Back when my mother was at Wellesley, in the mid-1960s, there was a particularly outspoken, conservative Christian organization on campus dubbed "the Godsquad." In the midst of a pretty progressive decade, the Godsquad was constantly concerned with the moral welfare of the student body. So much so that if you had a boy in your room outside of the time period from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays authorized by the administration, the Godsquad would stand outside your door. And sing. With candles.
It sounds awkward for all parties involved and completely incomprehensible at Duke today. Whether these girls thought their singing could pull a couple out of their hormonal stupor and into tearful repentance or were simply being bitchy and sanctimonious, they were fighting a losing battle in a campus culture that was beginning to shed its rules and old-fashioned morality.
Because by the time my mother left school, the rule about having boys in your room had disappeared along with the infamous "three feet on the floor" rule, which required that, when a boy was in your room, the door had to be open and three feet had to be on the floor at all times, hence preventing any romance from progressing irredeemably far.
During the '60s and '70s, university culture was transformed by increasingly aggressive, outspoken student bodies. Through a series of judicial decisions and administrative concessions, universities began to give up the traditional role of in loco parentis, or "in the place of the parent." For centuries, universities had taken an active role in guiding students in their choices, providing codes of behavior and morality just as parents might in their own homes. Now, with the exception of some very religious or conservative educational institutions, in loco parentis and, perhaps, any moral force on campus has gone out the window. And we're living the results.
Lest you roll your eyes in anticipation of an everything's-gone-to-hell rant, I'll say that I'm not really sure whether our sink-or-swim-while-your-parents-hope-they-brought-you-up-right culture is good or bad. We have been given space to make choices and screw up, unlike generations before us. We are told to not too blatantly break the law, at least in front of campus security or the news crews, and then we're pretty much left to our own devices. And on comes the alcohol, parties, drugs, hookups and fudging work while parents pay gigantic checks so that we can be here. It's fun and it feels pretty safe in an environment in which the consequences of poor choices can be assuaged by Advil, a shower and a white lie to your professor.
But when we have no one telling us to stop or steer us in one direction or the other, it's a free-for-all. I don't actively seek opinions on morality and behavior. I don't want a herd of awkward religious zealots singing outside my door or a matronly dorm mother telling me I should consider what message I'm sending boys when I dress a certain way. But we all need to hear what we don't really want to hear, however aggressive or extreme or un-sexy it may be. Every once in a while you want people to try to force their belief systems on you, because it compels you to examine and defend your own decisions and conduct.
Right now we don't even need to think about our behavior, or whether it lines up with whatever belief system we were raised with or have constructed now that we don't come home to annoyed parents at the end of the night. Not taking the time to consider and weigh your decisions is a lifestyle adopted as easily as you can forget the rules with which you were raised. Our university is unwilling to take on the role of the guiding parent and, in the absence of an administration or student groups who aggressively push morality, some of us have gone adrift. I'm not saying that I want an administrative moral crackdown, but I am saying that without it, we need some other incentive to examine our moral behavior.
We all make bad decisions here, but that's not the real problem. The problem is that we don't think about it a whole lot and sometimes don't even realize we've made a choice at all.
The other night, looking out my window in Edens, I saw some guy relieving himself in the middle of the quad. My roommate yelled at him and, unembarrassed and unfazed, he tried to engage her in conversation. There's not a lot of high-stakes morality involved in public urination, but still, without his mother there to scream at him, or a Godsquad to shame him in his folly, why the hell wouldn't he?
Lindsay White is a Trinity sophomore. Her column runs every other Monday.
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