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The Gadfly
02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com
!"#$%&&'%$(")*++,Owen Morgan
A’17
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadfly reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The next Gadfly submissions will be due May 2, at 11:59 PM. Next meeting Sunday, April 27. Articles can continue to be sent to sjca. gadfly@gmail.com. Outgoing Staff Nathan Goldman Ian Tuttle Hayden Pendergrass Incoming Staff Sebastian Barajas Noe Jimenez Allison Tretina Contributors Jessica Benya Caleb Bernard Patrick Kelly Danny Kraft Owen Morgan Justin Shucher Hugh Verrier
!"#$%&'(%)*+&#",e present to you the W final issue of the year. It’s hard to believe
it’s already terminado. The Gadfly will be taking a seista for the summer. In the meantime, you can mull over ideas for a column, practice your photography and sketching skills, and start listing your advice for los niños who will be joining us next year. Everyone, enjoy your summer. ¡Hasta luego, Juanitos! !
— The New & Improved Tripulación ARC Gadfly
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Answers On Pg.8
The Gadfly
03
!"#$%&'()*+",!"##$%&'("#%)'*+, Former Peace Corps volunteer, Matthew Gates, has used his skills of questioning and farming to face agriculture issues in Rwanda. In this profile, he discusses his road from St. John’s undergrad to Food Security and Agriculture Coordinator. What is your current job? Food Security and Agriculture Coordinator, Mennonite Central Committee, Rwanda. I run a cooperative project with five Rwandan NGO’s promoting zero-tillage and soil conservation among members of thirty rural credit unions throughout Rwanda. I also have an advisory role for a no-till project in Burundi and hope to begin some work in DR Congo soon. Did you attend other schools after St. John’s? I have a master’s in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University. Did you know what you wanted to do while attending St. John’s? No. Did St. John’s help prepare you for work in the field? St. John’s instilled in me an appreciation for learning together and instilled a blurred distinction between teaching and being taught, both of which have allowed me to cultivate a degree of much-needed humility in working with farmers. Good extension work is very much a process of learning together and asking questions, and those are skills I learned at St. John’s. What didn’t St. John’s prepare you for? Everything else. Any specific disadvantages to a St. John’s background? Unfamiliarity with conventional scientific writing and lack of research skills were certainly a disadvantage. How did you feel you compared, in graduate school or early jobs, to people from different educational backgrounds, particularly those with field-related degrees? I entered graduate school after serving in the Peace Corps. I was in a program in which virtually everyone had been out of school and working for several years, so it was more an atmosphere of shared professional experience than a really competitive academic environment. I did feel a little unprepared for some of the chemistry and biology, but I was able to learn them with some concerted effort. Can you describe a general track someone from St. John’s might take to get into a career in this field? For agriculture generally, it’s a hard to say. Personally, I joined the Peace Corps having no idea what I was getting into. Because I had worked on farms as a summer job in high school and college, I was assigned to work in agriculture and agro-
forestry in rural Senegal. I had a great time, learned a lot, and ended up staying a third year. Any general advice, especially for an upperclassman who is interested in this field but is not quite sure what to do? Spend some time, either during the summer or after graduation, getting any kind of farming experience you can. Definitely consider Peace Corps, or some comparable service experience, if you’re interested in the international side of things. How did you market yourself with a St. John’s degree? To the extent that I marketed myself, it was largely to lay tenuous claim to abilities in subjects such as French and science. But, in all seriousness, if you’re able to come up with some quick quip that communicates the basic idea of the program, it will make you seem interesting and well-rounded. How would you characterize your field as a whole? Is it accessible to newcomers or difficult to enter? Stable or fluid? Etc. The intersection of agricultural, environmental, and economical issues is a fascinating area to work in. Agricultural extension is a great file with a lot of really wonderful people in it. It’s a field that puts as much, if not more, weight on real-world experience as on academic-theoretical pursuits. It is a field in which ideas are constantly evolving. There’s a fair amount of deep, even bitter, disagreement on a lot of very basic concepts. Practices that were universally admired a few decades ago are often now thoughts to be actively harmful. This might sound grim and, in many ways, it is, but it leads to a lot of very intense self-doubt among practitioners, and a burning desire reconcile theoretical formulations with often very messy realities of a farmer’s life. Everything is questionable. Some degree of failure is inevitable. It’s a field that demands a lot of humility and lots of honesty. What was your senior essay topic? Personal and world-historical consciousness in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. What is your favorite book on the Program? Descartes’ Le Monde. Do you find that you lead a philosophical life? Day-to-day, most of my time is spent doing things that need to be done. Philosophy certainly has been a guided me into the field that I am in. Time to reflect, however, is not something I often have. !
