University Life and Oppression: what can we do?

Several oppressive forces weigh down on the average college student. The first which is financial cripples him for long into his adult years as he struggle to pay off loans. Then they feel the chains cast on them in everyday life as up to four police departments patrol their small campus area. The sirens become a part of every thought process. Next the administration (and even some professors) push students toward a "real" world in which the only worth while thing we have going for us is a decent job and our last global hope is the formation of a World Economy. Finally, even the recreation of a student's life is controlled by countless mafias hiding under banners of Greek letters. Hierarchies are built upon hierarchies.

This is why it becomes extremely necessary to organize vital attacks on propaganda institutions every college campus over. But how can we go about organizing? Can we work within the system, maybe form a club? No! For what we are doing the highest amount of secrecy is necessary. I (as I'm sure others are) am in this position and would like to know what is the best way to organize in such a situation? I hope others will take the advice given as well and organize in their own towns.

If I go to college(which is

If I go to college(which is likely as a result of parents), I am saying down with the fraterities. Fuck the frats. Silently I will vandalize their houses, steadily I will use guerrilla tactics to kick them off campus. BTW what's with the greek theme too. No one is greek, this isn't a greek college. WTF.

Yes, but it's not only the

Yes, but it's not only the frats! I took a stroll through a part of the library today and it had all these ridiculous books. For instance, a good-sized volume called "Skid Row in American Cities" was all about homeless people and how they basically gamble away their lives and are nothing but drunks. A bane to the system it says! This was just one of countless books by asshole economists and egotistical sociologists that explained away the condition of the poor without doing anything at all.

lol!! I actually saw a book

lol!! I actually saw a book at the used book store that was titled "How to live on $100,000 a year".

It's not that hard. The

It's not that hard. The title show be on how to live on 5 dollars a day.

A true anarchist and rebel

A true anarchist and rebel would not be dependent on their parent's money!

Isn't it an oxymoron to

Isn't it an oxymoron to lament your lack of funding for your education? I am assuming that you want the Proletariat class to hand you your education on a silver platter. You need to work for your education as the rest of us have. I had to work my way through college you should as well. Instead you have your hand out wanting public funding of your education. Public funding is an organized system as is the internet. I find it ironic that "Anarchists" want 'society' to pay for their education and have a web site. I guess you pick and choose which organized system that you participate in as long as you benefit from it. I would suggest you find your own means of funding your education (read: part time job!). As far as organizing against 'propaganda institutions' it is the height of arrogance to prevent others in engaging in activities that they desire while lamenting being forced to engage in activities that you find offensive. Grow up kiddo.

a true education can't be

a true education can't be found at some institution.

What? This makes no sense.

What? This makes no sense. What did I ever say about having the State pay for me? I never said that. If anything I think education should be (and I know this is such a radical idea but) free. I can understand your "pride" since you worked your way through the system and struggled, but does it really content you to see others go through the same pains? The thought itself seems horrifying. I AM paying for my own education and I have probably worked harder jobs than you would ever work.

Furthermore, beyond the arguments you conceived out of thin air you also misunderstand the word "organize." Organization is voluntary, who would join something they don't agree with? You probably paid a lot for your education, but I guess you missed out on the class about reading, understanding, and critiquing logical arguments.

Quit school. Problem solved.

Quit school. Problem solved. Was that really so hard?

What would be wrong having a

What would be wrong having a loose organization??
Put an add out with all the other clubs, stating "common sense and higher learning, alternative methods study collective" or some non-threatening title as such.
I'm sure you will get the usual lip service that nearly everyone gets for some reason or the other in growing up. Fuck-em.

Yeah, that may be what ends

Yeah, that may be what ends up happening. I noticed the Students for a Democratic Society chapter around my hometown was like that.

Protesting oppression within

Protesting oppression within schools is a good idea. However, if we take seriously Max Stirner's On the Principles of our Education,we might observe that the school itself can never be anything but a center of indoctrination. The school was developed in order to produce psychological and physical habits suitable for an industrial economy; it is doubtful that this political organ can be made to serve a different purpose, for the same reason that we can't choose to hear with our noses.

I beg to differ, I was drawn

I beg to differ, I was drawn to activism through school. School opened my mind to what the CIA was doing in other countries, it showed me how oppressive the United States and capitalism really is.

Let me clarify what I meant

Let me clarify what I meant by my previous statement

My hypothesis regarding schools is the following:

Schooling is the process by which centers of authority mold citizens with a particular vision of what they ought to be. All learning is done in spite of the attempts by educational authorities to direct students' diverse creative impulses into rigid mechanical processes.

That this is true of all centers of authority is the fundamental tenet of anarchism, and I hold this tenet to be true both because of empirical evidence and because of necessary truths about the function of the state.

As Nietzsche pointed out, throughout history, the periods of greatest cultural development have been periods of political decline. For example, during the English Civil war, when the power of the monarchy and the feudal lords were weakened, uneducated homeless people and soldiers developed brilliant political and theological ideas through open discussion. In doing so, they produced some of the most profound analyses of democratic theory in history, and also many anti-authoritarian theological doctrines, which involved examination of such things as the political purpose of the idea of hell and salvation. Another example would be the period of tremendous cultural development in the late sixties, when the moral status of traditional centers of authority was weakened.

The reason that the state and other centers of authority restrict human creativity is that by their very function, permanent structures of authority are not designed to cope with the vicissitudes of the creative passions of their subjects.

If what you meant by your entry was that school was a setting in which you found radical communities of students with whom you examined the world, then you're not challenging my hypothesis

If it is true that your teachers tought you counter-culture views, my hypothesis still stands. For it is not primarily the content of a curriculum that gives it its purpose as a tool for controlling students, but the method and the context in which the information and ideological analyses are delivered. For example, a student can not learn to freely develop his creative faculties by being subjected to the whims of a teacher who grades his assignments and whose approval of the student's activity determines the students succes. In this environment, the student must consciously or unconsciously mold his psychological habits to suit the demands of the permanent classroom setting and of the authority of the teacher, who operates within an academic institution not prone to continuous alterations in its fundemental structure. It is not what facts a person knows that makes him creative, but the way in which he absorbs facts and the realationship of his habits of learning to his individual intelectual freedom.

The other response is

The other response is correct, that some professors can be liberal and even dissident. But what I'd like to add is that I in no way am aiming to change the institution, I only want to organize students against oppressive things like an indoctrinating institution. In America during the 1960s college campuses were prime examples of the counterculture and their revolts (no matter how small they may have been). Just because the university works against us doesn't mean we can't still rally against it (the same is true with the State).

The other day, I watched a

The other day, I watched a debate between David Horowitz and a radical professor at Reed named Steinberger on the issue of academic freedom. They went back and forth, arguing about what kind of material teachers ought to be teaching in order to make students think critically. Horowitz said the students should hear more conservative views; Seinberger said Liberals are smarter, so the students will be better off hearing mostly Liberal views.

The problem with the debate was that neither of them examined the assumption underlying both of their positions: that students need the institution of the school and its agents of authority, the teachers, in order to learn. The issue of the individual freedom of the student, his right to develop free from intellectual control by the school, never came up.

I agree with Alberto that we must revolt against schools. I think the central debate among anarchists on this topic ought to be the way in which students can do this, the underlying assumption being that that the school is not a benevolent institution.

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