The Bullsheet

I read Everett’s submission yesterday, nodding my head along in moderate worry and agreement with what he was saying, hating douchebags who drug girls, etc., and found myself generally satisfied with what he had to say (and his ability to use spell check). Then I hit this little bit at the end: “we need to work together to get the J requirement back”.

Am I the only person who thinks that adding course requirements for black/women’s/queer studies will do little to nothing to solve any of this campus’s social woes? I fail to see how taking a course about the struggles and issues facing blacks/women/gays is supposed to help halt malice and tension. Ok, so maybe you’re thinking, “Hey, we can change some haters to be more accepting if they just knew about these people and had a better understanding of what they go through. We just need haters to get what it is like to be them”. In response to any such thoughts, I have two arguments:

1. I/We/They are never going to understand what it is like to be black/a woman/gay because I’m white, male, and (mostly) straight, as is about 35% of this campus. I may learn about their issues and think “wow, dude, their life is tough and sucks, and this, this, and this are big problems,” but I’ll never be them, and therefore will never truly understand them.

2. The people who will be affected by understanding are those who are not likely to engage in hurtful or prejudiced actions. Some people just don’t care. Be it due to self-absorption, lack of pity, simple apathy, or any number of other things, some folks can’t be “taught” to be tolerant and socially responsible, or to care about being so, unless you want to revamp our college to engage in flat-out brainwashing.

On that note, I think we have enough shoved in our face without being forced into college-sanctioned social conditioning programs. I hate that socially so much of this campus carries heavy overtones not of the idea that this is how you should act, but of the “fact” that this is the right way to act, as if there is scientific proof of the absolute superiority of the bleeding heart and the “progressive” mindset. I know, I know, welcome to college, but I, and I’m sure many others, resent being told that our viewpoint is “wrong” regarding a subjective matter, especially those who base such beliefs in religion(it’s a Catch-22 for tolerance, folks!).

Some may now be thinking, “but Stas, reinstating the J requirement isn’t forcing people to think a new way”. Oh, I’m sorry, but isn’t that the point? Wouldn’t we be adding the requirement in an attempt to force a viewpoint onto people, instilling that mindset so deeply into them that they don’t regard other positions as viable? I may have some of you convinced now, but others are still thinking “these people ARE wrong, and need to be changed”. If that is you, then touché on being closed minded and hypocritical, but beyond that, have you been in a sociology class recently? There are generally two kinds of people in sociology classes (at least 100-200 level, I know few who can stomach anything further): the bleeding hearts who are vindicated and reinvigorated with a renewed sense of justified moral superiority, and those like me, who sit around, writing papers catered to nothing but what the professor has made abundantly clear he or she wants to see, maybe once branching out to propose a significantly different viewpoint, getting reamed for it with only the most minor nod towards legitimate debate, and never speaking up again. I know some who actually starting becoming xeno/homo/whatever-phobic because of having to take such classes. So, what makes us think a J requirement won’t do the exact same thing, and make the problem worse among those who can actually have their minds changed? I’m pretty sure that artificially induced resentment wouldn’t help Denison much. Here, an anecdote to illustrate my point:

I came into college on the fence about gays and their rights and the nature of homosexuality and all that. Then, I met gay people. They tended to be nice, relatively normal, and a few of them were actually pretty cool. My brain started associating gay people with those things, and generalized it all so that I changed my mind about gays and what they should have the right to do. Now, the flip-side. In high school I had to learn Latin. I didn’t want to, because I could have been taking other courses. I grew to hate Latin, and felt it had robbed me of my time, effort, and GPA. My brain associated Latin with anger, suffering, and annoyance. I had always wanted to learn German, but after Latin, languages in general no longer gave me any enjoyment, they had been tainted for me by association. I’m fairly confident that had I come here and been forced to take a queer studies course, I would have grown to resent gays, partially because their existence had caused such a course to exist, robbing me of my already too few electives. It would have made it harder for me to embrace the more “progressive” stance on homosexuality.

I realize I’m just criticizing and not proposing any solutions, but that’s because I don’t see any problems here that can be solved with institutional programs or initiatives. So, yeah, long story short, the J requirement sounds like a great, well-meaning, ineffective, time-wasting proposal.

Stas Nogay, Slayter Box 8282, nogay_s@denison.edu (Can you see it? Fucking hilarious, right?)

P.S. If you plan on responding, don’t worry about being civil, I prefer bluntness. Also, ranting at me would make me chuckle.