04
!""#$%&'(%)'*+,-$.(-$%&' Hugh Verrier
The Gadfly
A’14
For the third consecutive year, student-run recycling has fettered development while also promoting traditional values. featured prominently at Croquet—even making it into the of- I called his position untenable because it is, as far as I can tell, ficial “branding,” with wristbands proudly proclaiming that based on the premise that it is possible to preserve our values Croquet has “gone green.” I am proud of our environmental while also obliterating the land that forms our individual and engagement, which to me is an unequivocal indication of the cultural identity. pride we Johnnies take in our community. Such a premise is misguided. Oakeshott On the verge (some would say brink) of recognized that human society is formed Environmentalism is an by the particulars. You cannot separate our graduation, I have had the opportunity to expression of that age- values from our history, our culture, our reflect on the role of environmental activold conservative fear: ism in our community over the past four traditions, our familial and religious affiliyears. These thoughts snowballed into the ations, or our land. I am Canadian, and the the fear of losing our following general observations. I felt it rivers and forests of rural Quebec have inidentity. would be appropriate to share them here, formed my own growth and identity. We all in part because they touch on the question have such a place, or places; a land that we of what it means to be a “Johnnie”—a conhave become a part of, and that has become nection I will address later. a part of us. As creatures with material needs, we are inevitaFirst, it strikes me that concern for the environment is fun- bly tied to the earth that sustains us. Environmentalism is an damentally conservative. By “conservative,” I do not refer to expression of that age-old conservative fear: the fear of losing the neo-conservative—that mixed ideological breed who la- our identity. ments the loss of traditional values while simultaneously adImagine if The New Program shut down tomorrow. In a vocating the unrestrained development of our lands and wa- sense, every alumnus would be orphaned. Some part of their ters. This position, admittedly par for the course in modern identity would lose its roots. Whether they appreciated their conservative thought, strikes me as untenable. experience here or not, this education is formative, and one Instead, I am referring to the traditional conservative—ex- cannot renounce the effects of such formation. They are part emplified by such thinkers Edmund Burke in the eighteenth of you for life. Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. century, and Russell Kirk and Michael Oakeshott in the twenSo it goes with land, water, and air. We cannot renounce the tieth. The last of these summarized his political disposition in effect a particular place has on our identity or values. But we a wonderful paragraph:
“
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the un known, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of more profitable attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep, to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the excitement of novelty or promise. It is to be equal to one’s own fortune, to live at the level of one’s own means, to be content with the want of greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one’s circumstances. Here Oakeshott recognizes that, while necessary, progress should be incremental. This conclusion is born from the observation that change always causes loss, but only sometimes brings gain. In this sense environmentalists are preeminently conservative—they are acutely aware that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. How imprudent, then, to develop an entire forest at once, or to jettison industrial waste into our lakes! To both Oakeshott and the environmentalist, such grand, sweeping initiatives are often ‘Sicilian Expeditions’—hubristic over-reaches with unintended terrible consequences. Much better to proceed with caution—to prefer “familiar relationships and loyalties” to “the allure of more profitable attachments”—to be, in a word, conservative. Above, I imagined a straw-conservative who advocates un-
Continued On Pg. 8
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The Gadfly
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05
