Happy New Year! Well it took long enough -- a whole year in fact -- but 1997 has finally arrived. Like many righteous earthly citizens who abide by the chronological glories of the Gregorian calendar, I too have made a number of New Year's resolutions. After all, wouldn't we all like to be better, healthier, happier people? Let us remember, the millennium is approaching, and we all know what that means, more or less.
What follows then, for your personal edification as well as mine, is a catalogue of the all the resolutions I have sworn to uphold for the year 1997. Those of you looking to establish a more goal-oriented approach to life, especially you soon-to-be-graduated seniors, might want to pay special attention to these prescriptions.
And now, without further ado ...
1) Avoid Senseless Political Arguments. Friends, I can't tell you how many times I've found myself entrenched in a loud and angry debate with someone over an issue that I not only know little or nothing about, but an issue, in fact, that I don't even care about.
I sit in Collis, chomping on a yeast cake or an eggplant muffin, arguing with somebody over whether a totalitarian state could theoretically maintain its power indefinitely. Having never taken either a History or a Government course at Dartmouth, obviously I'm quite the pundit of political science. Of course, I try to couch my ignorance in vague but intellectual-sounding discussions of "Malthusian kinematics" and "geo-semantics," but, strangely enough, people often do not fall for the smokescreen. The conversation went something like this:
"But Sam, what about Nazi Germany? They were brainwashing the kids -- they were absolutely on their way to being a self-sustaining totalitarian state."
"Ah yes," I reply. "Ha ha ha. That may be, but what about chaos theory? I think it was Claude Levi-Strauss -- or was it John Stuart Locke? -- who observed that 76% of societies are eventually absorbed by the other 24%."
"And 87% of statistics are made up on the spot, right Sam?"
In addition, Dartmouth students are, by and large, stubborn as mules lathered in cement, so it is not like I'm going to change anybody's mind -- how many Dartmouth students have you ever heard admit that they were wrong about anything, ever?
Ergo, no more senseless political arguments. Pretty much.
2) Learn to Appreciate Modernism. Friends, let's face it. we are living in a postmodern world. To be honest, I do not really know what this means, unless it has something to do with the Internet, and uh, I watch lots of television, and, um, I hate meta-narratives as much as the next guy. I mean, knowledge is agency, and agency is space, and space is context, and so forth.
I am a savvy and cynical Gen-Xer praying to Thomas Pynchon and Judith Butler while I play Atari, perform my gender, and wait to become a cyborg. I see the link between Dianetics and Taoism. I have got a bowdlerized lithograph of "Piss Christ" hanging on my wall because I feel the irony, man.
Some of you scholarly types out there may claim that I am not doing justice to postmodernism here, that I am oversimplifying, perhaps even trashing it. Well, maybe you people should see my context a little more clearly. However, you might not be able to do that, considering the contexts you are all in. So I guess everybody's right!
See how easy this is?
3) Enjoy What's Left of Dartmouth. This resolution is especially relevant to the seniors, but you know, come to think of it, shouldn't all of us be enjoying everything about Dartmouth all the time?
The freshman, for example. Why, I love them, and I want them to love me. You only get to be a freshman once, or maybe twice, three times max -- certainly no more than five or six times. In fact, I have noticed that today's Dartmouth freshman is a much more well-adjusted young adult. I remember a conversation I had early last fall with a freshman:
"You nervous about college?" I asked (or something equally penetrating.
"Not really," she piped back. "I've picked my major, I'm involved with six different clubs, I don't drink, smoke or do drugs, I've already gotten a job offer for after graduation, and I've fallen in love!"
"Well good for you," I replied. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to go set myself on fire now."
Boy, that freshman -- I mean first-year student -- she sure did have the right spirit.
I bet 1997's going to be the best year yet!
