2008 Woodie Awards
Workers of the World Unite you have Nothing to Lose but your Grains
Lauren Eskreis-Winkler
Issue date: 5/12/08 Section: Opinion
This semester, students at Stern were moved and inspired by a simple realization: we are each morally responsible for the things we finance. In a real, albeit ironic way, we support the sweatshops of the Indonesian republic when we buy their deodorants. We contribute to the genetic engineering campaign when we fry Monsanto potatoes. Although meteorologists have yet to determine whether a butterfly flapping its wings in Texas can cause a hurricane in the Philippines, it is an economic fact that every time you purchase a Special Edition Ty Beanie Baby you repair hurricane damage in the South because each time a Beanie Baby is purchased it spurs the conscientious Ty Corporation to contribute $2 to hurricane victims in the fine state of Louisiana. Our purchases have wide and dramatic consequences that remain virtually unknown to the absent-minded consumer.
The human race, to which so many of this article's readers belong, is notorious for its limited imagination. It is therefore a natural response in the face of daunting and monstrous realities to redirect one's attention to the microcosm - the particular. It was this very human response that prompted students at Stern to postpone taking on the Indonesian Republic, an endeavor in which they no doubt could have succeeded had they set their minds to it. Instead, they chose to focus their energies on an organization much closer to home.
They realized in a sudden and acute way that as students, they were responsible for the policies that govern the great and glorious institution that we call Yeshiva University. So they began to ask questions: What are the policies and agendas that our tuition dollars are going to support? No doubt Yeshiva University's primary mission is to Educate, a topic with which the students are, hopefully, somewhat familiar. But what about the University's other policies? When it comes to the distribution of finances, tuition dollars support the University's labor-relations agenda to the same extent that they support the University's academic one. Is it not necessary for all students to familiarize themselves with what they are financing?
The human race, to which so many of this article's readers belong, is notorious for its limited imagination. It is therefore a natural response in the face of daunting and monstrous realities to redirect one's attention to the microcosm - the particular. It was this very human response that prompted students at Stern to postpone taking on the Indonesian Republic, an endeavor in which they no doubt could have succeeded had they set their minds to it. Instead, they chose to focus their energies on an organization much closer to home.
They realized in a sudden and acute way that as students, they were responsible for the policies that govern the great and glorious institution that we call Yeshiva University. So they began to ask questions: What are the policies and agendas that our tuition dollars are going to support? No doubt Yeshiva University's primary mission is to Educate, a topic with which the students are, hopefully, somewhat familiar. But what about the University's other policies? When it comes to the distribution of finances, tuition dollars support the University's labor-relations agenda to the same extent that they support the University's academic one. Is it not necessary for all students to familiarize themselves with what they are financing?
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Abramovich
posted 6/06/08 @ 12:29 PM EST
It would be wonderful if Orthodox Jewish students of the upcoming generation could be sensitized to the concepts of social responsibility that stretches to society as a whole, and that is not limited to its concerns for Klal Yisrael. (Continued…)
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