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Roth on Wesleyan

Civic Engagement Has Never Been More Important

January 7, 2021January 7, 2021 by Michael S. Roth '78

Like so many, yesterday I watched with horror as a mob invaded the Capitol Building, hoping to stop the certification of November’s election results. Inside Higher Ed asked if I would write a quick response to what I was seeing, and I immediately thought of the Bob Dylan song, “Idiot Wind.”

“Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull, from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.” The words of the Bob Dylan song echo in my mind as I watch rioters marauding in Washington, D.C., playing make-believe politics in their cloud cuckoo world of conspiracies and fantasies.

Though despite yesterday’s stunning turn of events, I wrote, I do see glimmers of hope:

That said, I was surprised, if not quite stunned, when I got up in the middle of last night and saw the results from Georgia. I know how hard people worked to turn out the vote in this runoff election, and how Black women and their allies overcame obstacles to ensure that the right to vote would be respected — and their votes counted. I have also been heartened and surprised how young people across the country have found so many ways to engage in the political system over these many months, despite the pandemic. 

You can read the rest of the article here.

As I was finishing, a reporter from The Chronicle of Higher Education called to talk about what was happening in Washington. I focused my comments on what had been accomplished over the last several months in energizing students to participate in the electoral system. I was thinking of—for example—Anna Horowitz ’23, who was on leave fall semester working on organizing voters in the Senate races in Georgia. Led by a courageous group of Black women, she and so many others were building the future of civic participation, even in a pandemic.  “As we begin to restore order, let’s use education for the civic preparedness we desperately need,” I’d said on Twitter earlier in the day.  Once again, we in higher education must recommit to encouraging the kind of democratic practice that is fully in sync with the goals of liberal education: habits of discussion, compromise, collective aspiration and care for the vulnerable.

It has never been more important.

 

Categories UncategorizedTags Bob Dylan, Chronicle of Higher Education, Civic Engagement, E2020, Inside Higher Ed
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Michael S. Roth

Michael S. Roth became Wesleyan University's 16th president on July 1, 2007.

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Michael S Roth 20 hours ago

Read @MattReedAKDN "examples of solidarity and solutions give the lie to the pessimistic view of polarised politics incapable of pragmatism and practical action" #PracticalIdealism akf.org.uk/cooperation-an…

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Next week, we study The Golden Calf section on Book of Exodus

test Twitter Media - Next week, we study The Golden Calf section on Book of Exodus https://t.co/JWk4IEsoqz
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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Great to see ⁦@CHCMasselli⁩ vaccine site featured in @NYTimes “In addition to its mass sites, CHC, which serves large numbers of poor and uninsured people in clinics around the state, is also planning to send small mobile teams into neighborhoods” nytimes.com/2021/02/28/hea…

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

How ⁦@DouthatNYT⁩ loves the aroma of decadence “The stink of failure hangs over the liberal and cosmopolitan as well the populist and provincial, the “cuomosexual” parts of the media as well the conservative” Symptom or Diagnosis? via @NYTOpinion nytimes.com/2021/02/27/opi…

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Brilliant ⁦@radhikajones⁩ review on #Ishiguro — memory, narrative and humanness via ⁦@nytimesbooks⁩ nytimes.com/2021/02/23/boo…

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Read Becca Rothfeld "What I’m saying is that hating, however eloquent, is only half the battle. That it is so often cast as the whole of the enterprise is the fault of a warped incentive structure." spectator.co.uk/article/savage… via @spectator

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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

In 19th century #Nostalgia thought to be a fatal disease. @clayroutledge thinks "the modern tools of behavioral science" tell us its good for us. Lucky us! Progress or nostalgia? wsj.com/articles/remem… via @WSJ

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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

How I love this film -- Cafe Casablanca, "You Must Remember This" twitter.com/LostInFilm/sta…

«You give me a great desire to love» pic.twitter.com/prV1M8tclN

— Lost In Film (@LostInFilm) February 27, 2021
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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

Lola at the lake, snowy morning

test Twitter Media - Lola at the lake, snowy morning https://t.co/3AVt9MFBNQ
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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

Read ⁦@parul_sehgal⁩ on the history of NYTBR “How can one cover — let alone judge — what one refuses to see? What one is institutionally mandated to ignore?” via ⁦@nytimesbooks⁩ nytimes.com/2021/02/26/boo…

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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

Elite colleges could,without making..changes to.. admissions standards,help a large number of talented children from low-income families..they could displace a number of affluent students who wouldn’t..be harmed by ending up at less selective institutions chronicle.com/article/what-w…

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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

I still say that all the time! twitter.com/MattReedAKDN/s…

One of mine is from @mroth78 who said to me as a graduate student, after I had done nothing but criticise that week’s text: “But what did you learn from it?”

— Matt Reed (@MattReedAKDN) February 26, 2021
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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

My beloved teacher Carl Schorske to me as a frosh: “Mr. Roth, you have an awkward, wooden style. Get help with your writing!” twitter.com/artcrimeprof/s…

Does anyone else have something a teacher said burned into their brain? Mine is when I answered a question in a seminar my first semester of grad school and the professor responded, “Ah, Thompson. Quick but wrong, as usual.”

— Erin L. Thompson (@artcrimeprof) February 25, 2021
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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

"Not entirely unwatchable," @aoscott on film whose songs "dwell in a sonic uncanny valley, and also in an aesthetic gray area. They don’t sound bad, but they lack both the audacity of reinvention and the humility of imitation." #RealCriticism nytimes.com/2021/02/25/mov…

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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

History of the present ⁦@jbouie⁩ “a rich history of resistance against the twin forces of race hierarchy &class exploitation..a more just and equitable future may well depend on how much we take those histories to heart and build on them” @nytopinion nytimes.com/2021/02/26/opi…

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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

Read ⁦@michelleinbklyn⁩ quote ⁦@sandylocks⁩ “The commitment to free speech seems to dissipate when the people who are being gagged are folks who are demanding racial justice” via @NYTOpinion nytimes.com/2021/02/26/opi…

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Michael S Roth 5 days ago

Still wondering why folks love reading about this 2018 incident on today's front page. Is it a "tale" of a false racial bias claim or of a reporter's selection bias? Talk to any black students? Any current students at all? @smithcollege @powellnyt nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/…

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Michael S Roth 5 days ago

Read @Milbank on double standards washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

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Michael S Roth 6 days ago

Tonight at 6:00 p.m. @wesleyan_u Black Feminist Ecologies

test Twitter Media - Tonight at 6:00 p.m. @wesleyan_u Black Feminist Ecologies https://t.co/IVG7L5iM4B
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Michael S Roth 6 days ago

Good discussion today of forgiveness & virtue in #Aquinas @wesleyan_u "reason is more perfect to the degree that it is more capable of subduing or bearing the weaknesses of the body & the lower parts"

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