In a nutshell, I've been doing a bit of rethinking, and a lot of my opinions, especially those about Oberlin and the higher education system in general, no longer seen entirely tenable. I still think that there are a lot of truth in my posts dealing with those issues, but they ignore or minimize what should be central facts: that colleges like Oberlin are some of the few places in the US where there is a real civil society- that is to say, a society in people spontaneously and constructively interact with each other more or less as equals - and that I'm very privileged to have attended one of them on my parents' dime rather then being forced to get a crappy job like most people in the world. I wrote these posts when I was in a bad state, and I think that some amount of projection was involved in writing them. Not to mention that the "We Are Oberlin" piece was self-pitying, humorless, and lacked self-reflection- a deadly combination. Again, there are certainly real cultural and structural problems with Oberlin and higher education, but they have to be balanced against the real benefits they provide.
I'm reconsidering all this due primarily to a recent post-graduation visit to Oberlin to see my girlfriend. I stayed in her dorm, called Harkness, which works as a sort of hippie-ish commune: the people there live, eat, cook, and clean together. It was the best argument for socialism or communism that I've encountered, better that any of the learned but abstract arguments I've read from Chomsky. It existed within a capitalist framework (although as I've noted earlier, colleges have pre-capitalist roots that survive despite their corporatization), but it worked communistically. It functioned. And quite unlike most capitalist institutions, it not only functioned but functioned joyously. The times that I fulfilled my obligation to help cook and clean were one of the few times that I actually felt like doing any work in my life. And the Hark hippies (to the extent that I can broadly label them as such) weren't the complacent hippies that the punks rebelled against, but were often active in a number of causes, like resisting mountaintop removal. They're not just lifestyle socialists. Not to mention that they were fun, intelligent, and interesting people. They weren't humorless leftie cliches.
I'm gushing with this point in mind: that Oberlin allows this place and other similar places to exist. The above qualities are not confined to Harkness: Oberlin allows students to explore different identities, lifestyles, and ideas (though it doesn't necessarily allow them to fully act on their implications) before the pressure of the working world smothers their creativity. Harkness was idyllic to me. Forget that it exists due to the patronage of a capitalist society which is it's backdrop, that it functions in a somewhat carceral manner like all college dorms and colleges as a whole, and that it's occasional tweeness and preciousness implicates it in the general insularity and decadence of the greater liberal class. Forget the context that Harkness exists in, in other words, just for a minute, and you can deeply appreciate it for the intimate, loving community that it is.
I have to thank Harkness first and foremost for the great time that I had, but I also have to thank Oberlin for allowing Harkness to exist, even if too much of Oberlin is embarrassed and resentful of it. My shift in this particular opinion has made me uncertain of others; hence I've been hesitant to commit any viewpoints for publication.
So, that's out of the way. This isn't a complete renunciation of past views, but some credit was due. Back to more bile, hopefully soon.
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