Four years of crazy pills

Ten recently hired State Department bureaucrats, upon completion of a rigorous examination program, stripped naked and ran through Foggy Bottom. Or maybe, after hearing his name announced as a recipient of the Nobel Prize, Paul Krugman was sprayed with shaving cream, soaked with water guns and caked in flour by Toni Morrison, wearing only an American flag.

If these events did occur, Princeton graduates would be well prepared. But it’s hard to imagine a place, aside from undergraduate colleges, where streaking through lecture would be acceptable. That we have reached the point where students do not go to class because they know there will be streakers suggests a failure to create a comfortable working environment on campus.

While streaking might be the most obvious example, there seem to be a multitude of events that we uncritically condone, foster and participate in. I think these actions reflect an ill-reasoned cultural belief that college students are supposed to act irresponsibly, and we are all too willing to oblige in the cultural illusion. We have created a social landscape where drinking until blacking out is OK for four years. We question, challenge and criticize theories and movements in class, but we don’t question why or how this culture came into being.

There is nothing in particular about Princeton or college in general that facilitates the sort of outrageous behavior that can make national headlines, except for the fact that we tolerate it. Many of our peers are working full-time jobs, starting families and supporting their parents. I do not think they are running through staff meetings naked or drinking away Thursday nights. It seems that little more than the momentum of tradition projects seemingly tedious, if not dangerous, customs into the 21st century.

While walking back to my room after a night on the Street, I came across some friends coming back from initiations. It looked like they had gotten in a fight and lost. Covered in mud, half-naked and with scratches across his chest, a newly initiated member of an eating club walked barefoot into Whitman. Unable to find his prox, keys or pants, he had to sleep on a friend’s couch. What I heard sounded a lot like hazing. But when I brought up the topic with friends, I was told it was different.

I understand that many students truly enjoy their experiences as they are initiated into clubs and fraternities, and this column is not really about them. What interests me are the otherwise rational, sober and relatively unexciting individuals who douse someone they vaguely know in alcohol, strip to their underwear and scream loudly for entirely too long. Some of these people are disappointed with the current structure of Princeton social life but are unwitting participants.

In the weeks before sign-ins and Bicker, I repeatedly heard people say that if it wasn’t for the fact that all their friends were joining a certain club, maybe they would stay in their residential college. In many cases, the major motivating force for joining an eating club was peer pressure.

And no, this isn’t a tirade against the evils of peer pressure or why we should all be unique individuals and spend our days in fields picking flowers and singing “Imagine.” It is not about being a hippie, but having a frank discussion about what our limits are and what makes us happy. I think peer pressure can be good if we critically assess when to use it toward productive ends.

There are great traditions at this school, and many of them hinge on a productive peer pressure. Our dedication to academic excellence, public service and entrepreneurial spirit are all byproducts of positive peer pressure. The streakers, however, do not seem to make a productive statement (unless they are making an ironic commentary on gender performance when they run up and down the Street). These traditions seem divorced from any conceivable social good and are justified more with peer pressure than with group goals and priorities.

That so many of our traditions are unquestioningly carried through the decades suggests the difficulty of fomenting positive social change. There are no edicts to repeal, rules to change or laws to amend, simply people doing what others before them have done.

To create a change in our culture, I think the first step is to start a dialogue and ask critical questions. The second, infinitely harder step is to align our actions with our personal beliefs. If, on any given Saturday night, you wouldn’t normally swallow a fish, why do it during initiations? With this knowledge, students who are tired of following the pack can help reshape the Princeton experience.

Michael Collins is a sophomore from Glastonbury, Conn. He can be reached at mjcollin@princeton.edu.