A Duke education is supposed to teach you how to think and, as a result, our classes are buzzing with words like interpretation, evaluation and integration.
Call it what you will-analyzing, critical thinking or questioning-I'm curious to know how many Duke students truly understand the issues they claim to be analyzing.
The true process of analyzing anything, be it the dominant paradigm or the smallest assumptions, is long and laborious. It requires, among other things, a constant evaluation and re-evaluation of available data, theories and models. All in all, the process has multiple steps, is downright frustrating and does not always yield a completely coherent and easily understandable answer.
Instead, it seems that most students engage in something called an "abridged analysis."
An abridged analysis is an incomplete process. It involves asking only a few questions, not pursuing the issue to the point of suitable explanation and using dangerously little information to formulate one's opinion.
For example, an abridged analysis would rightly take up issue with some parts of the Constitution by pointing out that Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owner... and then stop.
But does this fact diminish the worth of the Constitution in any significant way?
Sure, one of the nation's founding fathers owned slaves. But the wonder he helped create is still here and has to a great extent helped shape a country whose citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living known to man.
I don't know if Pythagoras owned slaves, but he lived in a society that employed slaves. In fact, it can be argued that it was slave labor and the subjugation of many barbarians that allowed him to lead a life devoted to mathematics. Is the Pythagorean theorem any less special as a result?
In fact, Dear Old Duke itself is an institution whose history clearly shows... well, let's not go there. Don't get me wrong. By no means do I approve of or attempt to justify slavery-which should certainly be clear.
And I love Duke University. The weather is great, I have tremendous respect for Coach K and I am still amazed at the sheer beauty of the Chapel. I think the students have the best combination of intelligence, character, and ambition to be found anywhere and that our professors are both approachable and insightful-there's no other place I'd rather be an undergraduate.
But I also think that sometimes we, as Duke students, get carried away with the simplicity we find inside one of the richest schools in the world. Someone else cleans our bathrooms, our own police protect us and brilliant minds buzz around us-all with a world-reknown medical complex only a hallway away. We're living a fairly protected lifestyle that most people can only dream of.
Because of such sheltered treatment, we fall into the trap of thinking that we are the overachieving elite of the world and that the future rests solely on our shoulders. In reality, most of us are barely two decades old, we have not seen much of the world and we still have not faced the majority of life's tough decisions. To think that we can solve, or even completely understand broad problems of human nature is youthful callowness on our part and a dangerous consequence of living inside a glass bubble.
Thus, reflecting the revolutionary goals we attempt to accomplish, the answers we do formulate take on shallow and unimpressively simplistic forms: The solution to the economic crises in third-world countries is to forgive their debts and give them more aid. The salvation of children in sweatshops half a world away lies in not buying brand-name clothing. We can stop various forms of violence by wearing creative T-shirts. Maybe that is somewhat understandable-after all, at Duke, things really are that simple.
But then we go out into the "real world" and face a different tune. In the real world, most people get out of bed well before noon, have two weeks of vacation per year, are held accountable for their actions, rarely get extensions on projects and have real responsibilities: house and car payments, electricity and heating bills and families to feed. In the real world, an injustice goes far beyond the frats hogging up the best housing options. In the real world, experience is still the best teacher.
And so it might just be that, when all the responsibilities add up, world peace and elimination of poverty can be seen as they really are-abstract notions that no longer seem so achievable when one has a 40-plus hour per week job, a family and no housekeeping staff.
So what happens in the end?
Most Duke students went to Myrtle Beach-perhaps the debate over the Confederate flag ended up being too confusing and complicated to fully understand. After all, the boycott never could change the facts: life is short, cheap keg beer is plentiful, classes are over and the sheer anticipation of hooking up with a hot Tri-Delt makes one forget that Thomas Jefferson once owned slaves.
And the abridged analysis kicks in again....
Marko Djuranovic is a Trinity junior and Medical Center Editor of The Chronicle.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.