!"#
$%&'()
!!"#$%#&!'()*+,!-*(.$+/0!1!23 !!-45(674/!8&9(++&:!1!2; <=9!'467(+*05*6!'(/+400!1!2> !"##$%!&#'()&?!@!A*#.!"6944+*+,!1!2B
! !"#$%&'()!$*&++,-,$.$/0$*&++,-,$12,3$1((14&+5!3$67$89:09$.$7,*#$903$809;$.$2&+#$<<<2$.$5!!=,$0>
photo by Sarah Meggison photo by Johnathan Gooch
The Gadfly
02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadfly reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. As of December 10, 2013, the Gadfly is on hiatus, pending new leadership. No meetings will take place during that time. Articles can continue to be sent to sjca. gadfly@gmail.com. They will be held until the Gadfly returns to a regular printing schedule. Staff Nathan Goldman • Editor-in-Chief Ian Tuttle • Editor-in-Chief Hayden Pendergrass • Layout Editor Sasha Welm • Illustrator Will Brown • Staff Andrew Kriehn • Staff Robert Malka • Staff Sarah Meggison • Staff Contributors Jessica Benya Eric Evans Brian Liu Tim McClennen
!"#$"%&'()*+,&-*(.#+/0 Jessica Benya
W
A’17
inter break is almost here. Already the campus is filled with chilled air running across your face, leaves dancing through the wind, and a mixture of trees—some barren, others as full as the magnolia. Every night continues to have its own little twist, as if the campus somehow became a realm of Grimm, filled with a fairy tale of some type with a moral at the end of each one. Some stories take longer than others, and some stories barely last a day, but as soon as you finish one, you can’t help but fall right into another. Only a semester. It’s only been a semester, but so On the first day, much has already occurred. Socially, academically, the second I everything seems to have escalated to a new degree. walked onto Then there is a funny word that comes to mind: recampus, an empty strictions. You were thrown into a completely new string fell into my environment, and as you adjust to it, those who are hands....That string used to the change or who have been here for a while claim you have put too many restrictions upon youris a string for diaself. But that is simply not the case. monds. On the first day, the second I walked onto campus, an empty string fell into my hands. I did not see it, nor was I able even to fathom it, but it was there. Everyone received one unknowingly, and all of a sudden college life began. It took a while to see the thread: it took the harsh realizations I had when I came here after such an array of experiences. But now I see it. That string is a string for diamonds. Such beauties are earned, though, and not only by experience, but by what you have learned after the fact. If the knowledge that follows an experience is not acknowledged, then a diamond has yet to be earned. Therefore, each diamond is different, from the way it is shaped to its texture. Nor can you rush a diamond in the making. It remains undiscovered how long a diamond takes to form, for some take days , some months, some even a million years. Just like a personal realization. You can’t rush that, either. What may come as a realization to you could take much longer for someone else, or vice versa. Those who own some diamonds may have forgotten that fact and try to rush others to earn them. Go and earn those diamonds on your own time; don’t feel pushed into trying to make one when you’re already in the process of creating another. !
