In his Oct. 21 op-ed, "Be in fewer clubs," Alex Baskin exhorted students to increase the quality of their dedication to extra-curricular activities by decreasing the quantity of groups they join. In contemporary society, particularly within the culture of Tufts University, this is not a particularly feasible suggestion. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes once suggested that individual rationality leads to collective irrationality, which in turn creates a terrible state of nature. Not to spend a lot of time interpreting Hobbes, but for the purpose of this argument, the idea is that if each person does whatever is best for him- or herself, it will be detrimental to society. I scored the idea when I was first introduced to it in class. I excluded myself, along with others who shared my paradigm, from the classification of people who put their own interests before those of society. I truly believed that there could be a large enough body of people who understand that compromising on social issues would be better overall, since when the collective benefits, all of its members are able to reap the benefits as well. Baskin's op-ed demolished my unmerited self-righteousness; he caused the façade of idealism that I set up around myself to disintegrate. I realized that I was in no way above submitting to my own individual desires without even considering their impact on a greater community.
While on big, prevalent issues I would surely compromise, the idea of joining clubs for my own benefit rather than that of the greater good never occurred to me. I was co-editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper, and co-president of our Heifer Club (we fundraised for Heifer International, a non-profit organization that sends animals and resources to impoverished and struggling communities around the world). Of course I did these things to help others. So then why is it that when asked by prospective students or upperclassmen what I am involved in, I start to feel inferior when I cannot enumerate a long list of causes and clubs with which I align myself? Just last week I found myself writing in my journal about my overt affiliation with one particular group, and my desire to be able to transcend being associated solely with that one interest. We all deplore the high school student who lists a plethora of clubs simply to demonstrate to colleges that he or she is well rounded, and yet we find ourselves doing the same thing in college. Why?
The reasoning goes back to the concept of individual rationality. It makes sense that for our own personal sense of identity and self-satisfaction, we want to avoid having other people brand us as affiliated with only one thing, thereby letting that one thing define us. We all want to know about and understand things and impress others with our ability to contribute positively to the world by spreading (albeit overrated) awareness about copious laudable causes. We all want to diversify our interests and to present to the world a picture of ourselves as cultured, knowledgeable and possessing distinctly varied experiences.
Yet, collectively, if we let ourselves be interested without feeling pressured to compete for more leadership roles than we can execute effectively, we would display collective rationality. Individually, however, we would not each be as well-rounded. And we will never relinquish that. We cannot ignore our desire to know as much about esoteric topics as the next person, even if the only use of such limited knowledge is sometimes just to have meaningless conversations about it. At a school such as Tufts, which is so invested in the liberal arts mentality of trying out and pursuing a wide variety of disciplines, the social standard of being involved in more initiatives than one can possibly fully commit to will never cease to be the status quo.
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Lauren Greenberg is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
