It often seems to me that our years in college
might be regarded as a long process of deracination. Looking backward, I feel that our whole training was involuntarily directed toward destroying whatever roots we had in the soil, toward eradicating our local and regional peculiarities, toward making us homeless citizens of the world." -- Malcolm Cowley, "Exile's Return."
As I sit here, mere weeks from graduation, metaphorically perched on the edge of one realm of my existence (my pampered and coddled past), staring into the vast and terrifying void of another (my bleak and uncertain future), I can't help but look back and wonder about the things that have influenced my course of life.
I'd like to be able to say that Mr. Cowley's book, a seminal account of the Lost Generation, had a deep and profound impact on my life. I'd like to be able to say that its unique insights on the literary odyssey of the 1920s imbued me with a deeper understanding of history and therefore a greater knowledge of self. Actually, I'd just like to be able to say that I read the thing, but sadly that's not the case. I found the book in my fraternity library and chose it as my bathroom reading material since all the copies of Sports Illustrated and Playboy that litter the lavatory floors of my frat are either woefully out-of-date or soaked in some liquid of whose origin I'd rather remain unaware. Yet, as a simple twist of fate would have it, I opened the book up directly to page 27, where I laid my eyes on the excerpt printed above. And it got me thinking.
Does college really make us "homeless citizens of the world?" To what extent does an institution such as Dartmouth attempt to deracinate its students? In an effort to extend the scope of our potential, do we lose sight of where we come from? As we rush to embrace a liberal attitude towards liberal studies, what do we leave behind? In the melting pot of deracination, how much of own identity gets boiled off? I will attempt to retell a few anecdotes and hope that someone other than me will take up the challenge of seriously addressing these concerns.
Cowley's idea of "homeless citizens of the world" is an interesting one. As rejection letters from potential employers fly in like swallows returning to Capistrano, I can definitely see myself as homeless. As for "citizen of the world," however, I'm anything but that. My outlook is decidedly provincial. I've lived my entire life in a small town in New Jersey and spent my entire collegiate career in a small town in New Hampshire. What I know of the world could be bounded in a nutshell with infinite space left over. I've never really gone anywhere. Trips to the liquor store in West Lebanon constitute "traveling" for me. I've been rejected from every Foreign Study Program to which I've applied (hearty, and not-at-all insincere thanks are hereby extended to professors Schweitzer and Silver). The only other country I've ever even stepped foot in is Canada, and how much enlightened perspective can be gained from lap dances and Labatt Blue?
You get the point. I'm very much a product of my roots; in many ways, I am the synthesis of my local and regional peculiarities. So now, after almost four years of college, how many of those peculiarities have been eradicated for the sake of citizenship in this wider world into which I'm about to be thrown? Not many, it turns out. I'm still very much aware of where I come from. I still talk funny (but not in a New Jersey way).
My heart still skips a beat whenever the blue-collar, red-blooded, full-bodied sound of Bruce Springsteen comes on the radio. I still wear a jean jacket, tease my hair and hang out in mall parking lots with the top down on my Camaro and a 64-ounce slurpee in hand.
I don't necessarily feel any different, and certainly not any better prepared for the real world than I did when I first arrived here, lo those many years ago. Dartmouth makes it very easy to get by without any sort of awareness of what's going on outside of campus, and that can lead to a strong sense of self-awareness. You can spend a significant amount of time here, you can meet fascinating people with fascinating stories and have all kinds of new experiences and still not have it change you, which can be both good and bad. I don't know if that's true of all colleges, but I certainly think it's the case at Dartmouth. So maybe Malcolm Cowley's statement is wrong. Maybe the college experience doesn't eradicate peculiarities or destroy identities. Maybe you can get through it with your roots still intact. Or maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention to the right things.
