Opinion: We allow ourselves to be bound by bureaucracy

The revolution will not be televised for the necessary revolution is no longer sexy. As the world around us becomes increasingly integrated with technology, the way to stop the reproduction of harmful systems of power no longer involves storming the Bastille or occupying the Chancellor’s office. 

These old tactics increasingly prove futile as power is not held in the scepter, the throne or the college president's office, but instead is ingrained within the structure of the bureaucracy, the formulas of cost-benefit analyses and the computer codes of policy and economic programs.

Power, in this sense, is that which structures reality itself, creating a sense of order and organization in the world. As such, the order of things (bureaucracy, administration, government) is political in and of itself. 

Wholehearted participation within a system implies an acquiescence to the normative foundations of the system. These normative foundations are grounded in certain types of politics (liberal versus radical, democratic versus technocratic, hierarchical versus horizontal). 

The age-old adage of working from the inside to change the system should thus be thrown into question as the system structures the ability to change itself. The reformist is always the wolf in sheep's clothing, advocating for change while failing to realize the system holds the power, not the individual.

Outside of philosophical and theoretical debates, these insights matter to the daily operations of campus life. When university leaders say that they are doing everything they can to work with the system, they are capitulating to the system's logic. The system defines the logics and arguments that can acceptably be made within its confines.

The debate surrounding increases to the business school fees represents this insight perfectly. Structured by the system, the fees debate implies that fees are inevitable, a consequence of the economic and political systems. Here, however, the consequence is the cause. 

The acceptance of the necessity of fees creates the conditions necessary to discuss how the fees will be implemented, enabling a momentary but illusory pleasure when the initial proposal is shot down. Do not take pleasure in the deferring of pain. Such gestures only provide legitimacy to the exact system that must be struggled against.

Campus leaders ought not showcase the technocratic skills to navigate the bureaucracy, but the ethical character to challenge it. The leaders should challenge the student body to debate what is necessary to partake in a good undergraduate career, to learn in caring and collaborative environments, to build friendships and relations. In engaging on the nature of the good life, leaders should determine what is necessary, not what is feasible.

The logics of cost-benefit analysis and feasibility have tainted the moral character of student leadership, resulting in a lack of attention toward the ethical and moral concerns that should underlie policy proposals. This approach may encounter pushback from the administration, but that is the point. Student representatives ought to represent the needs, desires and dreams of the student body instead of brokering unsatisfactory compromises that appease management.

“My hands are tied by the bureaucracy” the student government cries. In response, the student body ought to yell, “you have only bound yourself.” Governance must be a humanism —otherwise it is a waste of time.