Okay, I didn't really. But someone did, and I applaud him or her. Whether it was a cutting political statement, or just a pretty good joke, it got my attention.
Unfortunately, it also got the attention of 78 of our fellow Dukies, and they were not pleased. Those 78, including Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology Diane Nelson, signed an exceptionally inane letter to The Chronicle last Monday registering their protest against whatever fascist menace it was that dared insult Jessica Rutter. That letter deserves to be considered line-by-line. I recommend holding your nose while you read the bits in italics.
In response to the graffiti on the bridge targeting a member of our community, we write in the spirit of the Danes. The story goes that when the Nazis ordered the Jewish people of Denmark to wear yellow stars, everyone in the country put one on. Actually, that never happened. Washington State University folklorist Jens Lund calls the story "a fable." The liberal website WagingPeace.org calls it "a myth." And according to the Holocaust History Project (Holocaust-History.org), "The yellow star was never introduced in Denmark." Oops. Yes, this is a quibbling point; but if members of our community-especially a professor-are going to talk seriously about the Holocaust, they need to get their facts straight.
To whomever it was who wrote "Jessica Rutter out of Duke" on the East Campus bridge at the end of last week, we say, we are all Jessica Rutter, there are hundreds of us who stand for peace at Duke. Now, let's be very clear about this analogy. Is the bridgewriter a Nazi? Is Jessica Rutter a persecuted Jew? Are those "who stand for peace at Duke" going to be loaded into cattle cars, shipped to concentration camps, tortured and murdered? Because that's what it looks like the letter is trying to say. If that's not the analogy the 78 signatories intended, they're just victims of bad writing. If it is what they intended, they're something much worse.
This is where we study and live and think and act and love and will remain. If the bridgewriter thinks that one person leaving campus will slake our thirst for justice, the willingness to question authority, and our deep and abiding passion for the human rights of all people, they are sadly mistaken. Seeing as the 78 have such a passion for human rights, I assume they understand the principle of reciprocity. That is, if I try to take away someone else's rights, my rights are automatically forfeit. That's why we differentiate between prisons and kidnapping.
With that in mind, let me posit a new right: freedom from stupidity. Most of us are paying tens of thousands of dollars for an education, and I say anyone who subjects us to stupidity wastes our time and violates our rights. That's Jessica Rutter to a T. Doubt it? Read anything she's ever written in The Chronicle. My personal favorite is the column from last Oct. 24 in which she declares kindergarten "oppressive."
Do Rutter & Friends object to the bridgewriter? Then I invoke reciprocity-turnabout is fair play, after all.
But in all seriousness, certain people need to stop flattering themselves. So Jessica Rutter has a "thirst for justice," a "willingness to question authority," a "deep and abiding passion for human rights"-bravo. No one wants to persecute her for any of that. What we object to is radicalism, incoherence and self-righteousness. Most of us at Duke are smart enough to recognize stupidity when we see it and too smart to put up with it for long. So we object to Rutter & Friends, and we will take every opportunity we have to poke holes in their vanity.
That's all the bridgewriter was doing. No one's getting kicked out of anywhere. There are some 12,000 undergrads, grad students and professors at Duke, and it looks like only 78 of them took the bridgewriter seriously. Why them? Probably because they take themselves so seriously.
They imagine that when they write "U.S. Out of Iraq" on the side of a building, it actually helps bring about the removal of the U.S. from Iraq. So when someone else uses the formula "X Out of Y," they imagine it will have the same magical result. That's why they read "Jessica Rutter Out of Duke" as a threat instead of a parody. But in terms of actually removing people from places, "U.S. Out of Iraq" and "Jessica Rutter Out of Duke" are equally useless. Both are ultimately meaningless.
Jessica Rutter & Friends are masturbating into the void. The day they realize it, and stop, will be a great day for us all.
Rob Goodman is a Trinity sophomore.
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