Princetonians are an interesting bunch. I’ve observed, over the past three years, that they’re different from normal people. And not in a snobby, “we’re so much better than normal people” way, but in a weird way. Like, your family kind of weird. A little insular, a little eccentric.
And like a family, they’re very well connected to each other. I often marvel at how some people can always find other people to do things for them, be it helping with an event or receiving tutoring or giving a meal swipe. They’re very … relational.
There’s been a lot of talk in sociological literature at the turn of the century about how communities are failing in America — people are spending less time in civil associations like rotary clubs and more time at home watching TV by themselves, trying to make up for the inability to form meaningful social connections by turning to media, or trying to avoid such connections outright because they require a lot of tending.
But the exact opposite seems to be happening at Princeton. In fact, there’s a strong stigma against people who don’t spend their free time socializing, against simply sitting in your dorm room pondering life instead of going out to the Street, getting together with friends to watch a movie, or attending a study break and freaking out with each other over how much work you have to do. There’s even a stigma against not having someone to eat lunch with. To be a proper Princetonian, it seems, is to be social, and to begin cultivating relationships you can draw on for support, guidance, and resources – what sociologists would term “social capital.”
I suppose we could argue that social capital has been in decline in society at large because people distrust each other more, whereas at Princeton, we’re all a happy family. But that is far from the case. The student groups that constitute much of the basis for social capital on campus are pretty selective, and we’re all willing to fight to get in. It’s not that there’s much trust or distrust between people. It’s that there’s a very established way of gaining social capital, a ladder to climb, a goal to reach. And it’s not so much that everyone comes in wanting to climb it, but that a significant portion of us care deeply about forging connections and have transformed the culture into one in which constant socializing is standard. We begin to think that we must spend our free time socializing in order to “have friends.” We think that because a capella and dance groups are exclusive, they must be intimate, and all the “cool” people we’d like as friends must be there.
But at the same time, what is this system teaching us? It’s teaching us that selectivity is the right approach, that judging groups of people on surface-level acquaintance is the easiest way of figuring out who you want as your friends, that most of our relationships ought to be shallow and widespread because these sort of relationships maximize social capital, and that the most established organizations in society ought to set the normative goals for acquiring social capital and developing relationships. As we invest more time into structured social activities, we start to blend our social lives more with our public lives and less with our intimate lives. Really though, what has often become lost to many is the idea that our personal lives don’t need to revolve around socializing. We’ve come to devalue friendship and overvalue being social in itself, and we’ve forgotten why we’re doing all this in the first place.
I’ve often heard that Princeton is an amazing place with a supportive community, and there are genuinely nice people here. I don’t disagree. What I’d like to highlight, though, is that sometimes we forget our roots and why we have such weird idiosyncrasies in our culture in the first place, like this immense pressure to socialize. Let’s take a step back and realize that acting on this pressure is often only leading us towards gaining more social capital, which has a purpose, but isn’t always THE purpose in itself. What many of us really want is friendship, pure and unconditional. And that often comes about in the most spontaneous of ways — through shared struggles together on problem sets, deep late-night conversations, or even the occasional stumbling into each other’s paths on happenstance.
Annie Lu is a Computer Science major from Brandon, Mississippi. She can be reached atdaol@princeton.edu.
Read More
Princeton needs to be a climate justice leader — emphasis on the ‘climate,’ emphasis on the ‘justice’
Alex Norbrook and Eleanor Clemans-Cope“Princeton must not only withdraw its support from injustices, but also positively re-invest in sustainable and community-informed initiatives.”
“Princeton must not only withdraw its support from injustices, but also positively re-invest in sustainable and community-informed initiatives.”
Princeton must move towards a world-changing curriculum
Luqmaan Bamba“If we in the Orange Bubble are supposed to be taught how to be changemakers, our education should not just stop at learning about change but also extend to the tangible application of it.”
“If we in the Orange Bubble are supposed to be taught how to be changemakers, our education should not just stop at learning about change but also extend to the tangible application of it.”
Statement of solidarity with Columbia University students from Princeton faculty and staff
Guest ContributorsIn an open letter, Princeton University faculty and staff express solidarity with Columbia University and Barnard College student protestors by boycotting the universities until their demands are met.
In an open letter, Princeton University faculty and staff express solidarity with Columbia University and Barnard College student protestors by boycotting the universities until their demands are met.
