News-Letter

After living through half a decade of once-inconceivable sociopolitical angst, on-campus activists have developed a smarter set of priorities. Yes, plenty of college kids still serve as grunts in America's culture wars, but the main concerns of undergraduate activism -- from the Iraq War to global warming to free speech -- read like a laundry list of the day's most urgent news items. Even at a school as politically comatose as Hopkins, organizations like HEAT and the Foreign Affairs Symposium now lavish attention on issues of global import.

Whether that attention proves effective is another matter. With a few exceptions, current student activists remain thoroughly reluctant to engage a tangible cast of opponents. Instead of pinning problems on their actual perpetrators or presenting widely resonating narratives, they promote balance and tolerance. But in fighting certain political creeds, they are completely ineffective. Too bad those creeds are responsible for the worst of America's current dilemmas.

As much as I feel unqualified disgust for Bush and Company, I must admit that I am suggesting a notably Republican tactic. While the 2006 elections were a stinging rebuke to G.O.P. governance, they did not constitute a repudiation of the White House's campaigning methods. One of those methods is to blame ultra-specific political vices and governmental failings on the other side's leaders -- Gore, Kerry and now Democratic senators like Harry Reid -- in order to render contrary arguments seemingly untenable.

These tactics also were used justly and masterfully by past protest movements. Because they are not on the frontlines of domestic struggle, America's often cloistered undergraduates are not immediately presented with tangible opposition. But they should be able to quickly recognize dangerous leadership. When segregationists like George C. Wallace and Strom Thurmond visited Northeastern colleges in the mid-20th century, they were openly jeered and ridiculed. I can't imagine that happening at the next FAS.

So why, even when the stakes on issues like Iraq and climate change are incredibly high, do campus activists refuse the kind of pugnacity that might actually get things done? The '60s and '70s student counter-culture used this "don't-back-down" approach. Students need to recoup the vigor of previous generations to attack the cast of villains behind the catastrophes of the day.

At a school like Hopkins, however, the opposite often happens. Instead of using their education to pinpoint the Strom Thurmonds and Richard Nixons of today, students seem to have taken the diversity and tolerance that academia prizes to a grotesque degree. Thus, the MSE Symposium encourages respectful treatment of intellectually bankrupt speakers like Ralph Nader and Newt Gingrich.

Unfortunately, this illusion of across-the-aisle discussion and the consequent fear of openly insulting the other side on any given issue feeds the inspirational mentality that has undone many just ideologies. You can watch this happening right now with global warming. Anybody with access to the internet can find out what carbon neutrality measures HEAT has proposed for the Homewood campus. However, what government policies the Team objects to and which politicians it regards as opponents remain hazy at best. The cogent presentation of a broader social message would invest even this small organization with the ability to better debunk and discredit its detractors who, like most anti-science die-hards, are not open to persuasion.

It is becoming more likely that political action at Hopkins, and elsewhere, will eventually go the way of the virtually defunct Homewood Students' Association. Remember, the rise of the HSA attended clearly demarcated conflicts between undergrads and the politicians representing Charles Village, such as Baltimore Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke. Without an activist atmosphere like that which I am prescribing, it quickly became irrelevant.

Now with Phi Psi clashing with the city council over the repossession of its fraternity house, are Hopkins students up to providing visible, outspoken leadership? On anything? Rather than citing individual opponents, today's generation often treats both local and national causes as abstract, intellectual puzzles. If they want to have real impact, politically engaged students should stop "making a difference," and start making some enemies.

--Patrick Kennedy is a junior Writing Seminars, history of art and English major from Watchung, N.J.

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