Dear young do-gooder,
So you are facing the choice of a job, a school, a non-profit internship, the peace corps… whatever it is, you want a life with meaning, to do justice, to make change. You are looking for a good fit, something you can belong to that will tell you exactly what you must do to realize your desired world, and provide the opportunity to do it. I hate to break it to you, but don’t hold your breath.
There is no one institution that will magically turn you into who you want to be. Every structure you plug yourself in to, be it a church, a degree program, a political party, or other entity will shape you in certain ways. You will need to unlearn about 30-70% of any institutional socialization experience you receive, or inoculate yourself against this negative share before hand, to be a truly effective and radical agent of justice. I’ve spent too much time joining things and dedicating myself to them believing “THIS is IT!” only to find it isn’t. If you are anything like me – a young idealist – you probably have too. Eventually a critical social eye realizes that the system (for lack of a better word) does not provide a clear channel to teach and nourish those who would be bent on changing it. You are, and should consider yourself to be, a rogue agent: responsible for controlling your own education and for creating alternative spaces for reflection and action with the few you will find who share your values.
There is no one institution that will teach you everything you need to know. The balanced and effective agent for justice must engage in a variety of relationships with different institutions and accumulate a myriad of experiences to learn everything they must learn. The trick is to be savvy - arrive at a sense of the various elements of your personality, skills, and ideals that you must develop. Investigate the institutions you can access – schools, jobs, clubs – what they can and cannot teach you, what they can and cannot position you to do in the future. Identify the ways they could lead you astray by incentivizing activities that ultimately don’t matter. Be prepared to do some bullshit in exchange for the opportunity to grab what you need while you are around, and make sure to do some good for the place and the people before you go. But know where to draw the line when the bullshit starts to take over.
Finally, work your ass off, both in your institutional duties and outside of them, and ask inappropriate amounts of questions at unexpected times. You learn more than you “should” this way, and if you are pulling your weight, people are willing to take the time to answer in revealing ways. Take that insider information, recalibrate your course, and continue to chart your path along the itchy, bumpy, shadowy underbelly of traditional ideas of success. It's really the only path worth taking.
Good luck, and Godspeed.
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