The wrong side of paradise: Forging a warped world view

While the recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have caused millions of Americans pain, sorrow and grief, they have at the same time brought Americans closer together, forging new bonds of shared calamity and uniting millions in anticipation of a war against a common enemy. Not so on the Princeton campus. Princeton students, like other Americans, are confused and angry. For many, however, the target of their rage has not been the terrorists. Quite the opposite. At Princeton many students are not angry at bin Laden and his terrorist acts or confused as to how he could commit them, but instead they are angry at the United States itself for "driving" him to such acts of hatred. This feeling among some Princeton students is understandable, because Princeton has become so sheltered that some of its students have lost touch with the capacity of man to commit evil. The very thought of labeling anyone as "evil" or "wrong" has become alien and even insulting to many on this campus.

Princeton is home to a rational, sensible and overwhelmingly peaceful student body, one so homogeneous in these aspects that many here have forgotten that anyone else could be any different. Three hundred years of Princeton students, administrators and alumni have worked toward making Princeton a model community. In this goal they have largely succeeded, yet something vital has been lost in the process. Today Princeton's student body is so overwhelmingly civil that some Princetonians simply cannot conceive that others in the world have the capacity to commit the type of crimes that were committed in New York and Washington.

Most Princeton students deal with the disparity between society at Princeton and society in the "real world" by doing what they usually do when puzzled by a problem set or confused about a paper — namely, trying to rationalize the problem and logically think it through. Since the overwhelming majority of Princeton students have been correctly taught that disadvantaged people in the world are not disadvantaged because they are 'bad' or 'inferior' but because they are born into their condition, we conclude that it couldn't be that terrorists are 'evil,' but instead that they have been conditioned to act a certain way by their society. Whenever we see someone from a disadvantaged situation do something heinous, we are tempted to excuse him by claiming "he is a product of his society." The average Princetonian focuses on the plight of disadvantaged people around the world to such a degree that it misleads some into thinking that disadvantaged people can do no wrong.

The perceived infallibility of the have-nots usually goes hand in hand with another topic taught to most Princeton students: that the U.S. government has committed terrible atrocities in the past and is directly responsible for many of the problems of the world today. Seemingly, the only thing that is politically correct to criticize today is the United States of America, since revisionist historians have concluded that it has been only through brutality that the United States has prospered. Since the vast majority of Princeton students have only known sheltered, nonviolent surroundings since birth, they have no criterion by which to judge the kind of heinous acts we saw on Sept. 11. Many assume the terrorists must have been so violated by the United States and our foreign policy that any sense of rationality has been driven out of them, and they are left with no choice but to try to destroy us. Of course, we cannot be morally justified in acting against these men because they are simply 'paying us back' for all the evil we have committed. Not only that, but we cannot even categorize the terrorists or their actions as "evil" or "wrong" because their personal interpretation of their religion tells them that they will be celebrated or canonized for their actions. After all, our philosophy class taught us that evil is subjective.

Enough of this nonsense. We, the students of Princeton, must remember that when bin Laden or anyone else murders innocent people, it's not because the United States government drove them to do it, or that they are simply benign products of their society reacting against American aggression. The terrorists are not killing people in some foreign far-away land; they are killing thousands of Americans in our own country. (If that still doesn't hit home, they are also killing Princetonians, 11 identified so far). They would kill you too if they had the chance. Although the United States government is not perfect, it is not purely evil as some make it out to be; our transgressions cannot excuse the acts of those who would murder so many. Right now this opinion is not held by the majority, but with every day and every march more people are duped into hating their own country. Be rational. Judge actions individually, on their own merit. Realize that there are many people in this world who do not think they are wrong, yet certainly cannot be right. David Sillers is from Potomac, MD. He can be reached at dsillers@princeton.edu.