Robert Weisberg writes: Any sensible person viewing today’s identity-based, tribe-like political activism (think recent incidents at the University of Missouri and Yale among countless others) would conclude that these antics are stupid, foolish, counter-productive, and otherwise ill-conceived or, as the Marxists would say, infantile leftist. Hard to separate reality from what appears in the satirical Onion. Why, for example, would black Dartmouth students risk a life of Riley to harass white students peacefully studying in the library by shouting “Black Lives Matter” as if their studious classmates could possibly stop police brutality? Surely these protesters must realize that their disruptions will be filmed, possibly bring expulsion and the vulgarity (“filthy white bitch” among others) will alienate potential sympathizers. Going one step further, such hissy fits at Dartmouth and elsewhere may bring the end of already tottering racial preferences in higher education.
Let me try to explain stupid political activism.
First, faced with exceedingly formidable obstacles, it is all too easy to feel exasperated and this unhappiness leads to the belief that any action, no matter how imprudent or inconsequential, outshines apathy. In the case of Dartmouth’s black students, the outburst is therapeutic self-medication whose purpose is to soothe the anxiety that comes from the distress of residing in the small, nearly all-white Hanover (88% white, 1.7% African American), NH town and, most of all, struggling academically. Similar motives no doubt drive blacks at Princeton to exorcise Woodrow Wilson versus buckling down for serious academic work. This momentary but gratifying high is, moreover, totally independent of any rational pay-off. Do protesters honestly believe that sending Wilson down the memory hole will help them pass confronted administrators at Hamilton College with a set of 39 demands, some of which were two-fold, so that actual number was closer to 80.
Third, urgency also means that the skills necessary for success can only be those already possessed–sloth-friendly activism, so to speak. Just march and shout, concoct a jumbled list of incoherent (even illegal) non-negotiable slogan-like demands (“no peace, no justice”), scribble some hand-lettered posters, and voilà, and one becomes an expert social justice warrior. By contrast, an Islamic jihadist might spend months if not years mastering encrypted communications, bomb-making, how to counterfeit documents and similar expertise. But in the world of contemporary college (and black street) activism, why bother researching alleged racism let alone what the First Amendment means? Can you imagine today’s indolent campus protester tediously learning how to launch a cyber attack on the campus e-mail system? Many warriors cannot even pull off a credible hoax. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s quip regarding socialism, achieving social justice takes too many evenings.
Fourth, 100% victories, no matter how trivial or fleeting, are always preferable to moving the needle ever so slightly on a much more consequential project. It is as if the pleasure derived from political accomplishment is fungible so any success equals any other. Thus, easily humiliating a Dartmouth Dean into acknowledging the school’s sordid racial history is more gratifying than a partially successful multi-year effort to help African American high-school students achieve minimal literacy.
Fifth, those targeted for attack must be the quickest to surrender since resistance slows down the psychological euphoria that comes from an instant victory. Just pick the most convenient cowardly flack- catcher regardless of his or her importance or even the target’s ability to satisfy the demands. An anxious university president may have zero responsibility for society’s racial climate, let along the tribulations of campus blacks but he is, nevertheless, the perfect mark for activist ire. The upshot is that the greater the availability of high-profile wimps, even if they are ideological sympathizers, the greater the political idiocy.
