The solution struck me the next night when I was fighting (and losing) one of my intermittent bouts with insomnia. The answer was in some ways the question itself: What exactly is so terrible about the Brave New World of the "organization kid?" Because in reality, it is not the administration itself that I am angry at, but the creeping paternalism it represents, the whole sated system I've spent my life in.
As this realization hit me, I abandoned my futile fight with sleep to re-read David Brooks' 2001 article, "The Organization Kid," on this phenomenon at Princeton. I'd read the article for my writing seminar and hadn't really appreciated it then. Now, while I believe that there is a lot of truth to Brooks' thesis that young elites are workaholics who "happily accept their positions at the top of the heap" and the system that brought us there, I believe that he describes an ethos that never ran as deep as was assumed by observers. While students don't rebel against the system, I don't think that most of us have ever actually been happy with it and in it.
Beneath the faux utopia of polo shirts and I-banking, there has always been a maelstrom of discontent and self-destructive ennui. While we go through all the motions that are expected of us, I don't know of anyone who actually likes or respects the process. We'll ace interviews and pull down good grades because that's what's required of us. But inside, we don't believe a word of it. We are quite consciously acting out a part that our culture has written for us.
Even the alternatives to the "standard" route of I-banking, consulting or grad school are similarly organized and standardized. We are desperately seeking to escape the rat race, but we can't find a way to do so. No matter where we look in the real world, we find the same relentless push and auto-slave-driving that that we subject ourselves to the rest of the time.
This is why we drink so much. In drinking and in the places we drink - the eating clubs especially - we are free from the guiding hand of our elders. It is not just that beer = fun but also that on the Street we can escape the control and structure that otherwise dominate our lives. The eating clubs and the random, student-driven craziness that they represent are some of the only aspects of Princeton that aren't run by the administration. It is not the administration per se that we seek to escape and that I criticize but the control, structure and setup of what others are driving us to do. While nowhere is completely free from this pervasive atmosphere of persistent striving, the clubs are often - though not always - a refuge from it.
So the appeal is more than that the clubs are independent: They are a refutation of the entire concept of constant adult supervision and goal-oriented achievement that we've been brought up on and that we chafe under. The clubs can't really serve as stepping stones like every other activity we do - they are an end that we can't go on from and a throwback to an older age in that they are strongholds of an ethos that we should be able to look after ourselves.
Princeton at its best embraces that philosophy. The senior thesis in particular and Princeton's emphasis on independent work in general are a clear acknowledgement that college students should be capable of autonomy. Eighteen- to 22-year-olds aren't children anymore. All too often, however, Princeton decides that giving us real autonomy is too messy. Such a strategy presents real risks of failure, so we have to be protected from ourselves, guided and nudged down the "proper" paths. Sure, being looked out for can be good and easy, but it's also smothering.
This is not a Princeton phenomenon but a broader cultural one. And when we have choices, as we do when choosing where to eat and where to party, it is an arrangement that we choose not to partake of. I attack this arrangement even if I don't always recognize it as such, for I believe it to be stifling, patronizing and mind-numbingly banal.
Barry Caro is a history major from White Plains, N.Y., and can be reached at bcaro@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.