Justin Shacher A’17 Dearest Polity, Hello. If you do not know me (and you are likely in the majority if you don’t) my name is Justin Shacher, and I’m an overdramatic and remarkably neurotic freshman. If you’ll bear with me, I’d like to do three things for you: Tell you the abbreviated tale of this past year, sing the praises of the Class of 2014, and publicly offer my services to said class, and the rest of the polity as well. And, while doing these things, I will try to do one thing for myself: not sound too idiotic. This time last year I was lying in my bed, sobbing With praises sung uncontrollably, watchand story told, I ing Tangled for the 17th now publicly offer time, wondering, and and wonderyou my services, wondering, ing, “When will my life Dearest Polity. begin?” My gap year was coming to an end, and my friends would soon be coming home. They would talk of newfound friends and parties, classes and grades, midterms and finals, professors and extracurricular activities. And I would talk about my countless mental breakdowns (and Tangled). I had wasted my gap year, which I had taken for no other reason than trying to recover from having wasted four years of high school, and not wanting to waste away my college experience. I thought my life would begin when I stepped foot on this campus. I thought I would be confident. I thought I would be studious. I thought someone with a name like Eugene Fitzherbert would ride across the red bricks on a white stallion with a big personality and sing a duet with me while floating lanterns crowded the campus. Okay, not really. But I did expect some sort of romance. What happened when I got on campus? I moved into my dorm, and alternated between vomiting and lying down in my new bed, because I was so unbelievably nervous. So I made no friends that day, and though I did make polite small talk with my roommate and his parents, I otherwise abandoned all hope of success here. I made no further friends until a particularly spunky woman, another freshman, introduced herself, and then proceeded to drag me around to talk to other people (Thank you, Ms. Cawood). And as a result of such a lucky break, I decided by the end of the first semester, all of my dreams would come true. And at the end of that first semester, where was I? Lying in my bed, sobbing uncontrollably, watching Tangled for the 26th time, wondering, etc. I think you can guess how successful I’ve been this year. Why bother telling you this? Well, because if you haven’t already, you should go watch Tangled. More importantly though, I’ve become an expert on feeling unsatisfied. I know all too well what it is like to have regrets pile on you at the end of some part of your life you hold dear. And the 2013-2014
“
school year is one such period. And for some of you it was your last year at St. John’s. Congratulations, Class of 2014. You’ve overcome innumerable essays. You were enabled. You tackled many of the most confusing, dense, and mysterious books the western world has to offer. You sang, probably sang pretty well, and you sang a lot. You made friends. You kept some of them around. You gave at least one, and probably many more, neurotic and overdramatic freshman something to aspire to. And whether you like it or realize it, you’re all super adorable. With praises sung and story told, I now publicly offer you my services, Dearest Polity. If, while reflecting on your time here, you find yourself as I often have, with regrets, ideas never brought to fruition, or any wisdom you would like to share with others, then I’d love to hear it. Because as peers, and as humans, you have consistently proven yourselves and your ideas worthy of being shared with the world. And if I can help in any way to record, or share, or work to bring to fruition any ideas you delightful folk may have, then regardless of my own personal shortcomings, then I will leave St. John’s (hopefully three years from now), having in no way failed myself or others. And hopefully, you’ll feel the same. Warmest regards and best wishes, Justin Shacher (408)-644-4261 justin.shacher@gmail.com
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The Gadfly
06
The Injustice of Modern Schools Daniel Kraft
A’13
Hey, Polity, I’ve missed you! It seems like only yesterday that I was still a student and my biggest concerns were for the next seminar reading or the Guardians’ margin of victory. But times have changed. I’m writing now to share with you a secret: despite what our experiences, national laws, and rhetoric tell us, compulsory public education in this country does not exist. Sure, we require kids to show up at a building called “school,” but that doesn’t mean education takes place. I don’t say this in any kind of liberal or artsy sense. Our school systems don’t offer a “real education” directed towards truth or beauty or whatever. The reality is much more dire than that. In low-income public schools across the country, students do not receive even the most necessary skills for higher education, employment, or the chance to craft a meaningful