ramblings on freshman year
These days when people ask me what I think of Yale I'm careful to parse the question - Yale the corporation is an exploitative, hypocritical megacompany which fails to live up to or pursue the ideals of its rhetoric and discourages the students it strives to educate from recognizing connections between their community and their nation, between
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In brief, I'd say that I think one of the essential challenges of organizing on the left is finding a path which rejects the attraction on the one hand of seeking attractive self- and ideologically-compromising compromises which bring on external validation and earn the respect of the right people but sacrifice the chance of building an effective radical movement - and on the other hand, of ignoring outside feedback and slipping into a self-reinforcing trap where the refusal of others to share your vision can always be attributed to them and not to you, and in which your effectiveness in building something beyond yourself goes unnoticed because you've found a reflexively gratifying perch - and again are unable to build any kind of movement at all. In other words, I agree with you that visionaries are often appreciated only in retrospect, and that political courage is about saying what difficult and unpopular - but I also think that the greater courage is in taking a view that's unpopular - or more than unpopular - and aggressively selling it to people who'd rather refuse to hear it. Maybe what I'm saying, on a personal level, is that the most admirable radicals are the ones who are willing to lose friends in defense of principle - but gain a strength and a passion from that willingness which empowers them not to to lose those friends at all. I think it took me a long time to get beyond a place of glorifying (alternatively) conformity or alienation (personally and politically both, actually), to a place of organizing and building. I agree with you that there are too many people on the left who pledge fealty to democracy but would like to short-cut democratic processes by writing off people who aren't already sold on their vision of democracy - and too many all across the spectrum who prefer inertia to initiative and comfort to confusion.
This is likely quite incoherent - it's pretty late and I was falling asleep before I started writing this but it was important to me to finally respond. Thanks a great deal for your thoughts and support, and I hope you in your return to campus will also seek out ways to build and struggles to fight. How did you find my LJ? Did you read the original entry before or after the 4th? Again, very weird...
It was very good to meet you - hope to see you again soon. And hope that headache wore off...
Peace out.
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I found your journal through Danna's friends page. I used to (and still) check my friend's friends just to read interesting entries. I'm looking to be either a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I'm fascinated with how people think and reason. Usually I don't respond, but when I realized who you were (I actually assumed who you were based on your style and how similar what you wrote compared to the conversation on July 4th), and when I read your entry, I started writing- and I thought if it seemed ridiculous, you'd just ignore it.
Anyway, I really appreciate your comments. I hope to talk to you soon... and I'm glad to hear she didn't get you lost on your way out from the city!
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