Writing and Power

"Some people join Perspectives not for the publishing process; they're there simply for the club events. That's entirely okay: Perspectives is fundamentally a club for students. As of yet, we have no grandiose plans to change the world through our writing. We're here to have a good time and meet new people" ~ editor of Perspectives

There is something quite unsettling about this kind of pathetic view of the power of writing. I think one is missing the point if one is joining Perspectives for either "the publishing process" or "a good time and meet new people". These two things are partial outcome. The actual goal of Perspectives, I believe, is to achieve political power through writing. Perspectives is a forum, where ideas about the two (or more) cultures circulate, gets examined, finds voice. The very fact of voicing a perspective is already changing the world: changing the world does not have to mean protest marches. Far from it. Changing the world means to alter the world's consciousness, and the only way to really effectively do that is to engage in a critical dialogue, between writers, editors, readers and eventually non-readers. Ideally there will be no need for any women's movement if all men can from their social consciousness come to respect women. Precisely because this is not happening that things have to be taken to the streets. Perspectives is a small outlet of voices, but it is nonetheless a voice. If we silence this voice and instead substitute it with "popular articles", then we have effectively missed the entire point of having this unique newspaper. We might as well saturate it with Batman comics and pop song lyrics. The actual paper is not grandioso, but our vision should be: so what if we are idealists? Without idealists, where do we get ideas?