University students: ignorant, apathetic dolts?
You aren't an idiot for not participating in student politics
University students are ignorant apathetic dolts. At least that is the impression one gets from the latest musings of the usually insightful, newly-minted Peak opinions editor, J.J. McCullough.
McCullough scolds the Simon Fraser Students’ Society for tackling issues of no direct relevance to SFU students and that they can’t do anything about. His particular complaint is that the SFSS board used its first meeting to express “solidarity” with the 14 U of T protesters facing criminal charges for their role in a sit in at the univerity in March, whom he describes “as a gang of preening thugs four provinces over.”
McCullough then concludes that such neglect of the SFU campus “speaks volumes to how the SFSS views its mandate and priorities.” This would have been an adequate end to his column, but McCullough is not satisfied, so he goes on to bang the old drum that if only students cared, things would be different. And if SFU students “continue to remain disengaged . . . then they have no one to blame but themselves.”
McCullough writes with a sense of urgency, that now is the time for students to take notice, and, one may assume, the failure to do so would be disastrous for the idea of student democracy. It is not entirely clear why McCullough opted to close his argument this way other than that he wanted to say something profound, or maybe something stinging, perhaps to shake students from their absentia from student politics. But all he accomplished was the cheapening of an otherwise cogent argument, that student unions should focus on their own campuses.
I shouldn’t single McCullough out. Pick up any campus paper, in virtually any week, and in nearly any year from time immemorial, and you’re likely to find someone complaining about the “death” of student democracy. Every time an allegation of stolen elections, misappropriated money or just garden variety corruption, is levied at the mandarins in charge of your day-planners, it is held up as proof positive of democracy’s demise.
Commentators go back and forth between blaming so called student apathy for providing fertile ground for corruption, to blaming corruption for the apathy. Before anyone calls me a hypocrite, I admit that I have made my own pathetic contributions to this line of argument.
It is never enough to critique a policy or denounce a scandal on its own. Nope, it is rarely acknowledged that sometimes calling attention to a scandal is nothing more than proof that attention to a scandal has been called. The threat of the system collapsing, no matter how trivial the offence, is always imminent.
The problem, as I see it, is a misunderstanding of what grants student unions the legitimacy to govern student space, offer services, and represent students to a university’s chief governing bodies. The “democratization” of the ivory tower that occurred primarily in the 1950s and 1960s — and that brought us such spectacles as the tenured professor becoming acquainted with picket signs — has entrenched the notion that all areas of university life must be governed democratically.
I agree with your sentiment. Participation in student politics is minimal because student unions are seen as completely irrelevant and inconsequential to the vast majority of students. Even in my own experience, I would never have joined UMSU or gotten involved with UMES council if not for our Engineering tuition referendum, and the surrounding events.
However, where I disagree with you is with this notion that the lack of participation turns the student bodies into ‘democratic aristocracies’. Voter turn outs of less than 10 per cent may be abysmal, but it in no way makes them an exercise in elitism.
The distinction is that all students remain free to vote or not, regardless if they choose to do so. Any Joe or Sally student can pick up a copy of his or her local student rag, and in less than half an hour (but perhaps over the course of several weeks) become a (semi-)informed voter.
This freedom to, with minimal effort, ascend the mighty steps and become a member of your imaginary aristocracy is what retains the proper title of ‘democracy’ to these student unions.
In these cases choosing not to choose is a legitimate choice, if a poor one. In a real aristocracy, the proletariat are denied even this.
Although the quality of journalism at Macleans has been on a slide the last few years, it is nice to see the odd article (like this one) bucking that trend. Well argued.
Yeah, I’d say the real ignorant idiots are the ones that are “saving the world” within the Politburos of Canada’s student unions. Well said, Carson.
I agree with Travis that comparing people who are involved with an aristocracy at least neglects the fact that for most people choose to participate or not (again, there are barriers to involvement of part of the student body, but not 90% of it). I’m quite sure that being part of aristocracy, where that term is appropriate, is not a free choice.
Overall it seems that you are saying student unions are legitimized by a “partial democracy”, i.e. they are representative of a self-selected part of their constituency, but this part is not large enough for you to call it a democracy. Or am I missing something?
While I enjoyed the larger thesis of your article, I think your main critique of me is based on a misunderstanding of my article’s last paragraph.
I wrote:
“Maybe it doesn’t matter, and maybe this declaration of support is meaningless. Yet the way it was passed by this new Board, at its very first meeting and without significant discussion or debate, speaks volumes to how the SFSS views its mandate and priorities. If SFU students continue to remain disengaged from a student government willing to embrace such thoroughly absurd, disgusting, useless “radical” causes, then they have no one to blame but themselves.”
Maybe it’s a bit unclear by the way it’s phrased, but I was blaming the SFSS politicians, not the students. I was trying to say if students remain disinterested in the SFSS it is the fault of the SFSS politicians for embracing stupid causes that turn ordinary students off. I wasn’t implying that students are at fault in any way. On the contrary, I believe the onus is on student governments to make themselves relevant to the larger student body, not vice versa. Students owe student unions nothing, but student unions owe students a justification for their existence. And embracing radical causes like the U of T loons is not a strong justification.
most undergraduate students -are- ignorant apathetic morons….
[...] No organization with such low participation can claim to be democratic. Democracy refers to not just procedures and the holding of routine elections, but an electorate that actually participates. If you think CUSA could ever be representative, I have some pyrite to sell you. [...]