life. I’m a middle school teacher in beautiful Tulsa, OK. I work in a highly impoverished school. The average 7th grader comes to us reading at the 4th grade level. My job is to work with our lowest readers. My students are intelligent, hard-working and have supportive families. But they read on average at the 2nd grade level. I have 8th graders who do not know the alphabet and could not sound out most of the words in this article. This is a tragic reality. The failure of our schools traps whole American communities in brutal lives they cannot control, lives of poverty and helplessness. I heard the statistics before I took this job. Only 47% of black males in this country graduate high school, though in many districts that number is much lower. By the end of 4th grade, students in low-income schools are at least 2 years behind their high-income counterparts. Entire neighborhoods, thousands of families, and millions of children’s futures are at stake in the failure of our educational system. There are a myriad of reasons for this injustice. Writing about them would take up more pages than the Gadfly can spare. Poverty, the failure of integration, systemic and institutionalized racism, low payed teachers, and the terrible bureaucracy of public institutions, all have combined and conspired to rob too many children in this country of a future. The chief culprit that makes me angriest and turns this issue from a tragedy into a crime is the terrible apathy most middle and upper class Americans feel towards the issue. So many times I’ve mentioned the name of my school to a Tulsan, only to have them respond with a kind of half-laugh, and something to the effect of: “Yikes! That’s a rough school, isn’t it? Wowzers, I’m glad my kids don’t go there!” They say this as if that’s just the way the world works, as if some kids get good schools and others don’t. We might as well just laugh at it
and shake our heads and then stop caring. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can change this status quo. I’m not asking you to become a teacher in a high poverty school. Although if you’re up for it, that would be wonderful. I’m only asking you, at the very least, to open your heart and mind to the situations of those in these kind of schools, those you might otherwise scoff at. The families who send their kids to failing schools want and deserve a good education as much as anyone else. They just don’t have the resources to guarantee it like their whiter or wealthier peers do. We need to lose the mindset that considers these schools simply “rough,” simply “failing.” When we write these schools off, we accept the status quo. We accept the fact that by virtue of zip code or household income or skin color, children living in the same cities as us do not have the opportunity to be adequately educated. I know the status quo can change because I have seen it. I have students who’ve grown over a year in reading in this semester alone. I don’t say this to show you that I’m a great or transformational teacher—trust me, I’m not—but to illustrate that kids with tremendous disadvantages can show tremendous growth. Sometimes all they need is someone who loves them and is obsessed with reading. But I’m only one teacher in a vast school and a vast system. Please consider taking time to volunteer at your local, disadvantaged public schools. Even a couple hours a week can have an unspeakable impact in the life of a child. During my time, it’s true, I’ve seen children commit extraordinary acts of disrespect, cruelty, and violence. Most days I feel defeated and depressed by their terrible power. But I’ve also seen moments of breathtaking compassion, perseverance, and love. I’ve seen students come to peace with themselves and with their experiences in ways that only can be described as actions of grace. I’ve seen illiterate teenagers read fluently for the first time in their lives. The instant when they realize that they can read, learn, and possibly have a future is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. In your thinking and talking, I urge you to keep in mind that all children can learn and deserve the opportunity to do so. If you want ideas for how you can use your strengths and resources to be a part of this movement, email me. Kids’ lives hang in the balance. On my toughest days when I feel ready to give up, I remind myself what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said: “In a democratic society, not all are guilty, but all are responsible.” If our generation takes responsibility for the failure of our nation’s impoverished schools, we can end the opportunity gap that exists in this country. Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox now. Go Guardians! !
