In our classes we are observing substantive levels of mental health concerns among students. One does not need a medical degree to understand these pressures result in other physical manifestations of ill health. There is a higher level of uncertainty and stress in students’ lives now. Yet, the challenges students face are understandable in our current political, social and ecological context. If they did not feel anxiety and deep concern, then we, as an educational institution, should be worried.
Whether they are in the biological, physical and social sciences or the humanities, we teach our students: “Once you know, you become responsible.” We commit them to responsible action resulting from their education. Engineers make an even more explicit commitment to this principle. They take an oath: “As an Engineer, I pledge to … [be] conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth’s precious wealth. … When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the public good.” In a ceremony, a ring is, then, placed on an engineer’s finger as a reminder of the solemn vow.
We urge our students to commit to a cause greater than themselves. Urging them not to exist in a narcissistic, self-centered universe but to situate their understanding in a universe-centered self. Yet today our students find themselves in a period of cognitive dissonance. While we teach that knowledge is embedded with responsibility, their leaders, mentors and even parents act irresponsibly or, worse, remain silent in the face of clear and evident injustices: the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and a myriad of violence on living beings and the planet itself. What is witnessed by our youth cannot be denied by their elders, no matter how inconvenient. There is a rupture between young people’s learned ethical values and the governance institutions which they are supposed to engage and respect.
Other generations have faced similar struggles. I recall when I was young, being taught the words of Aga Khan III, who served as the President of the 18th Assembly of the League of Nations (precursor to the United Nations) at a time of significant instability with the rise of fascism leading to the Second World War. He said: “Struggle is the meaning of life” (the italics are mine). He went further to suggest that struggle is a human being’s responsibility. Victor Frankl, the psychotherapist, who survived the horrors of the German death camps, describes this struggle and the concomitant responsibility as the “will to meaning.” In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he explains that meaning fulfills basic spiritual and intellectual human needs and gives purpose and hope through dark times. Similarly, the 19th-century Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his classic novels Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, illustrates that human beings are responsible even under conditions of oppression. Like Frankl, Dostoevsky survived torture and Russian Gulags (forced labor camps) for speaking out against the injustices of the Czar and then lived to write about his experience. The idea that struggle is a responsibility is daunting. The Aga Khan III, Dostoevsky and Frankl are not proposing a masochistic interpretation of suffering but an enlightened humanistic response to dark times through struggle. While humans cannot control their repressive circumstances, they have responsibility for their individual and collective responses in that context. It is our attitude and action in the struggle that matters. Humans do not have freedom from circumstances beyond their control but have liberty to choose how to engage with our conditions. This choice is not merely a response, but an act of agency and expression of freedom causing the oppressor, in turn, to reflect on how to react.
Struggle to find meaning is not to evade the personal pain or suffering, because life is full of joy and woe. The struggle is to learn how to endure, through agency and action, by achieving meaning and accepting responsibility for our life. We turn to poetry to communicate complex ideas through lyrical succinctness. The poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley best describes individual agency. Nelson Mandela had memorized and recited “Invictus” while imprisoned for 27 years under the Afrikaner regime in South Africa. These verses are particularly poignant: “Under the bludgeonings of chance; My head is bloody, but unbowed; I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”
Our students, by virtue of their education, are in the process of “becoming” or self-actualizing. Struggle is the process and self-actualization is the outcome. We engage in struggle through committing to a course of action informed by our learning. This gives us purpose.
The idea that we are responsible for everything in the world as described by Dostoevsky is within our grasp. Across historical time and geographical space human actions are connected directly and indirectly. The behavior of industrial societies in the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries has cumulatively contributed to the global climate crisis disproportionately affecting Arctic, Alpine and coastal communities. Our students anxiously await the response of their leaders, mentors and parents to secure the future wellbeing of the next generations. Students understand that humanity has responsibility for everything on the planet because of the interconnected web of relationships that transcend time and space.
The art of taking responsibility does not require heroic measures but effective and sustained effort. The contemporary Irish musician, Hozier, accompanied by Mavis Staples, a veteran of the civil rights movement in the US, express it best in the song “Nina Cried Power”: “It’s not the wakin’, it’s the risin’, it’s the groundin’ of a foot uncrompomisin’ … It’s not the song, it’s the singin’. It’s the heaven of the human spirit ringin’.” By being present, we act, and through action, we take responsibility.
We all experience dark thoughts; it is what we do next that gives meaning to our existence. I have quoted diverse voices to show that despite the cacophony of chaotic noise all around us, there is also a reliable signal of compassionate and unwavering wisdom piercing through to guide in the struggle against darkness. Again, the poetry of Leonard Cohen expresses it concisely: “There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in!”
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Karim-Aly Kassam is an Opinion Columnist and professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment as well as the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program. His column Difference Matters recenters critical reflection and environmental justice in campus life at a time when people turn away from the painful truth. He can be reached at karim-aly.kassam@cornell.edu or profkkassam@cornellsun.com.
