I have often thought to myself that there is something fundamentally skewed with relations on this campus. I could never quite ascertain what it was that made communication and interaction here so unnatural and so forced.
It is difficult to avoid becoming identified with one group or another, for unconsciously, each and every one of us assigns a category to the other, even if shying away from being labeled ourselves. Thus, one assigns others the designation liberal, conservative, centrist, single-sex Greek, co-ed Greek, non-Greek; or remembers another as a member of an undergraduate society or affinity house, to name the most common of these divisions.
The problem stretches far beyond the petty and convenient terminology of a stereotype. Whereas it is possible to exist and even to flourish in an environment having these kind of divisions - for there is a strong argument they are inevitable - I feel healthy coexistence requires these common denominators: maturity and respect.
The other day, I suddenly developed an image in my head, one I have been unconsciously searching for since a little after I arrived at Dartmouth.
I imagined first a community living in a village. The edges of the image were dark, so I cannot tell you where the village was, or how it would have looked in the brighter light of day. Second, I heard whispers and discussions in the flickering firelight, and drew back at the sudden realization that what I was witnessing was a witch-hunt. Most people looked composed, a strained expression of normalcy stretched their faces. Others looked bewildered, angry, hurt and self-righteously indignant. Others looked officious, sanctioning and pleased; they appeared to be the arbiters of the punishment.
I did not look at the perpetrator, for the sin seemed somehow obscured by the expressions around me. Their faces described the story. They told me enough about the community itself not to have to look at the sinner. For although I have described what differed in their faces, I have not yet told you what they had in common: they all wore a perverse, sickening look, a revelation in the sin and the whispers it was sending flickering out with the firelight.
I did not learn anything more for I was drawn back to reality. But the image did not leave me... it stayed and it also made me sad, for I could so easily relate it to Dartmouth. It was answering my original, puzzled question, albeit indirectly. I realized that to hold an opinion, any opinion, be it as reactionary as The Review, or as liberal as the bug - to use what seem to be the easily identifiable campus opposites - places the proponent of that viewpoint in the place of the village sinner.
I realized that to express an opinion here, one has to be eager to argue, to change or to control. It seems the very act of expression would place one in the position of the proverbial witch or wizard: waiting to be set alight, muttering and spitting one's defense at the moment of doom.
The fundamental problem at Dartmouth is this: to express an opinion is personal, not intellectual, and places one in a position where one can be personally attacked. The targeting of both liberal and conservative communities becomes inherently personal. In fact, someone like me, who doesn't know where she belongs on the continuum anyway, could be torn apart for what I now write, ridiculed or hunted down and forced to hear constant tiresome regurgitations of my words.
What often happens is that the opponents of the supposedly 'incorrect' or 'inflammatory' viewpoint take steps to attack the expressed view and tear it to bloody pieces, so that their moral indignation can thus be duly pacified. The tone of most campus writing is distinctly scathing or condemnatory.
I am sure my own can be read in that vein if one so desires. Our periodicals have so little respect for each other's views. In fact, in many cases, their job is precisely not to be sensitive - it is to provoke, offend and inflame.
No doubt it can be argued that inflammatory articles make for infinitely more interesting reading. But the use of such gimmicks to address serious issues runs the risk of being dismissed as childish and immature, nevertheless meriting worried attention. Let's discuss in the real spirit of discourse - with sanity and respect. Moral righteousness and eagerly published indignation are empty, intellectually meaningless and immature ways to deal with people who threaten us or our own particular group identity.
I get as easily offended as anyone else by certain views - yet I didn't before I got here. And it bothers me as to why that is. Maybe it is because many liberals and conservatives on this campus, and lots in between, have turned their arguments into religious dogma - defensible to the death.
There is no reason why we should have to turn every expression into an issue, every speaker into a sinner and every viewpoint into a sin. I am sure many students are bored with what they read in our campus papers. They should be allowed to crawl out of their boxes and show how interesting they all are without totalitarian, externally imposed definitions and issues to divide them.
The common denominators we all need to learn are intellectual maturity and respect. Maybe once they are learned, writing this and wondering if I should dare submit it for publication would not scare me so much.
