I’m thinking of a number between one and ten. Okay, bear with me. I’m just going to ask you some questions. So: I’m thinking of a number between one and ten. What is it? Now, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say “dog?” Now, quick, what neighborhood do you live in?

Strangely enough, that last question is a difficult one for a lot of students. While college is often viewed as this big, communal vision quest through the forest of knowledge, (or something like that) it has, ironically, caused our generation to become more isolated from the communities in which they live. As we become increasingly obsessed with “social networking,” we are becoming more withdrawn and separated from our neighbors and friends.

So what the hell am I talking about? Think about it this way: Minneapolis, like every other city, is separated into a series of neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are very interesting places filled with strange, idiosyncratic sights and unique organizations. Each one has a different character, different issues, different people, businesses, venues, etc. All of this diversity usually inspires people to get involved with more enthusiasm than you’d usually see if, say, you lived in a suburb whose main attraction is a Cub Foods with an attached Jamba Juice and whose idea of political action is voting down another alms-seeking referendum from the local school district.

Basically, the communities of Minneapolis invite people to get involved politically, artistically and economically. Sounds good, right?

So why is it that so many students at our University can’t even be bothered to leave campus? How many students don’t even know the name of their neighborhood, not mention its history and concerns? Have we been sucked into a sort of “ivory tower” vortex of isolation and elitism? I believe the answer to be a resounding “yes.”

One trip to Coffman is all it takes to figure out why. This university has done it damnedest to create a completely antiseptic, pre-packaged, hyper-convenient, corporate atmosphere. We’re living a one-stop life where everything can be obtained without working, moving, thinking, etc. Everything comes from some huge distributor with a “golden ticket” contract and costs a dollar more than in the rest of the world. If you’re a passionate vegetarian or just someone who thinks that the Coca Cola Company is evil, good luck finding nourishment
on campus.

It may seem irrelevant, but the way that you spend your money is absolutely crucial to community development. For example, buying from independent businesses is a surefire way to ensure their continued existence; wearing a little sticker with their name on it but never shopping there is, to put it mildly, ineffective. In a capitalistic society, money talks. If we’re unwilling to either spend money or raise money for the organizations that we believe in, whether it’s an independent bookstore or a political action group, then our “support” is hypocritical.

It’s something that we just don’t think about all that often. Due in large part to our environment, we are encouraged to make our financial decisions without thinking about ethics or implications. We’re not asked to think critically about exactly how far our dollars go or how well that jives with our own political and moral beliefs. That brand of ignorance may work for a while, but the time has come for it to stop. If we don’t start accounting for our spending habits and supporting local business, then it is going to disappear. In case you’re still wondering exactly what we would lose, the answer is really long. Here it is, truncated: access to unique perspectives, new ideas, local culture, individuality, opportunity, the ability to participate, friends and colleagues, cool and inviting places to hang out, diversity, new experiences, etc. Independent businesses allow us the opportunity to be a part of various creative and economic decisions without having to go though a huge corporate office. To use a music metaphor: if every venue in town was a franchised version of First Ave., there would be a lot of great bands who would never be able to get shows. Furthermore, local businesses are much more transparent and also more likely to support local causes. These are establishments and organizations that care about the community because they are an indelible part of it. Mega-corporation Inc. is going to have a much harder time seeing our communities outside of the shit-colored lens of opportunity-cost.

Of course, it still always comes back to community involvement. I can preach the benefits of local business all I want, but it’s all hot air if you never actually venture out and experience it. Gaining that experience is one area where our education seems to be inhibiting us. Far too often, kids get completely lost in the maze of academia. They spend all their time being immersed in useless rhetorical exchanges and forget that there is an actual, physical world out there.

Here’s where I step out from behind the curtain and show my true colors: I think academia is complete bullshit. It’s an excuse for “intellectuals” to write about their fetishes in incomprehensible language and submit it to their peers so they can… write an impassioned response in incomprehensible language. The general public never enters into the equation, even when academics are discussing that very group. This paradigm only fosters pretension, elitism and willful ignorance of the practical application of knowledge. It’s simply amazing to me that you can be a race theorist and still be too scared of black people to go to certain parts of town. It’s that sort of thinking that causes us to stay sequestered in classrooms and ignore the effects that our actions have on the world. Regardless of how far up your own ass you crawl, you can’t escape reality.

Advances in mass media have only fostered this withdrawal from reality. With our near-biological attachment to the internet reaching giddy new heights, it can often seem like everything is national or worldwide. Things lose a sense of time and place; events that happen down the street become blog posts first and foremost. Events happen not in actual places but, rather, on the boundless ether of the internet. It’s no wonder that we forget about our communities when we’re primarily citizens of the internet.

And, sure, that sort of utopian electronic globalization is kind of cool, but not when it makes us forget about the very real issues that face our towns, neighborhoods and homes. The internet can foster this strange sort of apathy born from the illusion that in order to change anything, we have to change the whole damned world.
Really, you don’t. If we just start to think about how we spend our money and attend those community meetings that you’re always getting fliers for, we can start to become citizens first and students second. If you simply make an effort to get out and experience the cities rather than rotting away on campus, things could be different. It may seem like you would have to topple a bunch of multinational corporations to solve the problem, but you really don’t. Regardless of which slave-driving enterprise has unceremoniously tattooed their emblem across your chest, it’s still your life.

I’ll put it simply: I’m thinking of a number between one and ten and we can’t all be thinking “eight.”