“
!"#$%&'(%)*+&#",-
W
elcome back to the pages of the Gadfly. We hope you have enjoyed this semester’s issues, and we cannot thank you enough for your contributions. However, we want to offer a much broader thank you: for your readership and support during our nearly two years as editors of the Gadfly. It has been our privilege to work with talented writers, artists, and photographers, to produce a newspaper that, we hope, provided a forum for the expansion of the conversation that, at St. John’s College, takes place in and out of the classroom. We inherited the notion that the Gadfly was “the voice of the Polity”; we hope
that the many voices that have spoken through our pages have started a new discussion, furthered the dialogue—or, as has often been the case, provided a much needed dose of humor when tensions rose, when bleak midwinter rolled around, or when Dining Hall food had you down. We Johnnies are used to talking and listening, but, of course, that takes place only after writing and reading. The Gadfly has sought, over its lifetime, to ensure that the reading and writing around here are not restricted to the authors on the Program, but that every member of our community has the opportunity to scribble—to ponder, to
contemplate, to challenge, to provoke. We believe that providing that outlet serves the health and growth of our Polity. It is our hope that other students believe the same, and will ensure that the Gadfly remains a vibrant part of the community for years to come. We want to offer a special thanks to Hayden Pendergrass, our layout editor. Without him, this newspaper would have been impossible—or, at least, impossibly ugly. Hayden: Thank you for contributing your talents, your late nights, and your Spotify password. Best of luck in the new year, Johnnies! —Nathan Goldman & Ian Tuttle
The Gadfly
03
Detached Tyranny? D.C. Accountability Zeke Schumacher
A’15
S
t. John’s has resurrected ancient Athens. Second, the Council showed that it does not believe that the Has this noble goal been accomplished through Socrates’ Polity supersedes the Council in authority and right. For if the teachings of Virtue? Has our regimen of reading and reflection authority of the Council comes from the sole fact of its prior instilled a love of the Good in us? Has Solon made us work existence, and not from its constitution by the Polity whentirelessly toward our own betterment, unflinching in the face ever the Polity last voted to exercise its rights to “establish an of adversity? instrument of governance,” then the Council had no need to No. We have instead allowed a once-democratic Delegate allow the Polity to exercise its rights. This is precisely what Council to rule over us oligarchically, as though we were its occurred. subjects. Third, the Council showed that it believes itself to have I shall return again to the Preamble of this new constitu- some sort of eternal and immutable existence, authority, and tion, as it serves to lay out the ideological foundations for the right above the entire Polity. For since the Delegate Council entire work and is a lens through which remained the same in a visceral sense— to view what the Council thinks itself to no new elections were held to appoint be: This is the entire aim of my representatives or officers under the “We, the students of St. John’s Colwriting: to push the Council new Constitution—then it is easy for the lege in Annapolis, Maryland, recognize: Council to fall into the illusion that its to become truly represenour right to establish an instrument of power comes from its members themtative by communicating governance; and our privilege, vested in selves, and not from the play documents with the Polity at large.... us by the Dean, to have an active role in that define their purpose as servants of deciding policies and priorities.” the Polity. Let us demand accountI will not here go into the differPerhaps this is why there is now an ability from the Council, ence between right and privilege. That Oath of Office. Article III, §1, states : “All starting with the rejection should be, at least in kind, apparent to delegates and officers…shall recite before of this constitution, and us all. the Delegate council an oath of office to ending with a Council that be determined by the Delegate CounIf the Council believes that it is the truly represents the Polity. cil.” Representatives on the Council are right of the students to establish an instrument of governance, then why did not representatives of the Polity—they the Council run this right down? The are oath-bound to the Council, not to us. Council, in passing a new constitution while denying the right What oath need there be except to serve the Polity in accorof the Polity to establish its government, sent several disturb- dance with the Polity’s will as expressed in the constitution? ing signals. And why should it not be sworn before the true holders of First, the Council showed that it does not believe that the power—the Polity? Polity Constitution actually constitutes anything. If the Polity But this is not possible, as serving the Polity is not the aim does not have to vote on the new constitution—or the amend- of the Council any more. Its aims are to “manage funds…sancment granting the Council the “authority” to pass it—then ob- tion and regulate all student clubs, organizations and activiviously this constitution is not “establishing an instrument of ties; create and manage Polity Law; and appoint committees… governance.” So what is happening? to further the execution of its duties.” Article I, §3 of the new constitution is entitled “Authority.” And the largest failing of this council is found in the PreamIt states that “the authority of this constitution is the basis for ble: “we hereby institute an undergraduate government to…esthe conduct of all business in the undergraduate government. tablish a forum for the free exchange of dialogue,” presumably The Council is an established, organized body with authority to “represent student interests.” But the Council has shown vested in its representatives and officials.” This is its whole that it cannot effectively communicate with the Polity, either text. to inform the governed of what the government is doing, or to This Article reveals that the Council thinks itself an entity receive meaningful feedback from the Polity as a whole. that exists above any Constitution or consent of the Polity. This is the entire aim of my writing: to push the Council There is no explicit statement of the source of authority— to become truly representative by communicating with the there is only the intimation that, because the Council “is an Polity at large. By giving opportunities for consideration and established, organized body,” it has authority already by virtue discussion to the Polity at large—that is, by keeping students of its existence. Reading the past tense here, we must conclude informed—we can break down the barriers to governance and that no new “instrument of governance “is being established, cognizance that exist and undo the detached tyranny that the because it already has been. And if it has already been estab- Council has become. Let us demand accountability from the lished, then this new constitution is nothing more than a for- Council, starting with the rejection of this constitution, and mality of restructuring powers. ending with a Council that truly represents the Polity. !
