Reflections on "Tent State University"

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I have heard talk about people's frustrations with this year's Tent State. I have thought of three different ways of mentally processing these frustrations, all with different implications. I am going to try to analyze these thoughts, while being as honest to myself as possible because I can probably learn something from this experience:

1) There were only a handful of people willing to organize this year's Tent State. These people organized it how they saw fit. If other people want to criticize this year's Tent State, then that is fine, but they should accept how they were not willing to help or do their own. Additionally, this was the only action taken all semester. Those who are criticizing should be putting their criticism to good use by organizing actions in ways in which they see fit. Similarly, I have heard the argument that this is not how "Tent State University" is supposed to be, and I find myself asking, "Who is the decider of what Tent State is supposed to be?" Why can't it manifest itself in different forms of different campuses based on the activist groups which are present and willing to contribute? As far as I am aware, I do not believe there is not any copyright on the idea of "Tent State," and even if there was it seems oppressive to enforce standards on a model for educating and raising awareness. 

The implications of looking at the criticisms allow me to justify our actions, while still considering their criticisms. I do not have to go insane at the thought of having done something wrong.

2) My next way of mentally processing Tent State is a worry that lingers over my mind like a dark cloud. What if we were wrong? Maybe we are a bunch of phony radicals who tricked ourselves into thinking that waving red flags will magically lead us toward communism? Are we just fooling ourselves? What if we were being elitist against the other leftists organizing on campuses? With these questions come anxieties and worries: What if they hate us? What if we are doing more harm than good? Then I get depressed and think about how it is not satisfying to simply be campaigning for lower tuition. I cannot morally justify doing this while I now that it is tied in with such larger and more pressing issues. I cannot care more about the college population that I do about the people dying as a result of US imperialism. Similarly, I cannot take groups seriously that fail to make these connections and that seemingly (through their inaction and direct or indirect support of Obama) contribute to much of the oppression that occurs on a larger scale. I have heard about working within these groups with these goals to recruit a broader range of students and having them be radicalized through experience, but I feel so alone in fighting for this and find myself lacking patience. Have I fallen into some sort of self-destructive ideological trap? I am afraid and want to crawl into a cave and hide from these attacks. 

3) My third way of handling it is more of an internal struggle. As one person, who am I to voice support for the nations that have challenged US imperialism? Have I turned into an ideologue who is no longer able to relate to the proletariat because of the consciousness that I have gained? I feel so alienated--from the beliefs of my family and old friends AND from the beliefs of comrades who I used to work with on the left. I no longer gain satisfaction from listening to leftist speakers--I just find myself criticizing them for not doing enough and angry with them for settling with small reforms. I think this ties in with the reform vs revolutionary action debate that I have not yet completely solved. While I know that certain reforms can serve to empower groups of people, I also feel like they mislead leftists into believing that all problems can be solved through reform. This allows many lefts to feed into the very system that oppresses them. One example is activism around school reform. While I admire how they can work toward improving public schools, I find myself being fatalistic about the ultimate fate of public schools. I find myself believing that any positive reforms gained can easily be undone. I see all of the energy going into changing the smallest aspects of the school system by navigating the capitalist bureaucracy--and I can't help but feel like a large part of it is wasted. Who are we--small ants--to beg the system for crumbs of reform when other ants are being stepped on all over the world? And yet, what else is there to do when that is what the majority of the people on the left are doing? By straying from this model am I being a mere individualist? 

POSITIVES:

1) The conversations we were able to have with people about how tuition ties in with the larger issues of imperialism and capitalism. 

2) Many people who were never exposed to the positive aspects of communism were able to talk about it and rethink their thoughts on it

3) People across campus were talking about tent state and asking questions about if we were being too extreme. We provoked many people.

NEGATIVES:

1) We alienated potential allies that we could have had during the occupation.

2) It is possible that, for some people, the message about lower tuition was lost in the ideology that we were expressing. 

3) We did not communicate transparently with the volunteers who joined us about how to handle the cops and when we were planning on cleaning up.

4) We did not fit Tent State into an ongoing campaign that carried through the semester. This ongoing campaign did not occur due to internal issues.

I honestly do think that the positives balanced with the negatives. If we did Tent State in a different way (given the resources we had) that was more focussed on tuition, I believe the positives and negatives would have balanced out in a similar way. For example, more people would have responded to the issue relating to tuition, but we would not have raised as much awareness about how education funding connects with broader issues of capitalism and imperialism. 

This raises important questions about tactics. Is it better to dilute the message to appeal to a broader range of people, or to have a strong and defined message that provokes people into questioning their own ideology? I think it is important to have a little bit of both, when possible. I do not think having Tent State the way we did means we can no longer engage in campaigns that are purely against tuition. Perhaps we can solve the problem by opening up conversations within the organization about balance. 

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I hope I have been humble with my thoughts. This is as honest of a picture as I can make of the thoughts in my head.

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Below is a comment I received from someone through email that I thought was worth sharing:

I think there is a lot of complexity to the situation. Thanks for writing so much of your thoughts, Lisa. I would like to find a way to make this event even better for next year. I think that overall the event was pretty good. It got people talking and was something concrete that we were able to work on together and pull off successfully. After a semester of only doing water issues stuff it was nice to discuss other issues.

Because of the split at the beginning of the semester, there as not as big or broad of a group willing to put things together. I only got involved the day things started. So this definitely was reflected in what issues were the focus of the event. I think that if more people had been involved in the planning that the focus would have had to be on common ground issues such as tuition. But this year there was so much tension between people, I don't think anyone had much of a real taste for cooperation. For next year we can reach out to more people to get many groups to co sponsor the event. It involves camping out in the springtime and chatting on the grass, so it shouldn't be hard to attract people if we do it right.

