Triumph of the Organization Kid

For all that I enjoy his columns in The New York Times, David Brooks' Organization Kid article back in 2001 always rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it simply strikes too close to home, but when Brooks complains that we are overscheduled, too accepting of authority and, at least among the men, lacking machismo — or, as he describes it, masochism, I just shake my head.

I opened my copy of the 'Prince' on Thursday morning to find that the battle over ROTC had arrived. The issue was inevitable — ever since the successful challenge of the Solomon Amendment, which allows schools to expel ROTC without losing federal funding, it has just been a matter of time until the issue of "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" came up, both here and on campuses across America.

Though the debate itself was perhaps inevitable, I have been somewhat surprised by how the situation has been playing itself out. Instead of physically protesting ROTC, harassing officer candidates or otherwise making a ruckus, Mark Salzman '07 and his ideological compatriots decided to work through the system. Going before the USG on Sunday night, they attempted to redress their grievances in a constructive instead of destructive manner.

Within hours of the announcement, the opposition started to form. Supporting Princetonians in the Nation's Service (SPNS) was active starting 3:38 p.m. on Thursday, and it pledged itself to the support of the individuals within ROTC while attempting to avoid the infantile shock tactics used by the Ann Coulters of the world — and of campus. With the battle lines drawn, debate ensued: I received 74 emails' worth of heated debate off one email list alone, and heard about countless conversations at dinner tables across campus, between ellipticals at Dillon and even in taprooms down the street. Whig-Clio is stirring too — it had a public debate on the subject last night.

What shocked me is the general demeanor and methodology used by both sides — a defined focus on the problem of ROTC on campus has generally managed to avoid both discussions of homosexuality and the military at large and the epithets that often accompany them. There has been little in the way of name calling, with both groups choosing instead to keep their eyes on the — narrowly defined — prize.

What we're seeing many be, to use Brooks' label, an organization kid protest. Emails were sent, Blackberrys whizzed, phone calls were made and meetings were organized. In this spirit of the positive iteration of his ostensibly negative term, Princetonians got together and sought the pragmatic route, that which would hopefully bring maximal gain at minimal cost. The motion was tabled pending more research — definitely a pragmatic solution. Large-scale protest to provoke the student-body at large — or worse, simply for coverage on the front page of this paper — was eschewed in favor of tactics that emphasized cooperation, legitimate discourse and fundamentally democratic, instead of anarchic, principles. In short, reason ruled the day, and it did so not because the players involved didn't have the guts to take to the streets, but because deciding to act like a 4-year-old until the powers that be decide that it's not worth it anymore is rarely the most effective way of getting what you want.

This is not to say that physical, or even violent, protest is never appropriate — quite the contrary. Protest against repressive regimes and dangerous tyrants may not only be acceptable, but is quite possibly morally obligatory. But is President Tilghman really a tyrant? Were the fundamental rights of Columbia students being infringed upon in 1996 when students could not major in ethnic studies? Somehow, I doubt it. Organization kid protests shun the self-centered antics of those who seek change via disrupting the lives of others, instead choosing calm and rational strategies to achieve their goals. Brooks may look to the future worried that America's next generation is missing a moral/ethical X-factor, but if you ask who I want in the driver's seat in 20 years (after all, what happened to Princeton in the Nation's Service?), I would choose calm, rational and pragmatic over self-indulgent and melodramatic any day.

Columnist's clarification:

In my last column, I referred to a high-level political theory class taught by a professor who told his students that he was voting for Kerry. I should note that his personal political opinions only came to light when pressed by his students, and that, as the last sentence of that paragraph insinuates, his personal views did not affect his ability to teach the material in a fair and balanced manner. Matthew Gold is a politics major from New York, N.Y. He can be reached at mggold@princeton.edu.