The BlackBerry has become as close to a uniform of the American businessperson as there is. So why is it that so many people in school, innocently secure from the clutches of the business world, nonetheless cling to its emblem? I imagine that high school and college students are embracing the BlackBerry because it seems to lend itself to a sense of importance and maturity that quells an emptiness - a fear that lurks as deep as any that what we are doing here doesn't matter.
I chose Princeton, as so many others did, for the intellectual environment it claims to offer its students. Already, in less than two months as a Princeton student, my idealism has died. Forgive me if I seem sobering; it is not my primary intention. But the truth I have found behind our ivy-covered halls is that Princeton actually fails in its attempt to foster an intellectual community. Princeton exists instead as a pseudo-intellectual environment where we are all intent on pursuing our academic curiosities and finding passions in subjects many believe to be useless and of no importance. But try as we might to refute the skeptics with articles and adages defending the artistic or the humanist tradition, we secretly fear that we are wrong and that the skeptics are right.
The fear that our liberal arts education is pointless is alleviated only temporarily by an indulgence of prestige and exclusivity. So far, my college experience has seemed more like one lengthy application than anything else. Here I thought that my acceptance letter to Princeton signaled an end to the applications; my applications to the Humanities Sequence (HUM 216-219), the freshman seminars, to my creative writing class and even to this newspaper have shown that I was wrong. Even now that we are finally living the dream of a Princeton education, Princeton is no longer enough. Who among us is content with just being here? We want more.
We want the 4.0, once again! We want the prestigious internship. We want to be Undergraduate Fellows of Impressive-Sounding Organizations For The Laudation Of Our Own Ever-Expanding Egos. We want all these things because we have been set on a path that regards education as a means rather than an end. But a college education, especially at Princeton, is not a detour from something of greater significance. Our fear is that we are still children and that what we do is therefore irrelevant. But I say that we are still children; do not think or hope that you are anything else! This education is our final stab at freedoms we will never have again. We should not be so eager to sell ourselves into the servitude of the occupation, the struggle of adulthood.
I remember that when I was younger, I tried to wear my father's shoes - please disregard the Freudian interpretation. The shoes were outrageously large, but I thought that if I wore them I might be like my father, the grown-up, the professional. Though precocity is fun, I looked stupid and ridiculous because the shoes just didn't fit; after all, I was just a child. I will not use a BlackBerry for the very same reason: It just doesn't fit.
Passionate though many of us are about our individual intellectual pursuits, too often we falsely regard our education as an investment for a future benefit. But I say the benefit is now. The benefit is the joy of education for education's sake. We need to stop looking at the future, and we need to stop applying ourselves to the courts of exclusivity. I believe that having a truly intellectual Princeton community is an important part of having a happy one. This is our time to mess up, our time to have fun, our time to explore the whims of our own curiosities, intellectual and otherwise. If we surrender our childhoods and the integrity of an intellectual education to the prevailing zeitgeist of the BlackBerry, we will effectively suffer from the same failure as F. Scott Fitzgerald '17's Gatsby. Just as Gatsby stares out at the green light trying to recapture the past in the future, we will cling to our BlackBerrys, trying to capture a future adulthood we foolishly lust after in a present childhood we hardly appreciate and are in danger of missing.
Peter Zakin is a freshman from New York, N.Y. He can be reached at pzakin@princeton.edu.
Read More
Why can’t lecturers win the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching?
Jerry ZhuLet’s acknowledge those who make “boutique teaching” possible, those who work tirelessly to make our rigorous curricula more accessible, and those who dedicate their time to advising and guiding us through all the challenges we face at this University. Lecturers should be eligible for the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Let’s acknowledge those who make “boutique teaching” possible, those who work tirelessly to make our rigorous curricula more accessible, and those who dedicate their time to advising and guiding us through all the challenges we face at this University. Lecturers should be eligible for the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Princeton’s administration of justice is Trumpian
Frances BroganThe disparity between the University’s approach to Giberson and its approach to pro-Palestinian protestors reflects a concerning trend of appeasing an increasingly emboldened right rather than resisting the threat it poses to academic freedom and the wellbeing of Princeton students.
Secular Opening Exercises? Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water
Frank StrasburgerThe secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
The secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
