Archives for the Month of September 2007 on David Dirisamer's Online Journal
Virtual=Reality
Proof that today’s youth are not the apathetic lot that old people say we are.
The unregulated virtual world gives you the true, unregulated picture of the University that they may not want you to know about.
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Society’s Simulated Sovereignty of Speech
Society allows stereotypes to dictate how people of a certain appearance should act and then forces people to alter their outward expression to match what they want their societal standing to be.
Why society robbed you of a freedom you of a freedom you thought you had.
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College Causes Conformity
In her work My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, Rebekah Nathan focuses on the writing or symbols on the doors of her peers. Nathan concludes that some of the pictures are calculated to say “I’m a unique and eccentric individual” (27). Why then, are the pictures she observes easily categorized into a few distinct categories? In reality, the vast majority of college students seek to assert their membership in a crowd.
Not all students have the exact same interests, some students blast rap while others prefer classic rock, but I have yet to hear anyone brazenly declaring their affinity for show tunes by letting that thump through their speakers. Even the supposedly “antiestablishment” themed door is considered an “acceptable alternative image” (24). Going against the supposed norm puts you in a sizable group and makes you no less beholden to the prevailing ideals of what is “acceptable.” To go against what’s considered “normal” you must still be aware of what normal is, therefore the societal norm influences everyone and all “writing” put up in the dorm by students declares their allegiance to some group.
A walking survey of my floor revealed no door decorations except nametags and white boards, which Nathan herself pronounces “served as a symbol- of friendliness and perhaps, when filled with messages, one’s popularity” (30). People are eager to post something recognized as a measure of “popularity” but avoid anything potentially controversial. I’m willing to bet that the insides of these rooms are not nearly as bare and boring as the doors. There are many potential reasons students could neglect to decorate their door, from laziness to the prohibition on risqué material our RA claims to enforce. Laziness would work if the insides of all the rooms were as spartan (pun intended) as the doors, but I know of rooms with posters and other decorations inside, but not outside. As to the ban on inappropriate material, by not posting it students conform to the rules, and throw away the potential to make an individual statement to ally themselves with the larger, conformist group.
This same response appears elsewhere in student life. While at a home football game I witnessed an almost entirely silent student section, despite the football team leading 21-0 before the skies opened up, and not coincidentally, so did the bleachers. Contrast this to my high school where we had a student section in the hundreds of students, even for road games, who would stand and chant the entire game. Maybe every student at my high school loved football, but I suspect that some of them weren’t entirely sure when we had an ineligible man downfield, and that the students here know enough about football to cheer when the scoreboard changes to reflect more points Case. The difference is identifying with a group. Once you get enough committed students to start a student section, others can join in free from scorn, and eventually the section will become large enough that everyone feels pressured to join. This phenomena also manifests itself in the dining hall. Students on my floor, myself included, attempt to persuade everyone in the common room to go to the dining hall simply to avoid eating alone.
College is supposed to be about freedom, and in some respects it offers students more freedom. They no longer have parents controlling them or a legally enforced curfew, but they cannot escape the same societal pressures to belong they faced before. This urge to is a powerful one, and manifests itself in throughout student life, but most notably in writing, or on Norton’s third floor, the absence of it.