Hey middle-class, non-identity student, this is to you

In “Dharma Bums,” Jack Kerouac called colleges “nothing but grooming schools for the… In “Dharma Bums,” Jack Kerouac called colleges “nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time.”

Nearly 50 years later, the only change is that these schools have worked Kerouac into their grooming process.

We all know how our society institutionalizes rebellion. Sometime between “Howl and Other Poems” being considered illegally obscene and now, academia acknowledged the talent and impact of the Beats.

The Beat movement has joined the proud ranks of the many other revolutionary people and ideas we all pay to learn about. We’re welcome to take classes about any of them. Scientists celebrate those who’ve upturned previous views of reality. History is full of tales about invasions and revolutions — one group supplanting another by whatever means. It’s change. Dramatic change.

That’s why we wake up at noon. Even those students going on to careers in physical therapy or hotel management are exposed to a history full of innovation that was often violent or unappreciated.

For all my railing against capitalist America, I’d be a tad annoyed if Motel 8 forgot to keep the lights on for me. So I’m not condemning people who knowingly matriculate in grooming schools, become lifers at some corporate retail chain, work their ways up, aim for six figures and hope to drive something German.

The real issue is how to stir things up. How do we know if we’re spending time learning what’s necessary to affect the things we care about or if we’re just letting ourselves become a differently flavored layer of the middle-class non-identity? Are we just setting ourselves up to be bitter while we sit in living rooms watching sophisticated things on televisions inferior to those owned by our seemingly more cheerful and wealthy counterparts?

The distinction between unknowingly being groomed for mediocrity and learning how to make a real difference is not simply intention. That’s the tempting answer. It’s tempting because it allows for failure. The right music and a few weekends feeding the poor — or my personal favorite, protesting — may go a long way to making someone feel as if they’re contributing, but it’s the result that matters, not how much guilt one can unload.

Ah, there’s the rub: Whether, like me, you’re idealistic, but lazy, or just more sentimental than practical, it’s difficult to spend time doing things that matter. And the way to make sure your college years prepare you for more than 9-to-5 catatonia and a sweet home theater system is to figure out the ways you’re most likely to be able to have an impact and to plan your class schedule accordingly.

Colleges are massive U-Store-Its for dangerous thought. That’s as much a curse as it is a blessing for us. We have the resources to learn virtually anything and chances to make important connections. But the two things that stand out most clearly to me aren’t exactly inspiring.

The brilliance and strength of the people who’ve made it as topics for classroom study tend to make our gifts feel woefully inadequate. Knowing that figures ranging from John Hancock to Gary Snyder have been absorbed into the system but that everything remains the same makes it seem all the harder to truly change things.

What Kerouac considered most sad about the people living comfortably around campus is that while they thought the same thoughts in their living rooms, they were missing a chance to meet other types of people — “the Japhies of the world.”

Without belittling the value of academic knowledge, it’s not enough on its own. The thing most likely to change us is a chance meeting with someone who seems alien to our consumer minds.

I know I’m in a grooming school for the middle-class non-identity. I know the money I had to borrow in order to attend ties me even more firmly to that life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep looking for people who’ve gone “prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstasy of the stars, to find the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization.”

E-mail Zak Sharif at rzs8@pitt.edu any suggestions on where to find the Japhies of the world.