To the Editor:
I see a couple of issues which need to be examined. You may not like how I look at them, but don't I have the right to "free speech?" Don't I get a chance to say what I believe in? And if you don't agree with me, then you can chastise me and tell me I'm stupid and say you'll never like me again. And isn't that what tolerance is about, ultimately?
As a proud alumnus of Dartmouth College, I used to say that Dartmouth was the greatest undergraduate institution in the universe. The combination of physical grounds and a small isolated rural community offered the ideal environment, and the faculty and students were as challenging to each other in encouraging intellectual and emotional growth as they were comforting and nurturing. Dartmouth was the prototypical "nurturing mother" alma mater.
I was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity. My own brothers bothered me at times, and I'm sure that I bothered them. In my day, there were drug problems and alcohol problems and hazing problems that all somehow slipped through the cracks with minimal prosecution. I thought that we learned from our mistakes and went on. We learned from each other by seeing each other's mistakes and having our own mistakes pointed out. That was the ultimate learning experience in the fraternity: to learn from each other -- not book learning, but real world issues like how to fit in, and when not to fit in, and how to build relationships. I don't think that the only thing I learned was beer pong or how not to get caught in some illicit activity.
I chanced upon The Dartmouth headlines the other day, reading through the articles and through the first wave of letters to the editor. I am struck with two disparate thoughts:
1) Zeta Psi is unchanged. The fraternity which I experienced is still alive and breathing and more or less exactly as I left it 17 years ago. Aside from the names and the desktop publishing, the scandal provoking "newsletter" is exactly in accordance with Zeta Psi as I knew it. For all its warts, it was a fine institution then, and seems to remain so today.
2) Dartmouth has changed beyond my recognition. The College that I attended would have been equally up in arms, and gosh, yes, the house did lose its "recognition" for a year not long after I left, for a similar situation (okay, call it identical). I'm not troubled by a response, but I'm troubled by the overall shift in the attitudes of those responding, especially the elders in the current Dartmouth community.
The current theme against Zeta Psi is a collective postmodern anti-misogynistic rant against anything that might be construed as male sexual braggadocio or male to male bonding. Anything that any one woman at any point in history might find slightly offensive is off-limits to further discussion.
I feel sorry for those supposedly grown-up women who still think that the world is made of cotton candy clouds and that Prince Charming is right around the corner to save the day. And I feel really sorry for those women at the opposite end of the spectrum who believe that the young princess will smite the demons herself before the prince arrives, as incompetent as they wish him to be. The sooner that young women realize that all men think like our brothers at Zeta Psi, the sooner they are off on the right track towards a true and deep understanding of men in general. Not that it's good -- not that it's so bad -- it's just that men do think and act like that in the company of themselves.
Yes, to the "Take Back the Night" crowd, women will always be slightly afraid of being attacked while walking through the night. Do they think that I'm not a little bit afraid myself? Do they think that by getting a few dozen, or even a few hundred, of the world's most educable boys to behave politely for four years that the other billions in the world will follow politely in perpetuity? (Any further exploration of this subject would demand a book length review of the underlying biology and sociologic psychology of the inherent differences between the two sexes. And yes, there are two. And yes, they have differences.)
It bothers me that the women of Dartmouth are finding out that men are men. Maybe someday these women will realize that they themselves are women too, and not some race of superhuman non-intolerant antisexist ungendered demigods.
Where I come from, there was an allowance for boys to be boys. Afterwards, however, they were properly shown the error of their ways, and were expected to grow into men. I'm sorry for my fraternity brothers of this generation who are learning now from their own errors of commission and omission. This incident will make them stronger men in the future, if they pay attention. As I tell my own children "learn from your mistakes, and then go on ahead."
So, start learning. Start moving. There's too much ahead to make this the end of the world.
