Homecoming, Round Two
Bailey left a comment on my Homecoming entry a few days back that I think I ought to address, because she made a good point.
Not to be a party-pooper, but do you really think this:"hurling shouts at the freshmen, who by tradition must run laps around the fire"
is the part of homecoming we should be perpetuating? homecoming as a freshman for me was the first time I realized that the upperclassmen weren't so excited to see me. The taunts are worse than "worst class ever" (although several of my residents were still hurt by this seemingly gentle threat - "why don't they like us, bailey? are we bad compared to other classes?") - i heard a lot of swearing and threats (as if "touch the fire" isn't really a threat). I'm sorry to go off on this, but this "tradition" is something that I really hate about Dartmouth - we threaten others because we've been threatened.
I have really mixed feelings about the taunting that happens during Homecoming. My own personal memories of it are not traumatic, but I have several friends who boycotted the entire affair because they found it offensive, and if I were looking at this kind of a situation at any other school, I would almost certainly find a tradition of screaming at freshmen as they run around a huge dangerous bonfire contemptible.
I never really felt comfortable shouting at freshmen myself - I took part in the American Nightmare incident, but only because it was clear that the AN was taking it with good humor, and that we weren't threatening him. Then why am I ambivalent about whether others do it? It's not a positive tradition, it's a mean one.
Something that Dartmouth as seems to struggle with is positive traditions - there are plenty on a smaller scale within organizations and clubs, but as an institution as a whole, there's almost nothing through which all of Dartmouth can come together ... except for those events like the Homecoming bonfire that are a relic of pre-coeducation days, of pea-green freshmen and beanie caps and the senior fence and a whole complex set of social hierarchy hoops through which the wealthy white men of Dartmouth jumped. Coming together through a trying experience is by no means the only way to come together - but it's how a lot of Dartmouth's traditions came about.
I think Dartmouth is still figuring itself out post-1972 - what ties us together here? Can we, as a contemporary institution that purports to be diverse and tolerant, have a unified (not uniform) identity? Should we even try for that? Then what kinds of traditions are worth having? What's the point?
This is why I write fondly about Homecoming - it's one of the closest things we have to a unifying tradition, something that everyone can go through - even though I know full well that not everyone does, and that many find it unpleasant or worse. I don't really know what the answer is here; I don't know that it's possible to police the bonfire tightly enough to squelch insults, and I don't know where the line between acceptable and unacceptable should be drawn. But it's clear that the current model is far from perfect - to say the least. Thanks, B, for making that point, because I should've used a little more thought and care rather than rushing to idealize and wax nostalgic.