AU Students Advocating for “World Peace” Can’t Stop Fighting in Their Own Friend Groups

By Matt Romano 

SIS teaching Kissinger’s World Order may have had unintentional consequences, creating a bloody battlefield of drama around campus. I guess we can’t be surprised that people who choose their career path from watching Congress would have an affinity for conflict. At least Congress is getting a bag though. Here, it’s just mindless chaos and student debt.

How does this happen? It’s crazy because when you arrive here, it feels like a safe haven. Most of us were “the political kid” at our high schools, and meeting like-minded peers is an eye-opening experience. I found myself excited at the inherent moral fortitude that my new friends were sure to possess based on their political beliefs. 

But pretty soon I learned the hard truth. Being a good person, and more importantly, being a good friend takes more than being on the left and dressing cool. You have to be mature and actually care about others. I don’t mean care about other people in an abstract political sense, I mean care about the people right in front of you and their day-to-day lives. Actually caring about people’s well-being.

For these “open-minded” closed-hearted individuals, friends are just like their internships: stepping stones for a greater scheme. The slightest infraction from friend group policy is often totally unforgivable and must be punished, even by so-called prison abolitionists. Maybe I have an idealized view of the past, but I feel like during the Vietnam War, radical politics were about loving human life and connecting with your like-minded peers (and smoking weed). Now, it’s about getting mad at people for hanging out with someone that didn’t say hi to you once. 

Obviously, there’s some real meaningful activism that goes on at this place, but let’s not act like it’s a mystery why the transfer rate is so high. 

At the end of the day, there’s too much beef and not enough Z-burgers.