The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 16, 2007 Page: 3 of 24
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16,2007
Guest column
Philosophy students trapped by elitism
As a philosophy major, I know that
there is a certain stigma surround-
ing the study of philosophy. There
are likely to be playful jabs from
friends and classmates
that philosophy never
accomplished anything,
and that once one wades
through the quagmire of
semantics, philosophers
are little more than idle
minds who muse about
unanswerable questions.
I take slight offense
to this view. Philosophy
students do not spend their
waking hours cogitating
and contemplating trivial
platitudes. Rather they analyze,
criticize and interpret questions
and arguments that have persisted
through out the ages. This view
that the field of philosophy is law-
less, trivial and equivalent to "make
believe" is juvenile and uninformed,
and 1 feel that most philosophers
ignore it.
However, having gained an in-
sider's perspective, 1 would like (o
offer my own criticism ofwhat I have
seen of philosophy undergraduate
students at Rice.
1 will try to be blunt: I believe that
there is a certain tendency among
philosophy majors at Rice to act more
like Enlightenment-era socialites
than university students. Let me paint
a brief picture of the two to see how
they compare. The socialite spends
his or her time gossiping about the
newest movements within the court
or salon, feels that he or she is above
the common peasant — both intel-
lectually and socially — and makes
everyone around him or her acutely
aware of that knowledge and/or re-
lationships with figures of authority,
wealth or power.
The philosophy student at Rice is
guilty of many of the same tenden-
cies. The philosophy major makes
catty remarks about persons whose
work he or she has read and name
drops others in order to impress
Brett
Snider
those around him or her. The philoso-
phy student has an air of intellectual
snobbery or elitism that seems to
stifle discussion in a classroom set-
ting, especially in classes
outside the philosophy
department. This is not
what I would expect from
the average university
student, and I admit to the
reader that I cannot escape
my own criticism in many
respects. I have found
myself makingjudgments
about class readings based
on the traditions they arise
from, much like a socialite
gossips about one's ances-
try or noble ties, and 1 would like
to posit that perhaps the history of
philosophy as a discipline lends itself
towards this type of thinking.
There is a certain
tendency among
philosophy majors at
Rice to act more like
Enlightenment-era
socialites than
university students.
()ne cannot deny that many of the
fathers of philosophy were outright
elitists. From the ancient Greeks,
to the scholastics, and even the
enlightened Europeans, the fathers
were enamored with the idea that
they had somehow grasped a truth
that none outside of their circle had
accessed. This exclusivity naturally
lent itself toward philosophies and
ideas that formed hierarchies within
society, which unsurprisingly placed
the philosopher at or near the top.
Philosophers themselves were nota-
bly high on the pec king order: Many
of them spent their leisure time in a
court of nobility that favored their
ideas, and the discipline was consti-
tuted almost entirely of upper-crust
white males.
This characterization of philoso-
phers persists to this day. Although
the aspects of wealth and chauvinism
have been mitigated to some extent,
the philosophy students and philoso-
phers of the 21st century are still
very culturally and racially homog-
enous. It seems that the traditions
of old, the salons of France and the
courts of Germany and England still
bleed through our contemporary
notions of social equality and egali-
tarianism. I would hope that at this
point in the history of philosophy.
One would be able to divorce the
taint of elitism and exclusivity from
the notions of truth or enlightened
thought, but I think this is wishful
thinking. Without self-realization
and reflection on these problems
of elitism, whether unconscious or
inherited from the tradition, these
issues will persist through many
more generations of philosophical
thought and thinkers.
So to the philosophy student at
Rice, ask yourself if you fall victim
to these generalizations. Are you
eager to dismiss others with a flippant
remark about their philosophy or
writings? Do you hold yourself above
those non-philosophy students in dis-
cussion or just in general? Have you
mentioned Heidegger, Nietzsche or
any other authoritative mind in order
to exclude and impress rather than
inform or further discussion?
I believe that this endeavor
should not be taken as insulting or
hurtful, but rather an outgrowth of
the tradition of criticism in which
philosophy students are raised. I
take this criticism of philosophers
seriously, and I encourage the reader
to question my assumptions and of-
fer their own criticisms.
Brett Snider is a
College senior.
Hanszen
Guest column
Lack of parking reduces RUPD to meter maids
Rice University police officers
need more to do.
Imagine this scene: It is midnight
on a Friday, and I am just driving back
into Rice to dropoffagroup
of friends from an evening
of bowling—a nonalcohol-
ic evening. 1 have dropped
of f my friends and am about
to pull into Ix>vett Lot to
park my car when 1 see a
police car's lights flashing
and a loud megaphone
screaming: "Please pull
your car over." I honestly
cannot think of anything I
have done wrong: My car is
moving at about live miles
an hour in the parking lot, and 1 am
just parking.
I stop and wait for the officer
to approach and announce my
dreaded fate: "You did not use your
turn signal when you pulled into the
parking lot." To my look of utter
surprise — red and blue lights
flashing, the dramatic pullover just
for a little turn signal — the officer
quickly adds: "And you look like
you have been drinking — your
eyes are bloodshot."
I/*t's just say that Rice students'
eyes are bloodshot a lot of the
time — and not just from drinking.
