It's Better in the Butt.
I've been dragged into a blog-battle over this article about how weird Wesleyan is -- or how weird Wesleyan was -- in today's Hartford Courant. And of course the kicker is this comment, made by some junior from Pennsylvania:
So, I'm not sure where this rant started, but I would also like to mention that no one told me I could keep a hedgehog or a "hissing cockroach" in my dorm room when I moved into Butterfield B, and my frosh year roommate, as much as she tried, was no substitute for a real, live varmint. And that, my friends, is why a liberal arts education has brought me right back around to an interview with one of Wesleyan's "buttoned-down peer institutions:" because I wasn't allowed to keep a hedgehog in my dorm room when I was 18. I did have an illegal toaster oven, though, so I take it all back.
"You don't see many protests going on at Berkeley either," she said.Listen, the truth is that the biggest rallying cry we heard in the late-'90s at Wesleyan was "We're not gonna protest! We're not gonna protest!" It hasn't been the meat-slinging university portrayed so admirably by the film PCU for a couple of decades. But hauling Berkeley into the fray? That's just lame. Berkeley's got 40 people living in trees right now, for God's sake! There's so much protesting going on, you end up choosing sides nine times just on the walk through Sproul Plaza at lunchtime. True, Mario Savio is no longer standing on top of a police car with a bullhorn talking about the machine, and I (along with, I imagine, many of my lefty friends. That is to say: my friends) wish the student body would rise up and quash all the many ills befalling our society post haste, but I think the problem is they have too many battles to choose from. They haven't figured out which one is the worst yet: the Iraq war? Global warming? Corporate America taking over our lives? As Matt "Guitar" Murphy wisely intones in another cinematic classic, The Blues Brothers: "They're all bad."
So, I'm not sure where this rant started, but I would also like to mention that no one told me I could keep a hedgehog or a "hissing cockroach" in my dorm room when I moved into Butterfield B, and my frosh year roommate, as much as she tried, was no substitute for a real, live varmint. And that, my friends, is why a liberal arts education has brought me right back around to an interview with one of Wesleyan's "buttoned-down peer institutions:" because I wasn't allowed to keep a hedgehog in my dorm room when I was 18. I did have an illegal toaster oven, though, so I take it all back.
Labels: I pontificate therefore I am
posted by SJB at 5:04 PM
2 Comments:
I loved PCU, by the way.
I actually agree with the Wesleyan spokesperson when he said "concern that Wesleyan is mainstreaming is itself part of the Wesleyan culture." The number one pastime at Wesleyan was bitching and moaning about how "the old Wes" was disappearing and Wes was being Amherstified. Ok, number 2 after weed.
This reminds my of the New York Times article I saw a few years back about my former dorm's "clothing-optional" policy, a policy that dates back to well before my time. It just goes to show that despite the fears of some of the students (which I shared when I was there), there are some things about Wesleyan that will never change.
Viva Mario Savio! Everyone should see the movie "Berkely in the 60's" in addition to the Madison equivalent "The War at Home" to get an idea of what the good(?) old days of protesting was like. Back then they only had segregation, in loco parentis, Vietnam, unequal pay for women, the 1950's, deterioration of inner cities, abortion prohibition, lynching, the draft, and good hygeine to protest.
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