Apathy at Wash. U.: Good or bad?

| Staff Columnist

The Arab world is exploding. Angered citizens in Egypt and Tunisia have ousted their governments. Riots and protests are breaking out in every Muslim nation from Mauretania to Iran. Videos are appearing on the Internet of soldiers gunning down peaceful protestors in Bahrain. The leader of Libya is ordering the army to bomb his citizens. For billions of people, the “2010-2011 Middle East and North African protests,” as the Wikipedia article on the subject is titled, could be the defining events of their lives.

And here, at Wash. U., 6500 miles away, the hot topic is that the Stereotypes are going to the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella Midwest Semifinals. The face of the Muslim world could potentially be being remade, but at my university, no one cares.

It is assumed that colleges are bastions of liberalism, and that college students are more politically active than are most. This may be true at other colleges, perhaps Oberlin or UC Berkeley, but not at Washington University in St. Louis.

More than a few people might take issue with the intense lack of interest I’ve witnessed on campus. They might claim that, as future political and business leaders, it is our responsibility to care about the events that shape the world we live in.

I’ve been to colleges where the student body is intensely concerned with the goings on of the world. When Oberlin offered me admittance, I attended a lunch for accepted students held on the campus. One admittee at my table launched into a spiel about how big business was the downfall of America, another that climate change was going to destroy the world. Both lamented the fact that not enough people cared about their particular topics to effect change in the near future.

Before that visit, I was prepared to spend the next four years of my life at Oberlin. After that lunch, I had no desire to spend another hour in Ohio, and it was the politically aware attitudes of the few potential students I talked to that drove me away. I’m an apathetic person myself, and I was turned off by how much students at Oberlin seemed to care.

I applied and came to Wash. U. purely by chance, and a year and a half later, I’m exceedingly happy that I did. I like that all the conversations I’ve started about the state of the Arab world have ended in five minutes, I like that my friends didn’t care about elections enough to send in absentee ballots, I like that the student body only shows political activism when the Student Health Advisory Committee tries to bring Bristol Palin to Wash. U. to speak about abstinence on college campuses, and I like that less than half of Graham Chapel was filled when Palin failed to make an appearance.

I grew up in the suburbs of D.C., and nearly every day was privy to conversations about this or that trivial event that had happened in the political sphere. In high school, airport regulations and Supreme Court nominees were subjects of intense debate for weeks. It took some time to adjust, but now, I realize that I’m much happier living in a place where mentioning what could be the most important development of my lifetime—potentially more important than 9/11—is met with a shrug. I have the rest of my life to worry about policies, crises and regime changes that will affect me, but for now, in the protected bubble of one of the best universities in America, it’s nice to be surrounded by peers who are largely unconcerned with the events of the outside world.

Matthew Curtis can be reached at curtishre@gmail.com

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