Off -campus, higher standards
Erin Risch
Issue date: 9/17/09 Section: Opinion
Although many were disappointed at the relative lack of debacle at the off-campus housing meeting this year, I found the tone of the meeting distressing. Both of the guest speakers emphasized "not getting caught" instead of the importance of doing the right thing. Instead of being warned not to use illegal substances, we were told not to "leave a joint on the floor of the car where the cops can see it." Instead of being told to exercise moderation and to take responsibility for our behavior, we were told that "we all do stupid things from time to time when we've had too much to drink" and then the four degrees of sexual harassment were listed.
The tone suited a wild state university, not Hillsdale College, where the professors devote one of our first classes to Socrates, who submitted to the laws of the state even when those laws demanded his life. "Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down," says Socrates, "if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?" He imagines the laws of his state asking, "Are we or are we not speaking the truth when we say that you have undertaken, in deed if not in word, to live your life as a citizen in obedience to us?"
We all signed the honor code, and I think we all agree that to be honorable is to do what's right even when there's no risk of punishment. I urge the Hillsdale College administration to communicate this shared philosophy at the off-campus housing meetings. Even though, as college students, we often believe that we are adults and don't need a lecture on how to behave (the way we rudely drowned out the speakers with our chatter suggests otherwise), there's a gulf between "not getting caught" and empty didacticism, and this meeting could and ought to abide there.
Let us remember what we learned from Socrates during the first week of Western Heritage: "[T]he really important thing is not to live, but to live well."
The tone suited a wild state university, not Hillsdale College, where the professors devote one of our first classes to Socrates, who submitted to the laws of the state even when those laws demanded his life. "Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down," says Socrates, "if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?" He imagines the laws of his state asking, "Are we or are we not speaking the truth when we say that you have undertaken, in deed if not in word, to live your life as a citizen in obedience to us?"
We all signed the honor code, and I think we all agree that to be honorable is to do what's right even when there's no risk of punishment. I urge the Hillsdale College administration to communicate this shared philosophy at the off-campus housing meetings. Even though, as college students, we often believe that we are adults and don't need a lecture on how to behave (the way we rudely drowned out the speakers with our chatter suggests otherwise), there's a gulf between "not getting caught" and empty didacticism, and this meeting could and ought to abide there.
Let us remember what we learned from Socrates during the first week of Western Heritage: "[T]he really important thing is not to live, but to live well."
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