Sunday, July 16, 2006
(6:51 PM) | Anonymous:
Financial Responsibility? No thanks!
The Chicago Sun-Times has apparently reprinted an article by Jeffrey J. Williams called "America's new debtor class: College Kids" that originally appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Williams' article is ostensible a book review, but it makes the argument that the amount of debt college kids are graduating with are turning them into, well, a new debtor class. This is hardly ground breaking, especially to many of the readers here at The Weblog. As it stands Hayley and I will be paying nearly $400/month for a very long time. This amount of money will quickly increase after our graduate work, though I'm hoping we'll be making enough to pay it off every month. It's a gamble though and it really is in the most literal sense. We all know that the chances of getting a tenure track position is slim especially in any department in the humanities and especially as a white male. I'm betting using house chips and it's quite terrifying if it all goes badly (though not hopeless).That is all a familiar story and we all know it because we all bitch about or read about others bitching about it. We all know we're doomed and me and you more than most. And, of course, I'm not against bitching about it. When you have other academic failures hiding behind the label of activist calling you an over-confident graduate student for something you didn't even say it's good to know that you're anything but. It's good to know that you're also risking your ass for what you believe in (and I do believe in education and pure research just as much as I believe in socialism - both are utopian and possible). But I wonder if it's not getting a bit tired. I wonder if we can't affirm our lack of financial responsibility. Is it too romantic to be reckless with the object of our own popular piety?
Isn't refusing, or even accepting in bad faith, the terms of our debt a possibility? Or are we convinced that there is no way out but wage slavery? Are we that tied to responsibility? Isn't it a real possibility that the amount of people with this amount of debt creates a situation with which we can make demands? Is it not possible that we can also get this God to kill himself by the sheer weight of our debt?
Here's to dumpster diving and all those who live freer than myself.
