The American Student Today, Pt.2
This is part two of a two-part series of essays. If you missed part one, you can find it here.
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So you’re stuck.
There is a way to get un-stuck. This is where I should urge you to call your senator, or write a sternly-worded letter, but you and I both know our political economy has progressed beyond the democratic illusion. Answers to questions of great magnitude must sometimes be of equal magnitude, and this is likely the case in our current political and economic (as if they were separate) ‘predicament’. The American student today must reach beyond hoping for bipartisan agreements, for more ‘job creation’ bills, and for ‘main street’ bailouts. You will not awake to find that Democrats and Republicans have discovered a way to amicably solve the inherent problems of education in the free market. You will not awake to find that your B.A. in Comparative Literature has become the must-have in the newest Forbes ranking. It is increasingly clear that the socioeconomic troubles of the young cannot be fixed by the same worn-out tools. Capitalism does not solve capitalism. Loss does not cover loss. A success still means another’s failure.
We know that these rules have dictated precisely why there are not jobs for the newest graduates and aspiring intellectuals. Graduating today and entering the workforce is like merging onto an interstate of bumper-to-bumper traffic: There’s no space even to enter. And as a favor to those of us waiting, America’s colleges and universities have increasingly begun to open new law schools and specialized master’s degree programs so that more of us can weather the economic storm in what is sold as a worthwhile investment in our intellectual development. Everyone is told to wait, and things will turn around in due time: “That’s just how the markets fluctuate over the long term,” they say.
The fact that the markets do, in fact, turn around is precisely the problem.
As sociologist David Harvey demonstrates, the only thing laying ahead of us on this road is a continuation of problems whose severity will only magnify. “Any sensible person right now would join an anti-capitalist organization,” he states. And he’s right. It will make no difference whether you vote Republican or Democrat in next year’s election because American capitalism has long ago manufactured the illusion that you have a real choice. However, for any change to come, you have to be ready to admit that your choice is among two slight variants of the same diseased ideology. Your vote would only be based on a difference that doesn’t make a difference. As Harvey admits, you have to realize that it’s crap, and be courageous enough to say that it is.
The dissatisfaction of the American student is the ugly result of an American Dream that was never real, sustainable, or humanistic. It has been turned violently inward on itself, devouring its own dogma since its inception. If you long to do meaningful work for society and for others, making your checkmarks in an educational system that is identical to the American capitalist economy will not satisfy those longings nor pay you for your time misspent.
If I’ve learned anything about human nature through my studying and conversing, it’s that people are, at bottom, scared. And now more than ever you have a duty to change your mode of thinking and strive to push away from the systemic violences that have not just become the norm, but have frightened already frightened people away from believing that anything other could be real.
