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This Issue 02/01/2007

Also in this issue

• Brewmaster's Corner
• Street Beats
• Reviews
• Youtube clip of the week
• The Engineering Library

Wharton graduate student Ryan Burg, one of the founders of Penn Against War, recognizes a common disillusionment with protest: "One of the things I've experienced with Penn students is that they want to have a very clear pathway to change. They want to know exactly how any action they would take would influence someone or something. And protesting doesn't necessarily do that." Though he concedes, "I think it's a travesty that so many students have any hesitation in wanting to act."

At a school notorious for its pre-professionalism, the truth may be that students have concentrated their efforts in other, more practical spheres. Penn Leads the Vote, for one, had marked success in bringing Penn to the polls: 1,521 voted in the midterm elections, compared to 509 in 2002. Penn Democrats, now one of the largest, most visible groups on campus, has declined to endorse recent war protests, instead focusing on candidates who might affect change more readily. Penn Dems President Clayton Robinson emphasizes his group's efforts in helping elect Congressman Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran who has "endorsed a timeline for bringing American forces home from Iraq." Or look at the success of local initiatives, like the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project or courses designed to reach out to the community.

Call it the New Activism - devoting energy to well-researched, concrete aims. For all the volatility of the '60s anti-war movement, its image may have come to be unfairly romanticized. Dan Berger, an Annenberg graduate student who has published a number of pieces on the history of activism, is mistrustful of the "apathy" label. "Often when people make that accusation, it's not that they're saying our generation is apathetic, they're saying that our generation isn't like the 60s."

History professor Alan Charles Kors, remembers the College Hall sit-ins as the product of an "unthinking herd mentality." In 1968, he refused to let demonstrations disrupt his courses, even holding class during the History department's "Day of Conscience" for the Vietnam war. "I think my generation often cared more about the symbolism of something than the substance of something."

Outside of the "handful" of people who sincerely believed in the sit-in form, "some kids went to sit-ins to get laid, some kids went to sit-ins because they heard the best pot was there, and a startling number of people went to such sit-ins and demonstrations without a clue as to Vietnamese history, the nature of the forces there, the choices facing the country. They didn't know, they didn't care. It was symbolism. 'Grown-ups bad. College students good. Let's sit-in.'"

Kors feels that today's student body, by comparison, is "rightly more cautious in how it reaches judgments, and more self-skeptical about whether a first impression is necessarily true and compelling."