The Scandal of Our Tradition

I began college with visions of protests dancing in my head. Cautionary tales from high school teachers about the evils of liberal higher education— tales that, incidentally, only whetted my growing appetite to challenge unjust systems—created my image of college as a place of activism and revolution. But instead, I found complacent teenagers at a small, liberal arts Catholic college in the mountains, seemingly unaware of American wars being fought on dubious premises and annoyed by talk of current events. Although some students shared my concern for the injustices happening in the off-campus world, I struggled to find a place for my youthful activist passion within the community of affluent, entitled kids I had unwittingly joined.