It’s been reported that’s a “symbolic” fast, where participants may eat when hunger pangs are overwhelming. :dubious:
Regardless of the veracity of this claim, the grad students are appropriating a tactic traditionally used to highlight injustice of a significantly greater order of magnitude than what their grievances represent. Fasting to protest excessive assigning of term papers could be next. 
They were trying to unionize over ten years ago and the students voted it down. How they got around it this time was to only hold elections in departments likely to vote yes (about ten of them IIRC.)
I really wish that people I didn’t like would take up hunger strikes. That would be awesome. I have no idea why some people think they are supposed to work in their favor. I would be cheering them on. Is there some quirk in leftist thinking that leads people to believe that hurting yourself hurts your enemies? It doesn’t at all least in my mind. Occupy Wall Street protesters seemed to suffer from the same delusions. I think it would be great if everyone I couldn’t stand was starving and homeless especially if it was self-inflicted.
The peopleactually ‘fasting’ may be under a delusion, but when I was a lad, the church organisers and the communist orgainisers were under no such delusion. Fasting, like marching or other demonstrating, is intended to increase the dedication and solidarity of the group.
Actual prison starvation is different. In prison, prisoners have very few things they can control: Eating is one of them. Prison authorities have both a duty of care, and a childish sense of power, both of which are chalenged by self-starvation.
Being an old-school liberal, I think it would be great if no one in the world was starving and homeless. (Bleeding heart and all that, y’know.)
The chance of literally starving and being a Yale student are close to zero. There is almost nobody starving in the U.S. unless there are other, serious issues at play.
I still don’t understand the point though. It is like somebody trying to hold up a store by holding a gun to their own head and threatening to pull the trigger. It always seems like a win-win to me if they actually do it.
The idea behind a hunger strike is that your oppressors have empathy and when they see you suffering physically, they’ll also consider the other ways in which you are suffering.
As we can see, it’s an antiquated idea. Nowadays a lot of people are more likely to react to seeing other people suffering with amusement rather than sympathy.
But the point of a hunger strike is that it is a form of deliberate political coercion by the fasters, by free choice. By this logic, suppose that conservatives staged a large-scale, nationwide, hunger strike; “We won’t eat until abortion is banned”. Would you cave in and say, “OK, we don’t want anyone to starve to death, so I will agree to ban abortion in accordance with the fasting demands?” (assuming you had that power)
Not being sarcastic; genuine/sincere question.
Reminds me of Patrick Henry’s quote, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I always wondered, why wouldn’t the King of England just retort, “Sure then, I’ll give you death?”
My position is that a hunger strike calls attention to a point of view on an issue the strikers feel passionate about. I would make a sincere attempt to understand their point of view because their strong belief is evidence it might be a valid one. But it’s not proof. My conclusion might be that their belief is wrong and I wouldn’t support it just because of the hunger strike on its behalf.
Regardless of the issue involved or the validity of fasting…
I can remember when conservatism was a reasoned political philosophy. Now, it’s apparently a collection of individuals who are already ass holes by the time they’re in college.
I was in college during the Young Republicans for Regan era. This is nothing new. That said, the BBQ thing is kind of amusing.
Give him $50, its cheaper than cleaning up the mess.
The protesters are probably vegetarian anyhow.
The barbecue is a nice touch.
No, I wouldn’t cave in. I’d like a world where no one had to be starving and homeless against their will.
I was under the impression that that line was directed at Henry’s fellow Virginia Burgesses as a rallying cry, not to the King. Similarly, I think some hunger strikes ate intended to garner support from people that are kinda on their side already. It’s to get attention and sympathy, not a negotiation tactic.
In Mr. Henry’s case, his audience wasn’t the King, but his fellow liberty-loving patriots. Similarly, to understand a hunger strike, you need to realize the audience is not the oppressor, but other sympathetic people in a better position to do something about their concerns.
I think hunger strikes are as silly and pointless as the rest of us in this thread do, but I at least understand where they’re coming from, for the most part. Some hunger strikes are less misguided than others, but there’s almost always a better option, in my opinion.
Just another example of conservatives embracing assholeishness as a pillar of their belief system.
i think the honest answer is “it depends”.
in your example of “hunger strike to end abortion” i would hope that the strikers are not under the delusion that their strike is actually gonna end abortion, but its more intended to bring new focus to the problem and maybe get the two sides talking.
of course, imho, an issue as large and divisive as abortion would prob not be affected by hunger strikers in any meaningful way.
however, i can imagine scenarios where the strikers do believe that their tactic has the possibility to bring about change, either through simply shining a spotlight on a heretofore unnoticed problem, or by using the public outrage they hope to engender to force the opposition to rethink their position.
mc