Call me a political schizophrenic. I've gone from hanging a signed picture of President and Laura Bush on my wall to wearing a shirt with the iron-on phrase, "War is Terrorism." I voted for Bush in 2000 (in the state of Florida) and now plan to join the London protests against him when he visits in November. I've belonged (officially) to the Duke Conservative Union, attending speeches by Elizabeth Dole and Bill Kristol and then (informally) to the progressives, walking out on the war and organizing vigils for bulldozed protestors in Palestine. Whereas Duke is often a playground for experimentation with the substances and activities that push our physical limits, I've made it my place to delve into its political extremes.
Experimenting at the fringes of Duke's most notorious and loudest political groups has brought me to several revelations, all key in understanding the answers to the question on the lips of most politically-minded Dukies: Why aren't more students at Duke politically active?
First, the political groups that do exist on campus are inaccessible to the average Duke student. This inaccessibility is incorporated in even the way which the politically active (especially the left) see the "average Duke student": a drunken frat boy pulling B's in Econ to become an investment banker in daddy's firm, who couldn't give a damn about anything besides constructing the props for his next theme party. This is roughly how most campus activists view anyone who is not politically active or outspoken.
By so narrowly defining and marginalizing the rest of the Duke community, these groups write off potential recruits instead of reaching out to them. They make themselves largely inaccessible by forming their own elitist groups of conservatives and liberals, to whom most students are neither conservative nor liberal enough to belong.
When I was a conservative, I was largely written off by the liberals on campus. They figured that I had already committed to the other side, and saw it a waste of time to educate me or try to help me understand their views. The conservatives with whom I associated felt the same way about anyone who thought of themselves as a liberal. It was taken for granted that college is the most intense time for personal and intellectual growth, and the expectation was that once someone chose a political affiliation, that is where they would remain. These groups are neglecting a huge pool of politically interested students who may be just as politically engaged, if they were given the proper time and commitment to be educated about each political group.
Herein lies the second problem: political groups on campus think that the average Duke student understands where they are coming from. In her latest column, Emily LaDue made the aside: "Of course, to be free from all implications of human oppression and violence in a system of capitalism would mean not investing at all..." as if her readers immediately understood what she meant by this statement and what the underlying thinking is behind it.
While the majority of Duke community members could assume what Emily is getting at, I am sure these assumptions are not built with the same foundations as Emily and her progressive associates have with what she is saying. There is no way to understand unless it is spelled out patiently and clearly. Otherwise, it is thrown into the pile of irrational and unfounded statements (it may, indeed, be a statement worthy of opposition, but I am sure not without rationalization behind it).
How do campus political groups expect to draw membership if they have not clearly outlined their basic ideologies, as well as the rationale behind them?
A more universal problem that lends itself to the widespread political inactivity of most Duke students is simply that there is a lack of options. You either join the arch-conservative or the neo-radical campus groups or... what? My huge jump from Duke Conservative to Duke Radical was mainly because there is no open, active space to express myself as a liberal moderate. And now that I fall left-of-center, I find myself without a campus organization to channel my political activist energies.
Duke provides no strong moderate political voice on campus---and thus many who are politically inclined, but not completely slanted, have no place to explore within areas of comfort (and perhaps, sanity). Without the moderate space to discuss and analyze political issues, much relevant and important issues on campus are completely ignored in student-led forums. Who is talking about campaign finance reform? Where is the discussion about corporate accountability? When will we look seriously at the welfare system?
Most of the issues that are pertinent to modern politics do not fall on the political periphery, but lie somewhere in the middle---how can we educate the next crop of political, social and corporate leaders without the dialogue necessary to train us in the analysis of important bi-partisan issues?
We cannot outsource our political education to academic department panels and guest speakers, and cannot leave it solely to the Conservative Union and Progressive Alliance, who serve such small contingencies and are inaccessible to most Duke students. Without some kind of forum to be politically active without conforming to the ultra-right or ultra-left, the average Duke will continue to suffer from something much more dangerous than my former political schizophrenia: political lethargy.
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