This past spring, Princeton’s informal motto was changed from “Princeton in the nation's service and in the service of all nations” to “Princeton in the nation's service and the service of humanity.” It highlighted for me the notion that the University seeks to serve everyone, plain and simple, rather than defining everyone by “nations,” “races,” “sexes,” or any variety of arbitrary categorizations.
The idea of categorization though, the idea that we’re defined by our race, gender, or sexual orientation, seems to be a very recent phenomenon and not necessarily intentional. Originally, talking about these differences was meant to spark conversation about how we could recognize and accept our inherent differences or foster tolerance in a society where deviations from the norm are taboo. But it seems that as these differences become further ingrained into our minds, it’s become harder to think of ourselves as the common race that is “humanity,” and easier to fit ourselves into societally-defined categorizations of people. We learn that we ought to acknowledge differences, and we do, but it’s difficult to go beyond acknowledgement. We do not know how to truly involve people who are different in our lives because nowadays they just seem so… different.
I grew up in suburban Mississippi, where people are friendly but we didn’t talk about differences much. I do remember though that neighbors would often strike up conversations with my dad about the difficulties of mowing the lawn on hot Sunday afternoons, or how the local waterpark was being shut down — people bonded over communal matters, local sports, and the ups and downs of everyday life experiences. Even though we were an Asian family in a white suburb, southern hospitality dictated that you treat everyone the same, that you make sure they feel truly welcomed into the community, truly belonging to and having a part in it. The criterion for evaluation was simple: all humans deserve the same love as any other person, so you give it to them regardless of who they are. Real love looks at the needs of the receiver, not the desires of the giver; in fact, it actively looks for, and does not passively avoid, encounters with the needy.
At Princeton, however, we’re a bit more selective with whom we give our love to. We’re hesitant to reach out to people we don’t know on campus, who tend, more often than our friends, to be people from very different backgrounds. Perhaps we don’t believe in the importance of investing in people whom we don’t have established relationships with. Perhaps we’re a bit mercenary and realize that we can’t gain personally from small acts of kindness towards people whom we will never see again, or from informal, sporadic deeds of kindness that can’t go on a resume. Nevertheless, we talk a lot about the ideas of acceptance and inclusion but very little about the idea of love. Isn’t love what motivates us to include someone in our lives? And it’s by relating to others as humans that we’re able to foster a love for them. It’s by empathizing with their struggles and realizing that even if they are quite different from us, they are still very similar, part of our common race.
We’ve done a good job of bringing attention to the diversity problem, but we haven’t done as well with actually creating a more welcoming culture for everyone or motivating the larger campus community to do so. So I propose a two-fold solution. One, let’s focus more on communal love. We ought to realize that we can and should care for people with whom we have little context for interaction, even if we’re not good friends with them. Sometimes it’s the small things we do for people we don’t really know that matter most, because it’s those acts that make them feel they belong to the larger community rather than simply to a select group of friends. Two, let’s regain sight of a common humanity, the things that bring us together rather than push us apart. It’ll help us develop greater empathy for the people around us, which subsequently motivates us to be more loving towards them.
There’s sort of a beauty in all this talk about the diversity that we’ve all forgotten, a beauty that motivates us to think more deeply and strive harder to be better to and for others. It’s the beauty of being able to see in someone else so different a bit of yourself and of realizing that showing love to them is in essence showing love to yourself. It’s not karma, but rather a self-giving that leads to reciprocity because it touches the hearts of others and reminds them as well of the beauty, joy, and irony of love — a thing we can’t do for ourselves but can do for each other. Even if it’s in the smallest of ways.
Annie Lu is a Computer Science major from Brandon, Mississippi. She can be reached at daol@princeton.edu.
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