HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 5: ClassWeb Magazine | Syllabus | HW Assignments | UCLA AAS 116 | Resources |
Homework Assignment 5 This assignment is due by February 14. For this assignment, students will write an essay of at least 500 words responding to the following questions relating to student militancy, humility, and bureaucracy. Students may do this assignment either individually or in small groups.
At one time, the four-line poem by Chinese writer Lu Xun served as the beginning point for discussing the mission of students in Asian American Studies, especially their relationship to our off-campus communities. Lu Xun incisively identified the twin aspects of this mission: to militantly defy the authority of oppressors, while humbly serving the people. Yet, Lu Xun’s poem also suggested that fulfilling this mission was not easy and required ongoing ideological discussion among those with privileged status in universities, such as UCLA students, and other community members. Otherwise, students one day could find themselves humbly bowing to those in authority while militantly defying "the children." In his essays, Lu Xun further incessantly criticized the tendency for people — both in existing systems of power and in the movements opposing them — to lapse into bureaucratic ways of dealing with issues. Lu Xun felt bureaucracy was an evasion of both personal and collective responsibility. Thus, in his essays about movements for social change, Lu Xun emphasized the need for activists to embrace both militancy and humility while also upholding personal and collective responsibility to overcome bureaucracy. Today, at UCLA classes in Asian American Studies, there is little ideological discussion about student activism and issues of militancy, humility, and bureaucracy. At most, student activists learn about the importance of militancy. But what happens to militancy if it is separated from an understanding of the power of humility and the dangers of bureaucracy? Moreover, for some unknown reason, UCLA students — as an integral part of their undergraduate and graduate education — become masters of bureaucracy and carry this expertise into off-campus communities. For this assignment, write an essay reflecting on the significance of the short poem by Lu Xun for your mission as a student taking a class mobilizing for peace and justice today. Do you feel Lu Xun’s poem has any significance for your life as a UCLA student today? Why or why not? As a student at UCLA, how have you used your privileged status to confront oppressors while at the same time humbly serving the community? As a student with privileges, how do you struggle with the challenge of distinguishing between whom "to bow to" and whom "to serve"? As a UCLA student, how have you been influenced by the existing culture of bureaucracy on this campus, and how will you avoid lapsing into bureaucratic mindset for our class project? Recommended supplementary reading: "Student Activism Resource Booklet" (in Class Reader) or at the following weblink: http://www.csun.edu/eop/htdocs/studentactivismbook.pdf. Allan Lo, "To Become a Student Activist" |