The Death of the Ideal

 This was the second article of mine published in the Zahir, in Spring 2012.

Where are all the anarchists? I laughed when my friend first expressed this lament, but I am now beginning to see his point. I live on campus, study a politics related degree, and would like to think that I am active in the student political community, but have yet to meet a single anarchist. There is very little common ground between anarchism, the classic radical ideology, and my own ideas, yet still I find the lack of them, and other supporters of radical political ideals on campus, greatly troubling. There are certain stereotypes of university life that have been completely accurate, mainly on the social and alcohol-related side of things, but the political stereotypes of students holding radical, and refreshingly divergent, even unrealistic, ideals, has not materialised.

Of the political societies on campus, none have developed any thinking that I would describe as refreshing or different, they boringly stick to rigid, predictable ideals and party rhetoric. You generally either have annoying right-wing libertarians who 'troll' the other parties because they arrogantly believe that their views are objectively superior, or dull 'liberal-lefties' who spew out the latest Guardian hypocrisies. And even these groups are depressingly inactive, rendered impotent by a small membership, excess bureaucracy, and most of all, a large mainstream student body who simply don’t care.

Helping out at the refreshers fair, so many simply walked by the political stands, showing little interest, mainly out of a need to be polite, or, perhaps more admirably, simply telling the truth that they did not really care, or that they just followed their parents mainstream political opinions. All too often did I hear words like “but I've always voted for X” or “my parents vote for X and so do I” or the classic “I would vote/campaign for Y but they'll never get anywhere”. Instead they rushed off to buy twee, 'ironic' posters at the sale, or join the latest fringe sport fad.

Obviously I am not demanding that everyone has the same interests as I do and no one wants the likes of “Rick from the Young Ones” a hypocritical politico who holds radical views just to be trendy and will base his social preferences on his politics. Indeed this is not the impression I want to get across, I have met this ilk of person, those who will actually reject potential friends just because of their political views, and they are perhaps far worse than the indifferent students described above.

Nonetheless, forgiving the cliché, university is meant to be a time of independence and broadened horizons. A rare time when we are developed enough to enjoy life as much as anyone, but are largely free from the responsibilities of tax, family and society. Thankfully, we have not forgotten the physical or social side of this, eating and drinking excessively, without thought for the future consequences, is a part of growing up that should be celebrated, within reasonable limits. Yet the academic or philosophical side of this freedom seems to have disappeared. Holding political and ideological opinions that are perhaps too radical, too unrealistic is also an important part of character development. One learns more about oneself and eventually gains a greater understanding of life, why the world is as it is, and hopefully, begins to come to terms with reality. But if this is not achieved, if we always hold the same mainstream opinions, dictated to us by the media, society will lose the vital capacity to question established truths and people will become even more disconnected from political life, both of which have terrible implications for the future of an open society.

This is not to say that there is no hope. I have met fairly interesting politically minded students and enjoyed debates that have really made be re-evaluate my own views. But there are just too few of us. For most people here political debate is reduced to recycling dull mainstream rhetoric based on what they've read in the media. In politics seminars, no one has an actual opinion, the reading is discussed obviously, but no one declares a passionate view on the topic, they simply regurgitate the views of the authors on the reading list and hope they can get by saying as little as possible.

As a result there are no new ideas. I worry that when our generation takes up the reigns of humanity, we will not have any solutions, any new modes of thinking, to solve the great problems of our day. Instead we will just let ourselves be told what to do by those who claim, wrongly, to know better.

Indeed, I am writing this not to call for more views similar to my own or for those that criticise the mainstream, but just for something different. Fascist, socialist, anarchist, deep ecologist, theocrat, whatever, just something from outside the mainstream, something that evokes the spirit of free thinking that academia used to represent. Until then, I must ask again, where are all the anarchists?