Oooh, I like this! Sort of like Tom Wolfe, except minus the artful writing, which is replaced with authentic anger.
On one hand, I have two good friends at Lehman Brothers who will soon be out of a job. On the other hand, their troubles are nothing compared to the "real world's." At least, since they both just started this summer, the current fiasco isn't their fault.
This struck me the most: That's how you deal with it. Isn't it. Write a check, send it to a charity, done. Never have to get your hands dirty, do you.
Too bad in their time community service wasn't practically mandatory during college. And by practically mandatory I mean the school "strongly encourages" its students to participate in at least one activity like building houses, cleaning up public areas, feeding the hungry, etc. Though I think while Alternative Spring Break is a good idea, now it's becoming more and more of a status symbol because of its competitive nature.
I'll confess that that's a little alien to me--probably because I went to a school famous for its activism. It was interesting, though, how even at Oberlin there were many gradations of philanthropy. On one hand you had the students who believed that the problems of society were systemic, and studied history and law and did internships with the Democratic Party in a broad effort to change the system from the top down. On the other hand you had the anarchists who had so completely lost faith in society that they were never on campus--they were always off attending protests, repairing houses, working at soup kitchens, vandalizing FEMA trucks, etc. When people at Oberlin did the kind of things other colleges do in the name of philanthropy--bake sales, awareness flyers, etc.--it seemed so out of place, because it was so weird to throw money at a problem when there were so many opportunities to hop into a van and go on a road trip to fix it with your own hands. Consequently we generally only did fundraisers and petitions for problems in
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On one hand, I have two good friends at Lehman Brothers who will soon be out of a job. On the other hand, their troubles are nothing compared to the "real world's." At least, since they both just started this summer, the current fiasco isn't their fault.
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This struck me the most:
That's how you deal with it. Isn't it. Write a check, send it to a charity, done. Never have to get your hands dirty, do you.
Too bad in their time community service wasn't practically mandatory during college. And by practically mandatory I mean the school "strongly encourages" its students to participate in at least one activity like building houses, cleaning up public areas, feeding the hungry, etc. Though I think while Alternative Spring Break is a good idea, now it's becoming more and more of a status symbol because of its competitive nature.
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HELL. FUCKING. YES.
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FUCKING.
YES.
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