Parachute Club, pt. 1

I work at a student union, and a vaguely loony one at that. I suspect most student unions are de facto insane asylums, but mine has a particular turbulence that occasionally makes me feel like I'm jumping out of a plane with no parachute.

Like gays and lesbians, who are represented across demographic lines, students come in all shapes and sizes. And it's generally the more progressive students (just as it's generally the more progressive gays and lesbians) who've created organisations that lobby to improve the lot of the community, even on behalf of those constituents who might have a more conservative bent. In fact, on paper students have even more in common than LGBTQ folk - all students choose an education, whereas sexuality isn't a matter of choice.

I'm all in favour of student unions, because students are royally disenfranchised, at least around here. Tuition fees are increasing across the board for general degrees, professional programs are even worse, and the Liberal government seems inclined to do absolutely nothing. All this begs the question: why don't students in Ontario rise up? When will students take to the streets?

One common refrain heard in student union offices is that students are too worried about their marks to take time out and protest. This may be partially true. I have a feeling, though, that students take an attitude similar to that of many Canadians these days in regard to our very ragged social safety net - if things still seem pretty much okay, why complain? Surely they won't get any worse.

This is the slow-bleed approach to civilizational deconstruction, one that works particularly well in an age of soundbites, instant gratification and a collective social amnesia that erodes our ability to internalise change in time. Try it at home - just raid the cookie jar one cookie at a time, and no one will notice. It's a bit like falling from high up in the air - you don't notice how fast you're going until you're a red smudge on a GoogleEarth map.

Speaking of which, the visionary urban theorist Jane Jacobs' favorite quote was her grandmother's contention that "you can run anything into the ground," something that history (and accidents like this one) have made abundantly clear.