What if adults stopped paying taxes because the "country's not what it used to be when they were kids?" Then their country would suck.
These toy's r us kid traditionalists need to grow up.
After all, a University is a business, bottom line. Traditions are good for things like frats, teams, and family reunions but times change. Accept it and stop trying to play the martyr (except Beta, which kinda was one, which sucks).
I'm kind of mixed on the issue, because I feel like change is necessary and good, but the traditions that the administration is targeting are the ones that make W&L fun, autonomous, and relaxed. And I understand the feeling of "what's next? the speaking tradition?" also because I think that lax drinking rules, pledgeship, and the rest are social cohesiveness/ character building traditions that should not be fooled with because people will find ways to do their thing more clandestinedly, which is worse when a problem occurs. And buffalo creek and spring term are innocent bystanders. Why were they targeted?
Sorry to play Devil's advocate, though, but I thought I'd spice it up and be a littttle more liberal, because i was getting kind of worried with all this tradition praise for the hell of tradition. After all, Racism is an American tradition. Sexism is an American tradition. And I doubt/hope that having the word "tradition" slapped to them does not make anybody in this class view them as more holy. I mean, there is a difference between a good and a bad tradition, and the administration is struggling (and failing often recently) to figure out which is which.
Furthermore,
You all sound like Fiddler on the Roof! I work the Phonathon, and I have had quite a few Beta alums and reallllly southern guys in particular say "I'm not giving money because the school's not what it used to be." But they SURE DID get better job offers and more money when the school's ranking and their degree's value went up due to a "change" in tradition (co-education). Keep in mind these are the same men who say "co-education was the worst thing to happen to the school" and then turn around and send their daughters here, so that upperclassmen males, (the same one's most up-in-arms about their traditions!) can get them drunk in frat basements and hook up with them. See how love of tradition clouds your judgement?
Yea I doubt that when any of us graduates we'll say to our interviewer for a job or grad position, "I want you to disregard the fact that I graduated from W&L; the school's not what it used to be." Oh how selective our love for our alma mater can be.
It's also interesting to me how the main group of tradition romanticists are old rich conservative white people, who achieved and maintained their position of power in this society through the perpetuation of the very traditions that keep them there. This indoctrination with love for tradition seems to trickle down to anything labelled "tradition", because for this group and its descendants, tradition is evolutionarily what kept them at the top of the food chain. Tradition for old rich white people is like clear eyelids for alligators; they can have their eyes closed to everything around them but still always be king of the lake (I promise you i made that one up).
To address the comments about the "speaking tradition" diminishing, I pose this question to the upperclassmen who feel like people don't speak to others as often on the hill: did people ACTUALLY always speak to EVERYONE they passed when you were a freshman? or does it just FEEL that way in HINDSIGHT? Because, as history and sociology tells us, human beings have a tendancy to mis-remember certain traditional things in the event of a percieved change. For example, the recent destruction of "traditional family" of the 1960s by gays drugs blacks lust and divorce, based on a sociology class last spring, was somewhat of a MYTH. In my opinion, this myth was so attractive because it showed the TRUE family to be a middle upperclass heterosexual white family, which made the exact groups in power seem to be ideal. Excuse, my militance, but there is a concrete example of how traditional harpings about the past may not alllways be based on truth.
Also, when you talk about W&L traditions, you say "The Honor System," "The Speaking Tradition," and "Spring Term." Those traditions are GOOD traditions with NO negative effects. If your beloved tradition, lets say kegs in frat houses-- for example, leads to just ONE person doing a kegstand and getting alcohol poisoning, then that tradition in particular will and should be reviewed for its merits. That is just good business because you (legally) can't have parents thinking their kids are in danger. Thats not to say that the holders of said tradition should all be punished (i.e. Beta and pledgeship, which sucks), because as educated individuals we all understand the strength of tradition internalization, and how it shapes people's behavior whether or not they know their behavior is bad. However, as educated individuals we should also see that claiming certain traditions as anything other than PARTS of our core identity as a whole, would be a mistake. When a certain tradition is adjusted or let go of, that does not always mean that the persona it was attached to is also condemned (except for Beta, which sucks). I urge people who are fired up about tailgates, kegs, and beirut (my tradition of choice) to find other ways to have fun...and also be more responsible next time because the bottom line is, there is a REASON why those traditions came under scrutiny.
I think it's natural to cling to your traditions for comfort but more important to incorporate your change into your identity.
Posted by alex at November 16, 2004 02:51 AM