As indicted members of the "culture of crassness," we tend to credit the administration with pointing the finger at us accusingly and alliteratively, though the phrase was actually coined last spring by then Duke graduate student and Chronicle columnist Preeti Aroon. We've enthusiastically overused the catchy expression ever since, to describe everything that's not quite right with Duke. We recite in the same breath the familiar lacrosse canon: racism, sexism, elitism, athleticism; the catalogue continues.
Proffered examples of our crass behavior abound, including everything from standard weekend bacchanalia to subtle forms of sexual harassment. Speculation on the origins of and possible remedies for this cultural defect runs rampant, as the spotlight continues its rotation, shifting its glare from athletic codes of conduct to admissions policy.
But proposed causes, effects and solutions aside, have we satisfactorily defined the crassness that supposedly so clearly defines us?
Our failure to construct a working definition of crassness has lent the so-called culture built upon it an aura of impregnability. But whereas the question of what makes crassness a culture may remain shrouded in ambiguity, individual crassness is both recognizable and describable, and perhaps deserves the closer look.
There have been complaints that the post-lacrosse committees charged with addressing our culture of crassness cannot effect real change; student consensus seems to be that a successful, far-reaching campus initiative must come about organically, not forcibly. But this necessitates not a dismissal of the committees and forums created to address our concerns, or indeed a dismissal of concerted student and administrative efforts, but instead a change in our interpretation of what the Campus Culture Initiative stands to accomplish.
What is the Campus Culture Initiative but a call for individual introspection and appropriate individual action? Instead of viewing CCI goals as lofty abstractions of what the Duke Community at large could be or should be, consider them personal reminders for reexamining the crass thoughtlessness that seeps into our daily routines. We are all guilty of crassness, regardless of where we stand on drinking culture, athletics culture or greek culture, all of which have been targeted as cesspools of crassness by media uninterested in the systemic significance of personal accountability.
Crassness characterizes our refusal to move back that extra step on a loosely packed C-1, even as desperate underclassmen board and attempt to wedge themselves behind the yellow line. Crassness is the stinging smell of burning cigarettes wafting through the windows of students congested and asthmatic, while smokers light up next to doors and under open windows, safely tucked away from sight. Crassness echoes in the sound of the faucet always left running in the empty communal bathroom and takes on the look of unread newspapers tossed into hallway trashcans, only several feet away from hungry recycling receptacles. Crassness consists in anonymity, which makes for a comfortable lack of accountability.
A drink or two always helps when attempting anything morally questionable; under the influence, we divide ourselves from judgment, both our own and that bestowed by onlookers.
Almost as seductive as total lack of accountability is shared accountability and the partial anonymity that it implies. So long as we march with a mob and blend into the background, we have the satisfaction of swapping our half-formed thoughts with full-blown masquerades. We hire strippers for good times or bang pots and pans in a triumphant call for truth without the facts.
Crassness is about presenting our slapdash opinions and pursuing careless desires under the comfortable cloak of faceless namelessness, and mistaking our pronouncements and actions for courage, conviction, intelligence or entertainment. We stand strong only in packs and pit our lump-sum brawn against the created enemy to prove our identities: as the elite vs. the socially forgotten, the marginalized vs. the caricatured perpetrators, students vs. vilified administration, Duke vs. the world and its Nifonged misconceptions. It's us against them, mostly because the dichotomy makes for a tidy and well defined fight.
We wrap ourselves in layers and obscure our thoughts with generalizations, comparisons, alliances and the carelessness of daily routine.
The Campus Culture Initiative fulfills a mission, so long as it prompts us to take even one small moment to strip ourselves of the many faces we present to the world-as Duke students, big siblings, parents' joys, model minorities, All-Americans, club presidents, team captains, volunteers-and hope that a decent human being is what remains.
The culture of crassness is not unique to Duke, nor is it to be found in a bottle or on a lettered sweater; it is rather the kind of worldwide pandemic that makes a small gesture of kindness from a stranger so startling and doubly delightful. We know crassness is the chasm between private and public self. Before and at and after Duke, closing the gap means integrity, personal accountability and consideration for others as a way of life, not strictly as a mode of exhibition.
Jane Chong is Trinity sophomore. Her column runs every Wednesday.
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