the students, because no man is an island unto
himself. The trends that occur on the university lawns of today
bear great consequence to the future. Once we graduate, take the
job with a six-digit income, put a down payment on a BMW and sign
the mortgage to a house in the hills; what then? Is someone able to
complete this picture?
My detractors will claim that the institution is the one behind
this trend. I refuse to exonerate the youth that quickly. The
visible difficulty of college admission proves that those who
participate in higher education are not ingenuous victims of the
establishment.
No, this group is resourceful, determined and increasingly less
ethical. Besides, the university has no energy to weaken the zeal
of its students. It has to cope with labor problems, construction
and retrofit hassles, depleted resources, ubiquitous political
pressure and the exponential growth of applicants. It tries to
streamline matters by handing us a Bruin Card and an ID number, but
instead alienates the people behind those arbitrary nine-digit
numbers.
Student apathy will be the university’s undoing. Without the
infusion of new ideas and imagination, the schools of America and
subsequently the world will become inert structures. Like a car
engine without gasoline, the fans slow, the pistons diminish in
speed, the transmission settles down, the oil pools at the bottom
of the pan, and it becomes a cold, dead and silent skeleton. Then
rust corrodes the steel, the battery goes dead and sediments build
around the fuel injection needle. An object once so productive and
well-maintained now is inert and forgotten, awaiting consumption by
the ravages of time.
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