Apathetic students have no right to criticize

DANICA NOVGORODOFF/YH

Critics complain that Yale activists, especially those addressing economic rather than cultural issues, are little more than privileged, upper-class kids running around with daddy's mon-ey, clanging pots and pans. They call these students uninformed about their issues and impractical in their solutions. Some of the harshest voices even accuse activists of rebelling just for the sake of rebelling.

Yet these criticisms miss the point. Rebelling against one's environment is an acknowledgement that it has flaws. Suppressing the instinctive urge to rebel and fix those flaws is unnatural. Activists, protesters, and social agitators are, more than anything else, individuals who have observed that their world is not a perfect place and have made conscious, personal decisions to do their part—however small—in making it a little bit better. The strongest bond that ties an activist group together is this commitment to an improved living environment. It outweighs even the binding power of the cause itself—whether it be supporting Chiapas rebels in Mexico or advocating the preservation of old-growth trees in British Columbia.

It's a common misconception that activists should only support causes in which they have personal interests, because, supposedly, only then will they understand what it's like to be the victim. Such logic suggests that only blacks have reason to advocate black rights, for example, and that the poor should be the only ones to call for economic reform. But the spirit of disobedience does not result from being wronged by a particular unfairness. Everyone has suffered an injustice of some sort, and therefore has a reason to act out. The particular injustice one is driven to address is circumstantial and, in the broad scheme of things, irrelevant.

Yet these misconceptions have resulted in economically-minded activist groups at Yale receiving more criticism than those that call for cultural justice. Groups such as the Student Alliance to Reform Corporations (STARC) and Students Against Sweatshops (SAS) are often accused of being ignorant of economics and in favor of unwieldy, unworkable solutions to the complex socioeconomic issues that they address.

This criticism overlooks the fact that Yale activists are actually quite self-conscious about their knowledge surrounding their issues of protest. STARC has a national research database of student-written reports on issues ranging from Starbucks' attitude toward fair-trade coffee to different perspectives on the International Monetary Fund. On Sat., Feb. 19, STARC presented a comprehensive 40-page document outlining methods by which Yale can adopt a socially responsible method of investing its endowment. Participating in these groups is sort of like a learning-on-the-job activity.

No one can definitively identify the most practical solution to a problem. There comes a point at which one must place faith in one's own judgment, research, and gut instinct, and either support a cause or reject it. Even if someone were to devote countless hours of time and effort to supporting a cause that years later turned out to be misguided or wrong, he or she would be a fool to regret it. Forming and advocating a belief is always more pro-ductive than simply sitting back and criticizing others. Apathy may be cool, but it's rather ridiculous. The disobedient devote their attention to pressing forth political opinions, and this outweighs any flaws with the actual opinions themselves. What more could one ask for in a democracy?

Sahm Adrangi is a freshman in Jonathan Edwards.

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