Freshman year I saw the bonfire from as close as you can get by running around the flames until the left side of my face had just about melted off. Sophomore year my parents and I watched it from the steps of Dartmouth Hall after singing the Alma Mater together and listening to President Kim speak about the importance of tradition. Last year I was on the other side of the world, almost oblivious to Homecoming. This year I watched the flames go up from across the road at Occupy Dartmouth.
Watching from a distance, I couldn't help but think that there was something very bizarre about this rite of passage into the Dartmouth community. If a foreigner say, a French anthropologist doing field work were to witness the scene, I think they would probably be troubled by the sight of a pack of upperclassmen and alumni egging on freshmen to run laps around a gigantic inferno on the Green.
I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of the bonfire. There is certainly a lot of symbolism behind it. It's bizarre, maybe even sadistic, says my pessimistic side. The naive freshmen, corralled like cattle, symbolically submit their former lives and selves to the flames as they run endlessly around the fire. The tribal elders rejoice in the destruction of all that is not Dartmouth, and after several hours in the kiln, when all that has come before is burned away and reduced to rubble, the beleaguered young first-years are left to rebuild from the ashes.
Oh, lighten up, says my optimistic side. They've been doing the bonfire for years. It's an honor to participate in a tradition like thousands of Dartmouth students before us it's a big "welcome to the club" moment. We're all pumped up to have a new class. Plus, did you see that whole "Happy Homecoming" movement? Show me another school where a bunch of seniors get together to come up with encouraging slogans to yell at freshmen at a giant school gathering.
Last week on the way home from the library, I stopped by Occupy Dartmouth on a whim. It was about as antithetical to a typical Dartmouth social space as you could get: music playing from a boombox, spoken word poetry and Marxist sentiments that made my left-leaning tendencies look pedestrian.
It was a bit unsettling at first because I didn't really know anyone. No sports talk, no pong tables, more girls than guys. Compared to much of my Dartmouth experience it was something of an anti-niche.
Spending time there has given me some much-needed critical distance from my everyday life. Hearing different perspectives not only on politics but also on our campus community has forced me to question my role as a student. It has helped me articulate what I love about Dartmouth and what drives me nuts about Dartmouth.
Two years ago, I never would have hung out at a place like Occupy Dartmouth not because I wasn't interested, but because it would have been way too risky to stand out like that. I couldn't bear the thought of getting shit from my friends for being a hippie. In my haste to find comfort and affirmation in a niche, I slowly depoliticized my thought. Unfortunately, Dartmouth has a bizarre schizophrenia wherein critical thought is rewarded in the classroom but devalued in our social scene. In many social niches at Dartmouth, earning acceptance requires a significant sacrifice of personal expression.
In this particular moment in history, with a faltering economy that fails to provide stability for the majority of Americans, I can't help but wonder if we as young people can afford to have this mentality. Maneuvering within existing systems is no longer the lucrative business it once was as evidenced by the throngs of college grads at Occupy movements across the country.
Marx might have been off with the whole "imminent proletarian revolution" thing, but he was also a great philosopher. His work focused on the material world rather than our abstract ideals but implicit in his theory of capitalism is the notion that people only act morally when their systems allow them to act morally.
So are the upperclassmen sadistic? Are Wall Street bankers evil? No, certainly not inherently. Perhaps the more pertinent question is whether the systems we participate in social or political are bringing out the best in us.
