To the Editor:
Katie Greenwood's column in The Dartmouth's Freshman Issue, "Defining the Dartmyth," deserves more than merely passing attention for reasons of both style and -- more importantly -- substance. To the '06s and anyone else mulling over what she had to say (and how she said it), a few thoughts.
Good journalistic prose aims to be clear, concise and persuasive. In defiance of these principles, Ms. Greenwood begins her piece with a most hideous paragraph that combines the worst aspects of high school prose and college admissions essays. In an attempt to set the scene for her readers, she goes off in a vaguely stream-of-consciousness manner, expounding at length on the "mysterious bouquet of bodily fluids" and "arrhythmic intoxicated government majors" that one finds in fraternity basements on Friday and Saturday nights. Note to Katie: Joyce, Woolf and Proust are not pleased. Ironically, she sums up our reactions to her opening lines in her own words: "Um, ew."
Beginning an op-ed with an example is acceptable. Ms. Greenwood, unfortunately, finds it difficult to move beyond mere description towards analysis and argumentation. Only around the sixth paragraph does she appear to make a substantive point: "Dartmouth is not as homogenous as its image makes it out to be, and it never has been." From then on, her piece improves considerably, though its thesis is still pretty banal: we must "Take a stand and give Dartmouth your best shot -- it's yours for the shaping."
When it comes to substance, Ms. Greenwood can hardly claim to excel either. She is guilty of the very thing she excoriates: stereotyping. On the one hand, she declaims that the "Dartmyth" -- that the Dartmouth student who wants to fit in must be "blond and Anglo and fifth-generation legacy and athletic and confident and rigidly heterosexual and drive a Grand Cherokee and pound 20 beers a night" -- is a lie. On the other hand, scarcely-concealed beneath Ms. Greenwood's prose is the sort of irrational contempt for certain types of persons that one would think a self-styled "progressive" like herself would abjure. She does not say it, but from the examples she uses and approves (international students of color, poor male students, homosexuals, et al.), and judging from her previous polemics against the Greek system, it seems reasonable to conclude that she harbors some sort of vendetta against the blond, Anglo-Saxon, athletic, heterosexual, beer-guzzling legacy simply for possessing these characteristics. What about the content of their character?
Continuing in this careless vein, she exhorts: "Find your base, grow strong -- and make new homes here, for yourself and others." The homes she mentions include the Latino and Caribbean House, Main Street magazine, the Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance and the education department. All well and good. I would like to suggest a few more examples of homes that she seems to have conveniently omitted: the Greek system, athletic teams, the Dartmouth Review. She might have cautioned her readers, as I do now, not to take this advice to the extreme: find your place, yes, but don't forget to interact with different people. White frat boys included.
She concludes with the sentence, "This college has come a long way, but it has much further to go before everyone here can feel safe, comfortable, and welcome." No doubt she means well, as does the administration, whom her words echo. Yet like much of what went before, these words resonate with implications Ms. Greenwood ignores. Again, her nemesis, the Greek system, is omitted from consideration, even though Greek houses do much in the way of creating strong ties between all manner of people, from footballers to gamers to intellectuals. A more substantive point is this: the purpose of Dartmouth College is, first and foremost, to imbue its students with a solid education. And a solid education entails decamping from (not abolishing) one's safe spaces from time to time, in order to feel uncomfortable, offended and dissatisfied. Unpopular, even offensive viewpoints should not and cannot be censored under the pretense of making people feel more safe, comfortable and welcome. Sadly, as most people will have realized -- the '06s will too soon -- this is not the case here at Dartmouth. Sic transit gloria.
