A word to the irreverant.
Don't count on seeing it around campus.
Generally, I hate the Daily more than most other Northwestern-based media outlets. It’s boring, biased and embedded in a web of beaurocracy that puts the housing office to shame. So not to say that I enjoyed this article (I didn’t), but it does provide a nice backdrop for one of the bigger surprises of my college experience so far: politics don’t really exist on campus.
Northwestern lives in a bubble — I don’t think anyone would deny that. When I first came to college I had grandiose intentions of joining College Democrats and becoming a hard-core vegetarian flag-burning liberal … but then I couldn’t figure out where they met. Or what they did. The “Activities Fair” early on in the year is a joke. My freshman year, I wandered around for half an hour before realizing I would never get a chance to actually talk to the groups I liked one-on-one after fighting off the insane freshmen that made up the majority of the crowd (i.e. the high school valedectorians and the class presidents). I gave up, went back to my dorm and (at least a little while later) got drunk. Who cares about group activities?
I eventually joined a few groups, entirely of my own initiative. Politics never entered into the possibilities after that, because it simply dropped off my radar. That’s the thing at Northwestern: it simply isn’t on the radar, anywhere. College Democrats and Republicans bring speakers to campus, but they usually pull in few attendees (and even the well-attended ones aren’t drawing a huge percentage of the population). Last year I cared less about the political process in general (but addresses a much more personal issue — my growing apathy with politics of all kind), but nothing happened to make me aware. You could call me ignorant for sitting passively and not involving myself in our political system, but I am simply apathetic towards politics and that won’t change.
Unless you are close friends with someone heavily involved in a political group on campus, chances are superb you won’t hear anything beyond the standard campaign literature. Northwestern is not a politically aware campus. We have our activists and some people care passionately about individual issues, but politically it’s pretty blasé. We like our Uggs and our frat parties and polo shirts and Seven jeans, and no one has bothered to push us out of our apathy. I have drastically independent views on politics that no College Dem or Republican is about to change, but I’m not opposed to talking or at least hearing the crazies out. Unfortunately, NU has shoved itself so far into its own little bubble that most of us exist in a haze of materialistic bullshit.
And is it a bad thing? Who the fuck am I to say, sitting in my designer jeans drinking organic fruit juice and about to sit down for home-fried chicken. Part of the fun of college is immersing yourself in your own personal web of hypocrisy and slowly untangling yourself.
-Sloane
Filed under: nu is not the shit | 7 Comments
Tags: apathy, democrats, NU bubble, politics, republicans, sadness
This was pretty damn accurate. I feel like there are plenty of people who have ideas and are passionate about politics, but can’t really find a good outlet to discuss them. I don’t really want to drag my ass to a college dems meeting just to agree with people for an hour. I expected a lot more casual discussion in the halls, during class, etc. My freshman seminar last year was about politics and the media. Despite the professors best efforts, there were no heated debates or indepth questioning of anything. Perhaps it was because we all agreed on almost all topics. I find my rare political discussions amount to this “I like Obama” “Me too.”
I was in Poli Sci 220 (American Govt & Politics) last year for a distro, and the discussion section was about as pathetic as can be. The TA was sweet but awkward and clearly at a loss for how to direct discussion, so it always consisted of him asking a question with PhD-level phrasing that nobody understood, and us staring at each other in silence on and off for 30 minutes. Then we were let out early.
there are so many democrats on campus (or people that don’t care) that the republicans keep very quiet. I was best friends with the girl across the hall from me from the start of NSW and didn’t find out she was a conservative until the middle of spring quarter. I guess she was scared everyone would hate her?
This is actually one of the reasons why I like Northwestern so much. As a libertarian, I found that whenever all of my very liberal high school friends talked about politics I could either just sit there and nod my head, or disagree which ultimately led to everyone jumping down my throat. Not exactly what I was looking for during lunch.
I’ve found that politics and friends don’t mix. I mean, have you ever been able to persuade anyone to accept the opposite political stance? I certainly haven’t. As a person who has been in the political minority ever since becoming politically aware (middle school) I like that we are an apolitical campus. I don’t have to choose between not standing up for what I believe (keeping quiet and nodding) in vs. having people viciously attack me everytime I open my mouth.
Where did you go? RR is ok, but I need all the help I can get! haha.
Keep the posts coming
irreverent.