The Gadfly
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07
!"#$%&'&()#*)#+"),-(&*.'-)/%""0 Jessica Benya
A ‘17
For that Beauty everlasting Do I write with ink and pen. From worlds far it chose to land On this earth of mortal men. Came sweet graces of the Lord, Brought by they who never die, Round the circle of the World And circumference of the sky. Echoed by angels of the darkness, From the mighty, ancient deep, To the arc of highest heaven By the star-gods in my sleep. 123#3(4,(536#2*$7+%8%79:&3;
Rejoice we all in Her the one! Possessed of cosmic light. She whose fairness we do praise And sing for such a sight. With the hautbois and the lyre, Strings, harpsichords, and lutes, No harmony we fear to make. Praise her with fagottos, and flutes! All the choirs of high heaven Clangorously resound, Praising her and God almighty, Through the galaxy around. Exalt her we do with the drums, The trumpets and the fife. Organs blast for her and He, Salvations of my life.
In my last freshman laboratory, my tutor brought the class out back to the magnolia trees in the courtyard by the fishbowl so we could end the year just as we started. The class scattered to look at the magnolia trees and there was something different—something that wasn’t there before. I stood next to a faithful friend of mine and we reminisced about the year. Then I remembered that the last time we were here, the courtyard was filled with anxiety of a sort. I met this same friend when we were simply trying to figure out the college, and had a case of the New-Johnnie Jitters. It’s progressed so much beyond that. Now everyone in the class knows each other, some better than others. Over the year, like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics starts to explain in Book Beta, we have either habituated ourselves to be courageous or cowardly. Looking at the magnolias for the first time, I hadn’t imagined how much would change: how some people who nearly didn’t speak at all would become a prominent voice in the class, how a dear pair of friends would stick together the whole year while others split, how logic from a seminar read-
ing would be used against someone for a real life issue. And may we not forget those who we barely came to know, who would leave early in the year or announce their plans to leave once the school year had ended. From a freshman point of view, certainly this is skewed. I can’t seem to fathom it changing anymore. Though I couldn’t fathom anything that has happened during the year either, and that was why the courtyard changed. The magnolia trees changed. Everyone since the beginning of the year has changed, no matter if they want to admit it or not. The magnolia trees have grown. We have grown enough to see maybe a few new things about ourselves that would prove to be prosperous as we continue. The magnolia trees stand tall, just how one would to defend a point in seminar. Finally, at least to us, the magnolia trees have settled in the spot they currently stand. Watching orals and being active in extra seminars, it seems that the anxiety escapes even more. Though we can relax now, we have no idea how it will change in the next few years—seemingly, for the better. "
The Gadfly
08
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Continued From Pg. 8 can lose the lands that have become a part of us, and the effects of such a loss are devastating and dehumanizing. Environmentalism is the recognition that we must preserve our mountains, our deserts, our Arctic, and our waterways if we hope to preserve ourselves. To give up these places to immoderate exploitation is to surrender who we are – as a culture, a people, or a nation. Why articulate these thoughts in the Gadfly? Because the polity of St. John’s College is a conservative community. I hear the pitchforks rattling, so let me quickly defend myself. There are few polities with such profound antipathy toward change. Think of our response to Siegelvision, or the intense self-reflection we engage in regularly through organs such as the SCI—with little concrete reform ensuing. Change happens slowly here. This is
because we appreciate that what we have is very good, and we are consequently sensitive to what we may lose through aggressive advancement. Yet our antipathy to change has not naturally extended to our physical environment. Because of the nature of our experience here, it is not surprising that we identify far more with our polity and the Program than we do with College Creek. But I am glad to see that our culture is slowly changing in this respect, and glad to have seen the recycling efforts at Croquet grow each year—a testament, I think, to a growing sense that the pursuit of Virtue and the cultivation of our polis require more than abstract notions of the Good. These undertakings demand that we eschew cavalier enterprise and reject our inner Icarus in favor of keeping, cultivating, protecting, and enjoying. !
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