With the stampede of diaries on Israel these past few days, I would like to provide insight into one Israel supporter.
I like to talk about my college and what my experience here means. I am a proud Knox student, who will soon be an alumni married to another Knox student.
The other point of this dairy is to show what my personality was, is, and will be.
I do not consider myself progressive. I do not support gay marriage, (have not found good evidence yet to justify my position), I support Israel second America first, I am a methodological individualist (which means I believe individual decisions aggregate to make up society independent of the environment, while the Holist Structuralists believe individuals are dynamic and dependent on their interactions with others and the environment to make up society), I eat meat, I believe in G-d, I support capitalism (a big no-no for most Kossacks), and I may some day vote Republican. On the last my fiancee laughs every time. She tells me that until conservatives support religious tolerance I will never vote Republican. There are probably a few other things I am not progressive about, but I wanted some context for my college experience.
For those that don't know, Knox has invited progressives such as Bill Clinton, Stephen Colbert, and Barack Obama for inaugerations. We are also home to the famous Ashcroft getting his ass handed to him during a cross examination on torture. You can thank my fiancee for that piece of work. Knox is a good school without that, good financial aid, excellent Creative Writing programs, and an all around wonderful group of professors with bright students.
The tragedy, I think, rests with how much I don't deserve Knox, even though I would be homeless and helpless without this institution. Without question, this school has improved my understanding of the world and shaped my opinions. I wonder, how many of you have had a Palestinian speaker come lecture on the happenings in Israel-Palestine? I made an ass out of myself in that lecture, but as we say, live and learn.
I remember, the second day after arriving at Knox, telling someone that was anti-war how great it was the U.S was in Iraq so the economy would get better. Not my finest moment. She was so offended she left the table. I was not done with my work. I sat next to biology majors who I happened to know were vegetarians and animal rights activists, and told them how juicy I found hamburgers. I proceeded to discuss killing animals to satisfy people's hunger. Yeah, I was an ass.
Before my year was done I managed to call three people Nazi supporters (over an issue everyone is familiar with), a Christian youth leader a proselytizer that hates Jews, and my fiancee an idiot who didn't understand what she was talking about. For all three, I apologized almost immediately after and never did such behavior again.
My central experience at Knox was with my fiancee. We started dating long before I stopped believing idiotic things, but as she says, underneath my hard surface I am a softy that cares about people no matter how crass I present myself. I wish to be clear about her: she is the definition of progressiveness and I am jealous I cannot be what she is. I have a hard time understanding how she accepts me despite all my flaws. She supports gay rights including gay marriage, she donates to Palestinian causes (but still a staunch Israel supporter), she tolerates absolutely no bigotry (especially not from me), and without doubt I would describe her as a Holist Structuralist. That basically means she supports communities with vigor and considers them essential to her existence (and mine).
Which leads to my next point: I would not be here if it were not for progressive ideas. I was a dirt poor, independent, college student who came here on my first day with a $150 dollars in my checking account. I receive about $40,000 of grants and loans a year, which is amazing considering my college costs about $37,000 a year for tuition, room, and board. I give thanks to the Pell grant, the SMART grant, the Schipps Scholarship, The Federal Direct Loan subsidized and unsubsidized, the Perkins Loan, the Federal Work Study Award, and various other grants and scholarships I have forgotten. One progressive principle you can take from me is that I will always support more federal funding for higher education.
Who am I today? I voted for Barack Obama wholeheartedly and I consider myself as strong a supporter for President Obama as I am for Israel. I support gay rights (except for that one pesky detail), I have lost most of my racism gained through my youth, I am more religiously tolerant, I support legal abortion, I oppose pointless wars, and I am more open minded by a factor of ten than when I first arrived here.
Who will I be? One thing that has stayed with me consistently through the years is my stubbornness. I am not a group thinker, I do not like changing my opinion, and I certainly do not like my environment changing rapidly or unexpectedly. I suspect I will harden on some issues and become more nuanced on others, but I suspect my desire to learn will stick with me through the years. Maybe one day, I too, can call myself a progressive.
I probably derailed from the original idea, but the diary as it stands says what I intended to say.