If you have found nobler passions, by all means pursue them earnestly. We're all dying to be taken seriously, and it helps, of course, to have a cause, whether a living wage nocturnal reclamation or grapes. But the immediate need to feel big aside, the sincerest pose for many may be one of navel-gazing or just getting by.
To ask them to strike another would be to urge dishonesty. It's not that the un-earnest don't think passion is good, it's just that they don't have any. What Purdy asks is that they take up responsibilities they may well see the necessity of but have no enthusiasm for. What you're asking is that they believe in something they don't find wholly believable, believe in it because the belief itself if not its object would be good. Fair enough. Only leave them the irony they'll need to accept their fate as conscript crusaders.
Aaron K. Roth '99-'00 is a math concentrator in Leverett House.