[1136] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
UAP, power, influence, and anarchy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Beland)
Wed Mar 13 17:21:37 2002
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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 14:20:30 -0800
From: Christopher Beland <beland@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
I'm amused at the crusty alums who have injected so much bitterness
into the discussion so far. Clearly, the problems of world poverty,
social injustice, war, and public welfare are much less interesting
than cheering on a good, old-fashioned scandal. I suppose I'll take a
break from the aforementioned crusades to offer a few of my own pithy
comments.
First of all, the self-defeating divisions that hinder concerted
student power are not internal to the UA, so much as they are between
governmental organizations. Some people on this list probably still
remember the tiff over the clustering-pludges-in-the-new-dorm
resolution (or whatever it was) between the UA and the IFC. Another
example: most other campuses do not split the administration and
funding of student activities among three different organizations; we
have funding from the UA, GSC, and administration by the ASA. Crazy.
It's also pretty sad that the techno-anarchists here are arguing that
chaos will be a more effective form of government than ordered
representation.
Is it better to try to send a parade of people through President
Vest's office to make various redundant and contradictory complaints
about a cornicopia of issues? Not that this would really happen -
either a.) no one would feel it was their job, in particular, to march
in and complain about a minor issue, or b.) when an issue becomes
controversial, too many people would want to get on Vest's notoriously
hyper-tight calendar.
An elected representative can at least go in and claim that they
legitimately represent a large and diverse segment of the student
body, rather than a parade of random people who can only speak (as far
as the President knows) for themselves and maybe some of their
outraged friends. And for issues that don't require a Presidental
visit, how many in the mob will know which administrator to talk to?
How many will have had a previous relationship with that person? How
many well-considered members of the mob will the President and other
senior administration feel comfortable pinging for confidential
advice? Or will we just see faux-pas after debacle after faux-pas, as
the administration tries to *guess* what students want, right before
announcing their "near-final" decisions to the entire student body?
Would it not be better to heal the divisions between student
governments and to improve student/admin/faculty/alum relatations, as
the UA, DormCon, and IFC proposed and to which the Chancellor agreed?
(See http://web.mit.edu/advise/unifiedproposal/governance-FINAL.html;
sadly, implementation planning was delegated to a faculty committee,
which subsequently dropped the ball.)
As someone who's observed student-admin relations over the past five
years, in the context of problems both great and small (including the
housing debate, which was allegedly dealt with by us independent of
the undergraduate student government) that having the UA presidents
(and the other Big Four) on board is a major asset to any student
movement, and is an invaluable way to interface with the
administration. I'll also say that building trust and personal
relationships with individual administrators is absolutely crucial to
getting anything done (after all students don't have much direct
power, but they can acquire influence).
Given how everyone seems to agree how apathetic the typical MIT
student really is, does anyone actually think that polling for
everyone's gut reaction on every single issue will produce a better
result than deferring to people who we funnel our (often meager,
ill-considered) input to, who are obligated to educate themselves
about the problems at hand, and who have inherited and continue to
develop some semblance of institutional memory?
>> Even if you get enough votes the moment you sign the Statement of
>> Candidacy I'll throw you out of office for campaigning against the
>> "spirit of the campaign."
> Who pissed in your corn flakes? I think the UA insiders are a little
> bitter about the possibility of a UAP not from their ranks.
Either that or indignance at the use of a selective kickback mechanism
that would be *so* illegal in any self-respecting real-world election.
To Drew: I think you missed Sarah's point. She was not saying that
students have no ability to effect administration change-of-mind. She
was saying that we have no direct power, but that we do have indirect
power ("influence"). The way I read her mail, she was arguing that it
is important to wield that indirect power, and that voting for a joke
candidate seriously undermines it.
Anyway, feel free to turn UA politics into a contest for the biggest
public spectacle, or a game for your own amusement. No one will die
if the office of UA President is a joke. Only a few students will
notice if the administration decides to allocate that potential
additional student activities funding to alcohol education or
"campus-wide events which foster community building and introspective
dialog." In any case, don't listen to any of us crusty alums; none of
this affects any of us. I have much more faith that the next
generation can make up its own mind, if it chooses to care about any
of this.
Beland
P.S. - After all this talk about self-interest (though the words
"enlightened" and "long-term" most appropriately does not appear) I'm
wondering how many people are going to claim their $10 even though
they are voting for a more substantial candidate.
P.P.S - I'm glad that some actual information and substantive
platforms are being transmitted over the list now...
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