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Roth on Wesleyan

Bob Dylan

Civic Engagement Has Never Been More Important

January 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 Uncategorized Tags Bob Dylan, Chronicle of Higher Education, Civic Engagement, E2020, Inside Higher Ed
Michael S. Roth

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

We welcome comments from readers, but reserve the right not to publish certain comments, such as those that are anonymous or appear to be spam.

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Wesleyan Athletics 9 hours ago

🎾 RECAP | Women's tennis (@wes_tennis) claims Little 3 title with 7-2 victory over Amherst 🏆 ➡️ Wesleyan's wins the Little 3 title for the second consecutive 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 season ➡️ Kiseleva, Almy and Goldberg (pictured) each picked up 2 wins 🔗: athletics.wesleyan.edu/news/2021/4/10… Retweeted by Michael S Roth

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Michael S Roth 12 hours ago

What a great effort from a brave & resilient team! #GoWes twitter.com/wes_athletics/…

RECAP | No. 10 @wes_wlax Rallies in Second Half, Defeats Hamilton 13-12!#WeAreWes #RollCards https://t.co/vzwiBAO6Qv

— Wesleyan Athletics (@wes_athletics) April 10, 2021
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Wesleyan Tennis 12 hours ago

Wes Women defeat Amherst 7-2! #Rollcards #LittleThree Retweeted by Michael S Roth

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Michael S Roth 17 hours ago

Read @paulwaldman1 “You fear change, don’t you?” they’re told. “Doesn’t it seem like the world is passing you by? Now take that uncertainty and fear, and squeeze it between your fists until it turns into hate.” washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

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Michael S Roth 18 hours ago

Poem of the Day: Things No One Knows - poetryfoundation.org/poems/155710/t…

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Michael S Roth 20 hours ago

"The function of the univ. is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers..or to be a center of polite society; it is..to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life &the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization" twitter.com/AgnesCallard/s…

“—not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.”
Du Bois understands what college is for. pic.twitter.com/pnLwxFUo3h

— Agnes Callard (@AgnesCallard) April 10, 2021
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Michael S Roth 1 day ago

Read Forrest Gander “Post-Fire Forest” You have, everyone notes, a rare talent for happiness. I wonder how to value that, walking through wreckage. newyorker.com/magazine/2021/… via @NewYorker

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Michael S Roth 1 day ago

Another #Baudelaire (Robert Lowell, trans) I think this is the season’s funeral, some one is nailing a coffin hurriedly. For whom? Yesterday summer, today fall — the steady progress sounds like a goodbye.

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Happy 200th b-day #Baudelaire "Who would dare to assign to art the sterile function of imitating Nature? Maquillage has no need to hide itself or to shrink from being suspected; on the contrary let it display itself, at least if it does so with frankness and honesty"

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Read @DKThomp "Democracy is complicated, but voting should be simple...While the Georgia law isn’t all bad, it complicates almost every step in the voting process, especially for absentee voters." theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

"A #LiberalEducation empowers you to develop your capacities so that you can feed your creativity. That's what we want for our culture and our jobs" Just after 24:30 @ChrishaundaLee @wesleyan_u golocoplus.com/media/the-youn…

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

My students' favorite, even in the Virtue&Vice class @wesleyan_u twitter.com/holdengraber/s…

💎 Charles Baudelaire
Born on this day, in 1821

“You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way.
...
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.”

Listen to Serge Reggiani Recite “Be Drunk”

⤵️
pic.twitter.com/4m39dnsm00 pic.twitter.com/ALUkfbkMOA

— Paul Holdengraber (@holdengraber) April 9, 2021
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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Read ⁦@jbouie⁩ “woke capital” critics are not actually interested in curbing corporate influence..They don’t have a problem with corporate speech as a matter of principle. They have a problem with corporate speech as a matter of politics” @NYTOpinion nytimes.com/2021/04/09/opi…

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Michael S Roth 2 days ago

Read ⁦@jsf⁩ “Saint Phalle rarely gave audiences the fully approved version of anything. It’s lovely to build a place to gather, but she was both a builder and a destroyer. She was a maker of structures to live in, and a pillager who shot to kill.” nytimes.com/2021/04/08/art…

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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

My seasonal post about choosing one's college "Whatever college or university students choose, I hope they get three things out of their education: discovering what they love to do; getting better at it; learning to share it with others" @wesleyan_u roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2021/04/08/how…

How to Choose A (Our) University
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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

@AmyBloomBooks MANY thanks!!

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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

What am I now that I was then?    May memory restore again and again    The smallest color of the smallest day:    Time is the school in which we learn,    Time is the fire in which we burn. poetryfoundation.org/poems/42633/ca…

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Michael S Roth 3 days ago

William Wordsworth, #BOTD "O pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For great were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven!"

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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

Wordsworth #BOTD "'Twas in truth an hour Of universal ferment; mildest men Were agitated; and commotions, strife Of passion and opinion, filled the walls Of peaceful houses with unique sounds. The soil of common life, was, at that time, Too hot to tread upon"

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Michael S Roth 4 days ago

After Baudelaire, Kushner "To be hard is to let things roll off you,to live in the present,to not dwell or worry. And even though I stayed out late..some part of me had left early. To become a writer is to have left early no matter what time you got home" nytimes.com/2021/04/05/boo…

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