I cursed violently as I swung the towel towards the light bulb on which he stood. His wings beat rhythmically and his stinger stood poised as he darted from the light to the vent. I grabbed a random book from my shelf to accompany the towel, my primary weapon. The book happened to be The Life and Times of Goethe, which I took out from the Pingry library during my Sophomore year for some inexplicable reason. Now fully armed, I engaged in hand-to-hand combat with The Wasp for roughly ten minutes. My room became a battlefield. A family of Trolls and a teddy bear named Wally served as collateral damage as the towel struck them off of their respective homes on my bureau. My rage blinded me; I paid no attention to my slain comrades and instead pursued that wasp to his grim death.
Each slash of the towel represented a twenty minute block spent staring at the computer screen waiting for a column to appear. Each launching of Goethe toward the doomed wasp reflected the frustration of having a white space and nothing worth filling it with. Furiously, I attacked that wasp; furiously, I attacked abandoned goals, complacency, and regret. I attacked plans that would never come to fruition and ideas that would fizzle away like trendy philosophy.
That wasp is what was keeping me from creating something new, from writing something I could be proud of. His looming threat prevented me from being honest and, most unfortunately, from taking risks. I hated this wasp because he didn’t want to hold me accountable; he didn’t want to express himself, engage in healthy discussion, explore the situation intellectually. He didn’t want a synthesis of ideas; he didn’t want mature and productive discourse. No, he wanted repercussions; he wanted to sting anonymously and escape.
By allowing the wasp to dictate my actions and impede my creative attempts, I turned him into an authority. His authority was attained through my fear, not through any legitimate means that would justify his power. After disabling his flight capabilities, I watched as he crawled desperately around my floor, pondering a last-ditch effort of either victory or escape. I could have helped him. I could have outstretched my arm, taken him by the wing, and become his merciful savior. Instead I looked into his eyes, lifted Goethe above my head, and crushed the oppressive beast against the wooden floor. After giving his corpse one more glance, I went downstairs and called my mother to pick him up and flush him, out of fear that he might start buzzing around again when I touched him. That was the end of my valiant embroilment with The Wasp.
The wasp had to die. He was old; he was obsolete. His struggle for power was based on his manipulation through fear and his control through intimidation. We cannot allow ourselves to be stifled by stingers; we cannot allow ourselves to let power go unchecked. At the beginning of the year, I wrote a letter from the Student Body President that was put into the handbook and the directory. In it, I wrote, “Ideally, an academic institution should foster the free exchange of ideas and encourage discussion and diverging viewpoints. Unfortunately, that goal of true learning is often severely hindered by rigid tradition and narrow perception.... Students are the ones who need to call for new ways of thinking and demand that their ideas not be sculpted by a given authority in order to conform to conventional thought.”
In this quote lies a somewhat embarrassing irony. Originally, my letter included some innocuous (read: blandly unfunny) jokes which I had hoped would set a moderately lighthearted tone. While this letter was being read over by several sources for approval, I was told that the jokes were inappropriate. Sorry, that is misleading; the jokes weren’t inappropriate, the concept of “humor” in the student government letter was inappropriate. I hadn’t realized that some things are just too sacred for humor. So, I removed the jokes. Bzzzz, bzzzz.
After the rally was canceled because of mishandling by the administration, it was announced to the students that the event was canceled because I had publicized it on an Internet website. In fact, this matter had been discussed, and it was agreed upon that I would alter the message on the site; I wasn’t even asked to take it down completely. The decision to cancel the rally occurred after all this had been settled. Yet, the students were told it was my fault. Bzzzz, bzzzz.
During the all day forum on the war that I held the week after the rally was supposed to take place, I had made flyers to alert students about it that gave the information, encouraged attendance, supported the “teach-in” assembly, and asked for people to come outside for the purpose of “being informed and to support the rally that was canceled.” I was made to cut off the bottom of the signs that mentioned the rally. Bzzzz, bzzzz.
After the “teach-in” assembly in which I participated, I was told by two students in two different classes that their respective teachers not only disliked my speech, but decided to “persuade” their students to adopt that same viewpoint. Bzzzz, bzzzz.
Now, I mention these things because they are my own experiences. All of you have these experiences; all of you have felt scared to take risks, scared to be honest, scared to express yourselves in certain ways. All of you have seen mishandled authority and have felt the need to declare it as unjust. All of you have felt the pressure to be silent out of fear of those who disagree or, even worse, will be offended.
Do not be intimidated. When you offend those who are CERTAIN they are right, when you make people who don’t want to feel uncomfortable feel uncomfortable, when you place intellectual and creative honesty above fear of reaction, you will evoke not just rancor from a certain contingent, but, much more importantly, respect from many.
Instead of buzzing around, stingers vibrating with eagerness, when we don’t agree with something, why do we never hold the person accountable? Let’s make that person defend his position, let’s test his intellect, let’s challenge him instead of intimidating him. We should be ashamed that students sometimes feel scared to disagree with a teacher because of that teacher’s attempt to have the class conform to the teacher’s opinion, as was the case when the aforementioned students wanted to say that they liked my speech.
“Students are the ones who need to call for new ways of thinking....” This is true when arguing for a student government proposal and this is true when overthrowing an oppressive regime. It has to start with youth, with students. Be skeptical of authority, be aware that things don’t always have to be this way, and be ready, when the time is right, to pick up that Goethe book and make a difference.