I appreciate the insight you have here; agree with everything you said.
An anecdotal experience…
I’m enrolled in college classes in pursuit of a BS in Computer Information Systems. For some reason, i had to take a class called “Environmental Sociology” - which effectively is ‘environmental policies which carry disproportionate outcomes for minority populations’. I don’t disagree with correcting environmental policies to help us lessen our impact on nature, or individuals (as long as it is economically feasible, won’t derail the thread on this). But this class was quite seriously pushing these idiot teenagers to think this was the most important problem out there.
I sent a message to the instructor about 2 weeks into this 8 week class… message went something like this (actual quoted conversation):
“I am struggling with this course and my interest within it. I have no issue writing about racial inequities or environmental problems - or even how the two are intertwined, but I am having a hard time finding these social issues to be the most important wrongdoings in the world. There is an active genocide in China, Russia reduced a city of 450,000 people to rubble a couple weeks ago, the US is polarizing so badly that a 2nd civil war is seeming more likely by the day, faith in democracy is faltering, the price of gas has nearly doubled in just over 12 months, and the already record-high inflation has no end in sight.
What I’m getting at, is that environmental equity, while important, feels so far down the list of important social issues that it barely registers - at least in my opinion. I like to come up with solutions to problems, and I would thoroughly enjoy tackling any of the problems I listed above - but I don’t feel any of them can be adequately attributed to the nature of this course… Honestly, focusing on environmental inequity feels like putting a band-aid on a papercut while ignoring that the patient is having a heart-attack. I hope this doesn’t come off as offensive, it is merely my opinion.”
Her response:
Hello Andrew,
I read and re read your email and did not want to rush into responding without giving it due thought.
We are all at different levels engaging with the geo political scenario. Some more than others.
At this point my role is limited to advising you that this course meets a requirement for your graduation and you have to engage with its content at the level of meeting your degree requirements like any other classes you are taking. This is not to say that I am trying to make light of the the issues at the global level.
In summary… This lady had no idea that her entire degree and course was majorly unimportant, and did nothing to even address the issues the class was about. All the assignments wanted was for us to write about the people - not even investigate the root cause of these issues. But yes, this stuff is still more important to her than active genocides, the errosion of rights, or impending civil war.
I was very surprised I was forced to take this class, considering the complexity of my degree’s course load.