Hassall-Free Fridays | Political apathy’s dishonest roots

I recently found myself conversing with an old friend who had spent a few months studying at McGill University. My friend told me that McGill had a very politically oriented campus. Though I had little to say other than Penn does not, I came up with the perfect response just in time to write this column.

I came to Penn as a transfer student in the fall of 2008, finding a campus alive with political energy. Not a day went by that I did not have to angrily proclaim, “I’m not a citizen, and you tried to register me yesterday!” By forces beyond the scope of my discussion here, the Penn campus found itself squarely placed within the President Barack Obama camp, its students eager to follow this great new hope into a new America.

Two years later, the midterm elections were greeted with widespread apathy. Student mass engagement with politics has all but evaporated.

I suspect the reason why has something to with an old Biblical tale — that of Jesus and the rich man. There was once this rich man who strongly believed in the teachings of Jesus and longed to join him as a disciple. So when Jesus came to his town, the man proclaimed, “Oh Lord, I hath doneth all the stuffeth that you asked, might I joineth ye?” Jesus responded, “Of course, all you need to do is give away your wealth.”

Your average Democrat-leaning Quaker faces much the same problem as the rich man. And just as he did, most would-be left-wing students balk at that final hurdle. This is an enormous constraint on the production of issue-based political excitement at Penn.

Penn Democrats President and College sophomore Isabel Friedman concedes that “Penn is such a pre-professional campus” with students “hurtling toward their careers” — often while ignoring political and economic issues. With so many Penn students looking toward the financial sector for employment, is it any surprise that reining that industry in generated little excitement here? To what degree are our views on upper-income tax rates influenced by the fact many of us will one day be paying them?

So it should be no surprise that Penn students have not embraced the minutiae of a Democratic economic message as much as they did the grand and amorphous phenomenon of Obama’s election. The central problems that have confronted Democrats since 2008 have been how to shore up an eroding middle class, how to provide jobs for the unemployed and how to take care of those losing out in America’s current economic configuration. It seems obvious then that left-wing solutions to those problems might involve measures damaging to Penn students who are very much among society’s winners.

Given those personal constraints, Penn students interact with politics in less orthodox ways. Friedman described Penn students not as being apathetic but rather as “express[ing] their politics in different ways than traditional student politics.” Instead of protesting, they join Teach for America and fight for social change through Penn’s large number of community-service organizations. That is a noble endeavor, but it seems to me a little like treating the symptoms to avoid having to treat the disease.

Now I’m much too ambivalent about left-right politics to encourage Penn students to change their orientation in one way or the other. What I would urge is that we all be a little more honest with ourselves and our fellows. Too many Penn students identify with the Democrats by default — or to be part of a general cultural-social experience. So long as that is the case, campus politics will remain anemic. A more honest environment would boost the College Republicans and thus create more rhetorical balance. It would also enable a more dedicated and coherent Penn Dems to better progress their own party’s goals.

Luke Hassall is a College senior from New Zealand. His e-mail address is hassall@theDP.com. Hassall-Free Fridays appears every other Friday.

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