I am amazed that The Dartmouth would publish such an overly-simplistic article as the Op-Ed from May 7th by John Haskell, titled "In Support of Beer;" however, perhaps it is best to get these absurd opinions on the table of public discussion rather than simply to let them fester like skunky cheap beer. This guest columnist claims to have approached the protesting outside of Parkhurst Hall with "an open-mindedness hitherto unknown in these parts;" however, he somehow left the protest with the idea that its purpose was to "attack" beer.
In his noble journey toward fraternal enlightenment, could he possibly have mixed up open-mindedness with simple-mindedness? The protest was not an effort to replace beer with hard liquor and hard drugs, as he suggests. Just because people are protesting fraternity's monopolization of the social scene does not mean they are holding a protest against beer. Beer is just one icon of many that helps hold together a structure that has many other problems. "Without beer, we would lose our identity," the author asserts emphatically. In my opinion, people can drink whatever they want (although I may recommend against drano), but when they actually begin to derive their identity from a substance, then I start to worry. Beer is not the blood that flows through our veins, and its consumption is not the source of our community's strength, or its backwardness. Yet sadly, many student appear perfectly willing to defend fraternities and the entire archaic social structure that revolves around them merely to protect their right to drink beer. The real problem with Dartmouth is its singular focus on the rights of individuals to consume the liquid of their choice, above all humanitarian concerns that might arise. It strikes me as incredibly selfish of our community to value its right to drink beer more highly than its responsibility to eliminate crimes of sexism, racism, and general hatred that often result from belligerence.
Haskell seems to declare that beer is the panacea of all America's drug problems, claiming that it provides a good substitute for hard liquor, and marijuana (not to mention, as he suggests, a good substitute for personal identity). Yet he ignores the numerous crimes that result from belligerent drunkenness; just a few years ago, some drunk members of the now disbanded Beta Theta Pi fraternity beat up a Sigma Nu brother outside his house to demonstrate their superior manliness to the world, in contrast with the inferior effeminacy of their victim.
I have particular sympathy for this hapless Sigma Nu victim because I still remember my freshman year when a drunk fraternity brother threatened very seriously to beat me up for my triumph over him in a card game. Anyone who knows me would agree that I'm just about as far as a person can come from aggressive or violence-inciting. Personally, I feel that a commitment to non-violence is a far more instructive mantra than a vassalship to beer; however, in the aforementioned instance, I felt that my passivity was the very thing that made the brother want to start a fight. This was directly after he had attempted to chug a "double-diamond shotglass" of vodka, and this was the excuse that his friend gave me for his behavior. I barely saw this kid sober again until a year later when he greeted me warmly from behind a comfortable corporate recruiting table. It is blatantly obvious that rape and fighting almost always occurs when people are under the influence of alcohol, not to mention that drunk driving is a major causes of early death in America.
In contrast, what crimes result from marijuana use? (besides the crime of use itself) The only crime Haskell identifies with the drug is the crime of artsiness, and lack of machismo: He refers to diversity at Dartmouth as "the white trustafarians with dreadlocks who walk around in a perpetually stoned condition and the rich white kids who are diverse because they read poetry and wear red and green striped socks up to their knees."
In his description of people different from him, Haskell exhibits the same stereotyping contempt of diversity typical of the belligerent (but fortunately extinct) Betas, and a hostility of the same dangerous potential. I sense that Haskell is a bit suspicious of art because it occasionally threatens to subvert conventional values and force people to "open" rather than "simplify" their thinking. What is so wrong with reading poetry, and why does Haskell respond with impulsive contempt of it? Needless to say, his mentality is highly oppressive of artistic expression, which is the founding principle of a liberal arts education, and blah, blah, blah (substitute in the last rambling praise of "a liberal arts education" that you read the other day, and continue).
This contempt for the crimes of artsiness and lack of rigid gender distinction appears to pervade the fraternities. It may start with a harmless penchant for beer that draws one to a fraternity, but other values usually begin to grow behind the rallying cause of beer. The complete lack of sensitivity for the feelings of outsiders recently exhibited by Zeta Psi and Psi Upsilon brothers are prime examples of these values. Haskell's article strikes me as a particularly poor attempt to misrepresent the protesters as beer-haters rather than rape-haters or advocates of equality. But how can anyone not see that an organization that excludes members on the basis of sex is inherently sexist? Some argue that it's okay because both woman and men have their respective Greek institutions, but the principle of "separate but equal" has long been recognized as a doctrine that tacitly allows continued discrimination.
The first step towards successful dialogue on the Dartmouth campus is to understand that protestors against the fraternity system are not merely protesting the consumption of beer.
