[1385] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Petition about Dorm Rush
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Wally)
Thu Nov 7 17:53:37 2002
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 15:20:42 -0500
From: Wally <wally@SUB-ZERO.MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <200211070442.gA74gOn12645@dominia.org>
> I think this is an incorrect response. All MIT students have been
> royally screwed, both those in dorms and those of us off-campus. We
> should help each other as best as we can.
I remember staying up all night to write an article for the Tech in
response to Bacow's official housing report; the article is probably
nothing special, but then again, I think Larry Bacow's silly proposals
deserved no more than summary dismissal anyhow.
Regardless: that was a hell of a term, in part because MITchoice was
campaigning hard on campus to raise awareness of the impending doom facing
the FSILG community (along with their cousins in the dorms). Fucked up
thing is, there were a *ton* of people on campus who admitted, when
pressed about their lack of involvement in the fight against freshmen on
campus, that they had no idea whether they were in favour of Bacow's
proposal. At day's end, the dorm community at MIT is (by and large)
grossly ignorant of the rich resource that exists in the FSILG's. Or
rather, scratch that: many dorm kids seem to think that FSILG's equal
nothing more than 40 more or less identical versions of Deke, Alpha Phi,
LCA, and a dash of TDC. It's difficult to rally people to join a cause
when they're totally unaware that the cause exists.
I don't think the situation has improved in the years since Krueger's
death and the Freshmen on Campus decision -- indeed, I'd wager it's gotten
worse, partly because of the (often much-deserved) bad publicity heaped on
a few houses and the lack of publicity attained by MOST houses.
This all makes little difference, for a simple reason: most dorms have so
little 'personality' that homogenization will make little readily-visible
difference to the lives of their residents. The majority of the West
Campus houses are more or less tonally interchangeable anyhow (why
sugarcoat?), so the loss of Dorm Rush won't really matter. And MIT has no
vested interest in keeping the Floreys alive and well (insofar as Florey
culture is still 'alive' and 'well' today anyhow). The homogenization of
the student culture at MIT is the result, I'd wager, of forces from well
beyond MIT, the changing face of 'top-tier' high school students, the
humanizing forces acting on the public face of technological research,
etc.
What the students should do, perhaps: rather than seeking campus-wide
solidarity and 'community', maybe we should work to further
*differentiate* the cultures on campus. Fuck the doomed: take pride in
that which is alienating to others about your house's character. And be
*public* about it. More outlandishness! More aggressive hacks appearing in
the Boston Globe! More outright rejection of social norms, because those
norms are fucked! More acts that differentiate us from the liberal arts
dullards in our 'peer institutions'! Ha. Not bloody likely. We're all more
or less Harvard students anyhow.
W.
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