When did students become so ultra-conservative?
TOPE ORIOLA STAFF
The curtains are finally beginning to fall on the melodrama at the faculty of engineering. All the dramatis personae cum protagonists and antagonists — depending on what side you are on — have acted their roles splendidly well. Some of them are deserving of Oscars, others still need to learn the trade. But what are the implications of this real-life
It is too daunting a task to ask a generation that grew up on Nintendo games, groomed by MSN and Yahoo! ... to see anything worthy of constructive critique in the society. Ours is effectively a generation of ‘yes’ men and women.
drama before our very eyes?
Having been a student all my life, I thought I had seen it all: demonstrations, strikes, electioneering (with mono and multiple candidates), examinations, indefinite school closures et al. But I was sincerely wrong. How could I have imagined that a student group would one day support raising tuition? The whole idea appears like a comic relief in a nightmare. Of course, I read and in fact edited both sides of the debate published in this section (Feb. 28, 2007). Katie Szilagyi and Steve Woodrow, supporting the hike, argued that “the cost of an engineering degree will increase between 23-28 per cent.” My answer? Well, I hope none of them is on student loan. I sympathize with those for whom this tuition increase is a huge burden.
I have nothing against UMES’ bizarre anti-tuition fee freeze posture, but I hope history will be kind to them and see things from their perspective. While I understand and empathize with their arguments about dilapidated infrastructure, fear of losing accreditation, insufficient tenure-track professors and TAs (though very hyperbolic), I believe it is out of place for students to support a tuition hike, however minimal. What is the assurance that the raise will solve these problems? Besides, is this not an exercise akin to taking sleeping tablets for a heart problem?
Perhaps we should all take one step further by asking the government to increase our PST and GST in order to improve our standard of living; at least Canada was once undisputed number 1 in the UN’s Human Development Index and is now number 6. I hope tuition hike will not spread to other faculties soon as a result of the outcome of the referendum in engineering.
My concern is not about UMES, but as a microcosm of a larger spectrum.
When did students become so pro-establishment and ultra-conservative? Gone are the days when being a student ipso facto meant being anti-inequality and being at the forefront of human rights issues. Now students discuss human rights in night clubs and bars when already pleasantly drunk. Will we ever return to those days when students exhibited global concerns, demonstrated community participation and were often accused of idealism? Have we substituted idealism and liberalism with unmitigated conservatism in the name of realism?
Jesse Beach succinctly captured the apathy and non-involvement of the average student in an uncharacteristically down-to-earth letter to the editor (March 7). Beach wrote, “Three years of contributing nothing to this institution and I am merely another face in the crowd.” Well, some are “contributing” something — their own way.
At a lunch meeting with city councilor Harvey Smith, I saw the glaring difference in political orientation between the older and younger generations. Smith argued that the amount of education an individual has is determined by how much responsibility they are willing to take. I think it is high time we took Harvey Smith’s philosophy. He said “I always do what is right; I do not worry about the consequences.”
Perhaps it is too daunting a task to ask a generation that grew up on Nintendo games, groomed by MSN and Yahoo! and nurtured in Spencerian “survival of the fittest,” nay individualism, to see anything worthy of constructive critique in the society. Ours is effectively a generation of “yes” men and women. If the governing elite of the countries that we represent are to be drawn amongst us, what shall be the fate of the less-privileged?
As it were, the Conservative Party of Canada is definitely too liberal and the Republican Party in the U.S. is overly left-wing afterall. There are now new kids on the block — you and I — who are redefining the frontiers of conservatism.
This is a good time to be a university student: enjoy your IPod, laptop and HDTV, get sufficient loans to see you through school, read when you feel like, be kind to your partner if you have one; don’t bother about human rights issues, they are a waste of breath; fight for tuition fee increases, however minimal; lobby for more taxes, we all can afford to give a little more — these are sure guarantee to getting good jobs and living a healthy life. The less-privileged? Let the market forces take care of them. The future of the world has never been more promising.
Tope Oriola is comment editor of the Manitoban and a graduate student in sociology.