I dont think the use of the name Tent State University is a too big of an issue but I think it is poor taste. There are no shootings or violence involved in our event and I think it is not good to have an event name that recalls Kent State. I've been told this is an NJUS name and I want to know how they thought this could be a good name for an event. For next year I would like a name that doesn't focus on such a negative event in history and instead has a more unifying and community-building feel to it.

I think that it is more important right now to focus on what unites us instead of on the issues that separate us. Montclair doesn't have a big activist community so we need to focus on building one here. This year's focus on radical issues such as the North Korea stuff pushed away people who otherwise could have been drawn in. The grad students in my office are fairly liberal and many are in a very tough situation because of rising tuition and significantly decreased school funding for the teaching and research jobs that let us work for our professors instead of working at Walmart. If this event had a different focus I imagine many of them could have been convinced to camp out because they basically sleep at the school anyway. But instead, they were laughing about the crazy NK stuff they saw in the quad and not discussing issues that could have gotten them actually involved.

Change happens very slowly sometimes. Women got the right to vote in 1920 but my grandma still had to get permission from my grandpa to get a credit card in the 1950s. We are all very small and we live in a huge world, so sometimes it feels like the little changes we can accomplish don't matter at all and that we need to find a way to make a big impact. But then I try so hard and still see that I am just one person and society all around me is so sick and apathetic that even my hardest effort rounds down to 0. I get really frustrated and sad and want to give up, but I was talking to a close friend who is much older than me and she was telling me about all the changes she has seen in her life and how over time it does all add up to something. So now I am trying to moderate my efforts so I don't get burnt out like I have felt so often before. I try to pick issues that give me joy to work on and not constant frustration. There is of course a big goal to see people finally find a way to live together peacefully and with love, but who knows if I will see it in my life time? So I need to still pay attention to creating as much positive change as I can see in my own lifetime, so that it will inspire me and make the world that I do live in now better now. 

I think that developing a larger and more active group on campus is very possible. Working aggressively toward that goal together would serve many purposes. We would be able to make concrete changes now on issues like lower tuition. Maybe tuition is a stupid idea in the first place, but even just accomplishing the short-term goal of no hikes next year works towards a more long-term goal of educational equality because it prevents an increase that would restrict access. These little successes can develop into big successes by changing our culture over time. We will also improve our own lives by being able to enjoy the company of a strong community. Maybe we will never see capitalism go down in our lives. Maybe we will get hit by an asteroid and all of this will have been pointless anyway. I would much prefer to have good friends that I can have good discussions (and disagreements!) with and work together on the things we agree on than to have divisiveness.

My response:
Thanks for the response. I hope you don't mind that I posted it on my blog for others to see. 

I agree with most of what you are saying. When I originally started SDS, I wanted to work on unifying issues and achieve small goals, while still trying to work to end capitalism. I think I became disillusioned with this process as a result of frustrations with NJUS and the voter reg drive, and am still facing that disillusionment. This is weird because, in case anyone remembers, I used to be one of the most positive and optimistic members in SDS.

This does not mean that I think doing the above would be a bad or good thing. I am still undecided. So basically, I need to sort out these personal issues and confusions. Thea, this does not mean I am questioning whether or not I am a communist (of course I am!)--I just think it is always good for me to question my tactics. Also--I feel really bad when my ideas for tactics, that I am actually sometimes unsure or insecure about, are applied to SDS and then face criticism. I feel guilty and wonder if the organization would be better off without me until i sort  out my confusion. But at the same time, it is hard to not be involved. Luckily, I won't be around SDS any more pretty soon and I will have time to start fresh with other organizations and to study these issues in more depth. 

Regardless of how I feel, I am going to try to come up with an objective summary of what SDS should be like: 

1) I think SDS needs to find a balance between student issues and outside issues. Historically, SDS is a student group that is against war and tries to tie in education issues with a broader critique of our undemocratic government and capitalism. I think in the future, SDS should be careful to try to include anyone who is sympathetic to any these issues, while making it clear that SDS is neither just a student union nor a communist group. We need to try to include all sorts of people on the left, as long as they understand the need for balance between issues. 

2) I think what happened with the split was that certain students were under the impression that SDS could serve as a student union and therefore should not mix in other issues that could alienate students sympathetic to tuition issues. However, this strays from the mission of SDS. Then, as a result of the split, those of us who remained in SDS strayed from the student issues aspect of the mission because of the tensions and not wanting to work with the people we split from. 

3) To prevent these conflicts in the future, we need to make it clear what SDS is and recruit people accordingly. We can also make it clear that people can participate in some of the actions that apply to their interests and do not have to participate in other sorts of actions. I know that I used to pretend we focussed mostly on student issues to try to "win" over new recruits. I think this was misleading and is not something that we should do. I don't think this necessarily means we need more structure in SDS. I think it has to do with how we market ourselves to the student population and how we present ourselves to new recruits. 

Regardless about how I feel about those tactics, that is as accurate of a portrayal as I can make of what SDS should be from now on. Those of us who are disillusioned, mostly myself, should use this image to get ourselves back on track. 

Does this mean tent state was wrong? NO! Like I said, there needs to be a balance between student issues and international issues. There were good things and there were bad things about Tent State. Tent State heavily emphasized international issues, so maybe the next thing we do can be about student issues. Also maybe for future tent states, we could try to have tuition and international issues more equally balanced. And there are always things we could do to make the connection between the two more clear.