Two Events Response

Hi all! Haven't posted anything yet, so here goes. This is an excerpt from something I wrote for the CORE class Rachel and I are in. We had to go to two campus events and discuss how it relates to the theme of the course: The Relational Selve (ie. how we percieve ourselves, our relationships, and what role our perception of morality and ethic of care plays into them) Very wishy washy. Anyway, I responded to the Focus the Nation speeches at the final dinner. (I tried, but failed, to incorporate "yeastie beasties." Don't take it too seriously, I had to tweak it to address the questions of the course, but take a look.

The two events I went to were similar in theme and very relevant to our course. Today, the human relationship with the, "environment," or non-human world, is a hot topic in light of a wealth of social, political, and economic problems that often manifest themselves in environmental toxicity, degradation, and disaster. I think about my relationship to the world outside human relationships (because I think that’s really what we mean when we talk about the “natural world”) all the time. I change my ideas about how I should behave almost on a daily basis because this relationship is extraordinarily complex, and challenges traditional notions of morality, because humans tend to conceive of non-human relationships as secondary to human ones.
One event I attended was the Focus the Nation Day Dinner and closing discussion. The audience that remained after eating consisted mostly of a smattering of students already involved in the issue of climate change awareness on campus. There were three speeches that night. The first was Rob Sobleman, President of the Student Government Association. The second was a member of Hamilton Board of Trustees, and the third was the president of Colgate Democrats. Rob Sobleman, although admittedly not as "up" on the issue at hand than some audience members, was an obvious choice as a speaker because he represents the primary vehicle for dialog between administration and student body. The Hamilton Trustee member was the only “politician” to come and enter into the conversation, which had been conceived as one among “administrators” with the political empowerment to enact change and students. The last speaker discussed the role of young people in the coming presidential election. She argued that the election process represented a perfect avenue for us to express our desire for action on the part of politicians to address global warming.
Something struck me about the nature of the three speeches. Interestingly enough, in spite of traditional notions of liberal youth versus conservative adulthood, the students were those advocating the use of traditional avenues within an existing structure as a way to enact change. Though they were both excellent speakers, their talks were largely unemotional and matter of fact despite the gravity of the problem. The trustee member, however, though admittedly not as gifted a speaker as the two student leaders, spoke evocatively if not eloquently. He implored us as students to demand change in university policy, action, and habit. He stressed that we should be fighting (as opposed to working—my insinuation) to bring about change. My thoughts on the difference in tone and suggested avenues for change are related to our course material. I think the crux lies in a difference in two generations’ perceptions of self and the way in which they should relate to the society or the institutions within a society in which we live.
The trustee member is of another generation: a sixty-eighter whose concept of change and the relationship of youth and authority is different than that of the younger generation. When he was a student, students perceived being young as a powerful position from which real and meaningful change could and should be enacted. The rationale was that they as students lacked the cemented bonds to the socio-economic structure upon which most adults are completely dependent upon and/or wedded to. (In this definition I include family, full-time job, home and other major possessions as well as the government-ordained responsibilities that go along with such ownership etc.) In fact, this ethos is related to our course because there existed an element of moral responsibility towards, or at least moral aversion to, the actions and ideology of the system to which they were not yet wedded or committed. The way we as students today, or so it seems to me, perceive ourselves in this still very similar socio-economic construct in the U.S. is very different.
As for Rob Sobleman, although his speech was unemotional and simply outlined to steps we as students and he as a stuedent representative might take through the University’s avenues of discourse and change, Sobleman’s speech as one of “our” own, seemed to “hit home” much more than the Hamilton Trustee member’s. He outlined the ways in which we could definitively act in order to enact change in a practical way for a practical reason: climate change and the moral responsibility many of us associate with its mitigation. The same holds true for the President of Colgate Democrats.
I think this difference is what lies at the heart of the audience's under-reaction that night at the Focus the Nation dinner to the words of a sixty-eighter who thought he understood his audience. Students of this generation are threatened in a different way than sixty-eighters. Whereas that older generation sought to stay out of war, prevent entrapment in a society the conventions and strictures of which they did not agree, or enact what they saw a positive social change, our generation, though these problems are as relevant today as they were then, seeks integration. We, as privileged college students and as a result of the lack of a draft, don’t need to worry about being forced into the military to put our lives on the line for a cause with which we may or may not agree; though it seems those who do agree would be less likely to do so if their lives were threatened. We are in the perfect position to enact social change to address the problems the solving of which we see as a moral imperative. We too have our share of our own uncertainties, but these are largely based on our ability to find an acceptable place within the system (which we seem to take for granted as static or at least not worth the risk to change) in which we can insert ourselves. Once we are ensconced, we seem to believe, wedded, we feel our uncertainties will disappear and we will be better equipped to solve the problems at hand. The older generation seemed to feel a level of immorality in that path. What has changed, I believe, is inextricably linked to a difference in our conception of morality and responsibility. We are driven by self-preservation, for some reason, before our sense of morality.