Do it for Cicero

USG President Rob Biederman '08 recently told students that he hoped the USG could partner with current campus groups to make civic engagement activities a "365-day-a-year commitment" for Princeton students. This seems a laudable goal, but until the University community more cohesively defines the role of civic engagement within the campus setting, it should be cautious not to place too much stock in the concept. What follows is not a criticism of those students who are currently active in helping the community or bettering the world; rather, it is an invitation to put the nebulous rhetoric of "civic engagement" in context.

What is civic engagement? The Pace Center's website attempts to untangle this question, but as its director Kiki Jamieson points out, "Civic engagement is everywhere, and it's very hard to identify." In presenting civic engagement as something amorphous, yet unquestionably good, we risk constructing the false dichotomy of the "good" civically engaged student versus the "bad" apathetic one. In reality, each student must select the activities he or she thinks will best further the overall goal of intellectual development.

Nor can students blindly accept the value of the abstract notion of civic engagement. For centuries, universities were monastic in their culture, and the ideology of engagement is a modern phenomenon. "Some colleges have an ivory tower to protect them from the real world. Princeton has an Orange Bubble," wrote an article in this paper cited last year. In this capacity at least, the Orange Bubble serves a useful purpose: If students and teachers cannot detach themselves from contemporary passions and controversies, how can they engage seriously with unorthodox thinking? How can they expect to appreciate those ideas, movements and people of history who outlived the headlines of their eras? The notion that the academic pursuit is devoid of civic meaning is also fallacious. We are in the nation's service, but for the moment that may mean we serve by learning rather than by acting.

This is not to suggest that one should not be involved with the world beyond FitzRandolph Gate, or that its problems do not demand our attention. It is not the job of the University administrator or the undergraduate student government, however, to dictate how students should spend their a year or privilege the pursuit of one abstract notion of civic engagement above others. It is one thing to promote opportunities. It is quite another to claim, as Jamieson has, "that service and civic engagement are integral parts of a liberal arts education." The most important thing one can do here is to learn how to think. If one's ability to ponder the nature of humanity means four years on the third floor of Firestone reading classics, go for it. Do it for Cicero ...