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The administrators described in the article are a symptom, not the cause. I attended a relatively high-ranked college a few years ago and would not have ever co
by csande17 4y ago
The administrators described in the article are a symptom, not the cause. I attended a relatively high-ranked college a few years ago and would not have ever considered attending an event named "Exotic Erotic", because:
1. In modern society, everyone is carrying an Internet-connected video camera and nearly every nontrivial social event is filmed.
2. Sexual assault and harassment cases are often litigated in the informal justice system, where there is no statute of limitations, "guilty until proven innocent" standards are often applied, and "I was just a dumb kid trying to navigate a new social environment" is not an excuse.
3. Almost everything I did was expected to be a form of resume-building, even as early as high school.
Will my actions at Exotic Erotic look good to employers? Will they by acceptable to social media users twenty years from now? Can I absolutely guarantee that no one at the event will feel I made them uncomfortable? (Am I willing to bet my future career — the whole reason I am spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend an elite college — on all of the answers being "yes" just to attend one party?)
I mean, several campus advocacy groups were explicitly trying to tell men to stop engaging in those kinds of risky social behaviors!
I don't know that that's a bad thing. I've heard some people, especially women, really did get physically and psychologically injured at these kinds of events. Perhaps cancelling these events is a reasonable price to pay to keep those people safe.
- ripper1138 4y agoI think you missed the point.
- titanomachy 4y agoPoint 1 is legit. Going to a really raunchy party that doesn’t have a no-phones policy might have been a little much even for college-aged me. But I disagree with much of the rest. You’re welcome to make those choices for yourself, making your life about resume-building and career from an early age, and certainly society benefits a lot from people like that. But suggesting that everyone should be forced into those choices feels wrong to me. I think having a colorful and joyful life has its own value, but even if we’re sticking to utilitarian arguments, a lot of the people who benefited humanity the most were certainly not resume-driven rule-followers in their youth. As for false rape accusations… I think this is one of those things that gets talked about so much that it seems more common than it is. I believe it can happen, but every one of my male friends has made it this far in life without being accused of rape. If you only have sex with people who enthusiastically want to have sex with you, I think you can probably put this somewhere between “plane crash” and “lightning strike” in terms of how much you should worry about it.
- csande17 4y agoI don't think everyone in society needs to act this way. But, like, everyone at Stanford is a resume builder because Stanford only admits people with good resumes. Also, I'm not worried about comes-out-of-nowhere false associations. I am aware that I need to avoid actually doing something wrong because the consequences of that are really high. I implement your "only have sex with people who enthusiastically want to have sex with you" rule by not getting drunk at student-organized "anything-but-clothes" parties!
- titanomachy 4y agoFair enough, not getting blackout drunk should definitely reduce your risk of making bad decisions with lifelong consequences. Nothing but respect for that decision. I still question the premise that the only worthwhile activities are the ones that look good on a resume.
- Spooky23 4y agoDid you go to Stanford or similar? The point of those schools is to go work for McKinsey or whatever. Your folks didn’t take violin at age 3 and pay $50k for lacrosse academy for you to blow it all at some kegger.
- ido 4y agoThis reminds me of discussions with some Indian colleagues of mine who were telling me how they were cramming for years in school (with private tutors and studying till late at night) in order to get into very competitive IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology).
- titanomachy 4y agoNo, I went to a reasonably high-quality and cheap public university. There’s plenty of Stanford/Berkeley/MIT folks where I work and they seem happy with their choices as well. I actually don’t think my parents care all that much whether I work at McKinsey or Google or wherever. They put me in music lessons because they thought it might be interesting, not because it would help me land the perfect corporate job. I doubt my parents even know what McKinsey is.
- rvba 4y agoThe fact you dont have the courage to do anything controversial does not mean that all events have to be banned. In a world of cowards, those who will have the balls to do something non standard or show some flair, will probably get an advantage over you, another spreadhsheet filler. And no, I wouldnt attend "exotic erotic" neither - but it should be allowed for those who want to attend it. Also it is quite funny that the person who didnt attend an event has the most to write about it. Basically hearsay. Your whole post looks like some sort of politically correct resume building. Are you trying to get correct social score here as well? Seriously sounds like your whole life is about getting social score. In a world of apparatchiks like you any kind of fun is forbidden.
- csande17 4y agoHas Stanford ever not been a finishing school for politically correct resume-building spreadsheet fillers? They could probably get away with having wild parties on the side, before camera phones and social media. But, like, the fact that you must now choose between attending wild parties and being a spreadsheet filler is the real reason why there aren't wild parties at Stanford anymore.
- rvba 4y agoI bet the universiry expells students for doing anything wild. And definition of wild is getting wider, so they have to hire more apparatchiks.