[517] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Protesting Fun?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (justin nelson)
Thu May 3 18:20:25 2001
Message-Id: <200105032219.SAA00788@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 18:16:59 -0400
To: Andrew M Starr <drew@MIT.EDU>, mit-talk@MIT.EDU
From: justin nelson <jmnelson@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <200105032138.RAA11991@all-night-tool.mit.edu>
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interesting points andrew...
well it pretty much exposes the truth. i would love things to be better
for humanity. i would love to change the world, but by god, it better not
affect me. i guess thats why theres a difference between the words ideals
and principles. ideals are good ideas but principles are what you stick to
when the cards have to be layed down. theres plenty of good ideals. good
principles are much harder to find in people. if they really believed in
the cause, they wouldnt mind sacrificing. putting their money where their
mouth was. instead they are not. ie we want people to get paid more, but
not at our expense. we want to protest but we want special consideration
with our grades.
i think the truth is in the statement that the protesting has been labeled
fun. i think the protestors are there for the sake of protesting
something. they just want to be able to say they did it. i dont think the
cause was all that important to them. it was the novelty of doing it. the
want to liken themselves to the people who really did stand for something
in the past. this is why when the reality of what theyre doing comes to the
front (money and grades), theyre not willing to 'pay the fiddler' (as the
expression goes).
the whole effectiveness of a protest is that people see other people
willingly sacrificing for a cause. it makes people wonder if its that
important to them, maybe it should matter to me. it cheapens the entire
act if the protestors arent willing to sacrifice, but then again, i think
that word has become rather foreign to a lot of people these days. too
much has come too easy.
Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.
-Francis Bacon
(please objectivist, spare me a response about how evil sacrifice is. lets
just say its more a matter of semantics that you would think its evil where
i find it noble.)
justin nelson
At 05:38 PM 5/3/01 -0400, you wrote:
>hmm....
>have to question that "support" you allege coming from the student body.
>
> http://www.thecrimson.com/specials/article.asp?ref=12625
>
>That is a link to an article discussing Harvard undergraduate support for
the Living Wage.
>53% support the goals of the protest.
>A year ago, 69% did. While not having enough information about demographic
changes in the Harvard body over that year,
>it is just my guess that this REDUCTION in support is a result of the
tactics used by the protestors. This theory is
>backed up by the poll which said 2 out of 5 students were LESS likely to
support a Living Wage as a direct result of
>the sit-in.
>Also of interest... only 23% of undergrads (including just 44% of those
who claim to support a Living Wage) would
>continue to do so if it meant their tuition would raise. (Possible
translation?: Sure I'd like the people who serve
>me to be paid more, as long as I don't have to pay it).
>In terms of the sit-in itself. Half of all students are against it. Only
32% called is justified.
>
>Now, some info heard anecdotally... view it as such. I trust these
sources, but since the discussions I had with them
>were not public, I will not make their names nor positions public. If you
have counter-sources, please respond.
>The number of protestors actively sitting-in now numbers at just 24. (down
from an estimated 60).
>Many of the remaining 24 are lobbying for special consideration in
academics for not having done a damn thing in
>classes for the last 3 weeks. If this is indeed true, it's a slap in the
face to those who founded the concept of
>civil disobedience... Gandhi and Martin Luther King didn't request special
dispensation during their acts of
>disobedience.
>Most of the students are not financial aid recipients (a distinctly
higher proportion compared to the overall Harvard
>demographic). I'm not at liberty to indicate the exact number that I was
told, as I do not believe that is public infoI recently had the opportunity
to see Les Miserables again (it's still playing, go see it!). And the
>question was raised in that show if such acts are "simply a game for rich
young boys to play." By this information,
>maybe it is. (I personally saw a lot of designer tents there this afternoon)
>
>ObMIT: There are powerful lessons to be learned here. Positive actions are
more likely to result in positive change
>than negative actions are. (has anyone else noticed just how LOUD these
protests have been? Again, if these folks
>are trying to take a page out of history, they're not doing a good job of
it... successful forms of civil disobedience
>have been relatively tacit, not boisterous and obnoxious as these students
have been characterized). On the flip side,
>in my time here, MIT has had at least one positive example of protesting
in our response to the BLB shutting down
>Skull House for Skuffle. If / when the need arises to protest community /
administrative actions, I hope we don't
>make the same mistakes currently being made in Hahvahd Yahd where people
who AGREE with the protestors are starting
>to rething thier beliefs.
>
>Also ObMIT: Just trying to inject some numbers into this discussion. A
"discussion" relying on emotions and poorly
>explained opinions alone is nothing more than a fruitless argument.
>
>|> I've dropped by Harvard Yard a couple times in the past week to see
>|> how their protest is going (most recently yesterday while eating free
>|> Ben&Jerry's). I've been struck by two things about their living
>|> wage campaign:
>|>
>|> 1) These student protestors have an enormous amount of support from
>|> not just students, but also faculty, staff, parents, city
>|> councillors, national organizations, news media, etc.
>|> 2) They think protesting is fun.
>|>
>|> I keep being surprised most by the second point. Even though it's
>|> been a lot of work, frustration, and loss of studying, they actually
>|> seem to enjoy protesting. That's something I think just doesn't
>|> happen at MIT. Here students hate protesting; they only protest when
>|> the administration does something truly egregious, and still consider
>|> it a chore and hope to get back to problem sets as quickly as
>|> possible.
>|>
>|> I wonder if MIT student protests and actions would be more effective
>|> if people enjoyed them.... Or if even then, and with as much support
>|> from faculty and others as the living wage protestors have, student
>|> activism would be doomed due to the MIT Administration being as
>|> asininely obstinate as the Harvard Administration.
>|>
>|> Anyway, there's an interesting article in the Globe today about the
>|> Harvard protestors:
>|> http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/123/nation/A_life_of_its_own+.shtml
>|> In a way, it sounds like a great hack.
>|>
>|> + Richard
>|>
>