We sometimes get only four hours of
sleep per night, study for eight hours
straight or eat too much spicy Tex-
Mex. For this officer to suggest that
I was drinking because my eyes were
bloodshot — and thus forgot to use
a little flashing light — is ridiculous.
Hut that is beside the point. The
point is that Rice police officers
need more to do than take out their
boredom on students. I admit that
working at Rice is probably not the
Jackie
Amnions
most exciting law enforcement job
in the world — except on Wiess
College's Night of Decadence. Once
inside the hedges, life is relatively
calm and peaceful.
However, this does
not justify giving out an
obscene number of park-
ing tickets for idling in 15-
minute loading zones or
pulling over a student for
trivial mistakes. Instead,
officers should be grate-
ful for the overall good
behavior of the students
and reward us by cutting
us a little slack for not
completely stopping at
the stop sign or leaving our car in
a loading zone for a few minutes.
This also means that officers will be
available when my car gets broken
into or I need an escort back from
the gym late at night.
three quarters of a mile to West Lot
during the day on weekends. In ad-
dition, there are very few short-term
options. Students usually put on their
flashers and pray that the parking
gods will have mercy on them while
they put groceries up in their rooms
for a few minutes.
Sadly, there are no smiling poking
gods — just the merciless police of-
ficers who will be out to get me for a
rolling stop after I write this column.
Jackie Ammons is Brown College
sophomore.
Leads the Way
Rice spirit needs community
audience, says Sammy
Hi, I am Sammy the Owl.
Two weeks ago, as the football
team put together a historic come-
back against University of Texas-
El Paso, I peered up at
the student section to
discover that most stu-
dents had already left. I
was shocked. Forget the
bowl game, forget all of
last season, and all of
recent football history
— Rice missed one of
the greatest moments
in program history.
With only a couple
of diehard fans remain-
ing, I could not "lead
the way" for the students to rush
the 50-yard line. There were
hardly any students to stand,
cheer or even drink more beer.
I understand that we were down
by twenty points in the fourth
quarter, but what happened to
the "Rice! Fight! Never die!"
spirit?
After mulling over recent
events from my roost in the
owlery, I believe that it is my duty
to remind the Rice community,
and the student body in particu-
lar, why they should be excited
about all things Rice.
Regardless of whether you
are an undergrad, graduate
student, faculty, alumnus/a,
staff, extended community or
any other individual associated
with Rice, you are an Owl. The
Rice Owl is the one thing that we
all have in common — it binds
us together as a community,
and we should take pride in
being Owls.
Stephen
Rooke
the Conference USA Champion-
ships and the NCAA Midwest
Regional Championships.
But it does not end with ath-
letics. Rice students
produce and act in
numerous theater
productions each se-
mester. Rice Dance
Theatre, a student-
choreographed mod-
ern dance company,
enriches our under-
standing of movement
and art. The Philhar-
monics and Low-Keys
harmonize. Spontane-
ous Combustion goofs
off on stage to make us laugh.
The Baker Institute Student
Forum addresses important
global issues. The Student As-
sociation and college cabinets
provide student leadership. And
students collaborate to discover,
among other topics, cancer cures
from zebrafish, better tools for
carbon-neutrality and new meth-
ods of passing legislation in West
African nations.
It is important
that we create a
strong tradition of
supporting our peers.
What happened to
the "Rice! Fight!
Never die!" spirit?
In spite of being one of the
smallest Division-I athletics
programs, Rice's sports teams
have had incredible success.
The baseball team rallied to
finish first at the end of the
regular season and third in the
NCAA College World Series. The
swim team recently won Rice's
second-ever national champion-
ship at the 2007 Open Water
Swimming Collegiate National
Championships. The women's
cross-country team surprised
eight nationally ranked com-
petitors at the Notre Dame
Invitational, and then followed
that up with victories in both
To borrow from the Public
Af fairs depar tment, who knew be-
ing a Rice Owl meant so much?
Thus, I, Sammy, challenge
every Rice Owl to never miss
another great moment in Rice
history. Attend Shepherd Cham-
ber Orchestra performances.
Peruse posters presented at the
Rice Undergraduate Research
Symposium. Cheer for your
favorite powderpuff, softball and
ultimate frisbee teams.
Rice students already par-
ticipate in a wealth of activities,
but we need to do a better job
as fans. It is important that we
create a strong tradition of sup-
porting our peers.
I understand that not ev-
eryone loves football, classical
music, architecture or politic. I
know, however, that someone on
this campus does and we should
take it upon ourselves to be in the
audience to encourage them.
Most of all, be spirited and
stay until the end.
Stephen Rooke is a Hanszen
College senior.
Rice police officers
need more to do than
take out their boredom
on students.
On the other hand, maybe this is
more of an issue that the Rice admin-
istration needs to deal with. Maybe
this problem is less of a product of
police officers' boredom and more a
result of the lack of parking options.
With the Abercrombie Ix)t gone
for North College students and the
limited spots available in the U>vett
Ix)t, Rice students have the options
of either getting a ticket or walking
the Rice Thresher
Stephen Whitfield
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Whitfield, Stephen. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 16, 2007, newspaper, November 16, 2007; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443211/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.