“
The Gadfly
04
!"#$%&'()*+&'$,--.&/$01$+2&$3"*4/ Eric Evans
A’14
T
he Great Hall is a better space than the BBC computer lab. But consider, for example, Rivendell from Lord of the Rings. We can feel it. It allows us to be free, whole, and at peace. It’s an eccentric example, but that’s okay. Its design is a testaIt lets us flourish. Yet we spend a good portion of our lives in ment to this proposition: If it makes us flourish as beings, there spaces like the computer lab, which make us feel dead and must be something true about it. This is why we feel that we wasted inside. It is important to note that this is a feeling, and would flourish if we could be there. This is the opposite of stothat we all have it. So say we’re trapped in a world with lots of icism, and indirectly a counterpoint to Descartes and Bacon. It places like our computer lab: What are our options? There are feels like a much more beautiful proposition than Descartes’s, only two: 1) stoicism, or 2) architecture. and is a more sensible place to start philosophical/scientific Stoicism takes that feeling we all have, plugs its fingers in inquiry. its ears, and says, “I’m not listening!” Or, less harshly: “I don’t But the West didn’t take that route—instead, we say that rerecognize my feeling about this space as real—who’s to say my spectable knowledge is what can be mechanically modeled; evfeeling is relevant, valid, or actually informative about the way erything else is either not knowledge (a belief, opinion, preferthings really are? I say it’s not.” Stoicism is nothing but a giant ence, or taste) or not really scholarship (metaphysics, art, etc.). problem, because not only does it try to label as unreal feelings Yet the mechanistic model is not rich enough to account for all that everybody throughout all time feels, but also because it of our experience. For example, as Alexander argues, it leaves cripples the world by denying the existence artists in the cold. It also cannot tell us what of problems that need solving. is good. In fact, the two are related: that is ...we say that reStoicism is architecture’s degenerate twin. why modern architecture seems so arbitrary. spectable knowlArchitecture says, “I recognize this feeling as As Alexander says, “Architects make differreal and as valid. Furthermore, we all agree ent idiosyncratic choices because within the edge is what can on it (so it is likely objective). Rather than mechanistic worldview it is not possible to be mechanically retreat inwards and ‘solve’ the problem by function mentally without making some primodeled.... Yet the severing my relation with the world, I acvate choices of this kind.” mechanistic model knowledge that spaces really do have an efThe mechanistic view cannot furnish us is not rich enough fect on me, so I will make good spaces.” Only with statements about value because in a by this architect’s manifesto are we whole. If to account for all of mechanistic world the good is not an absowe are stoics, then we are attempting (and lute, accessible to rational discourse, but a our experience. calling virtue) the amputation of the part of matter of opinion. The mechanistic worldourselves that feels one way or another about view limits what kind of statements can be a certain space. I see something ugly, so I will gouge out my considered true or false. Alexander says: eyes. We read a few stoics on the Program, but no architects. This So far the 20th-century response to the arbitrariness inheris not because architecture is an inferior practice to stoicism. ent in mechanistic thought has been to keep on asserting It is because of an historical accident: Philosophy came up the dignity and privacy of value: … ‘Science only tells us with a new idea that justified the proposition that our feelabout facts. It is your natural right to work out your own ings are invalid, retroactively legitimizing the philosophy of values. Not only will our scientific worldview not tell you stoicism instead of the philosophy of architecture—that idea is anything about value, it is your democratic obligation to do the mechanistic conception of order. it for yourself.’ But [this] makes cooperative work, collaboChristopher Alexander, a philosopher-architect most active ration, and social agreement very difficult in principle. It has in the 1970s who believed that modern architecture systema superficial permissiveness which seems to encourage difatically falls short, attributes this mechanistic conception of ferent opinions. But what is encouraged, really, is only the order to Descartes. (I would point another finger at Bacon.) essential arbitrariness of ideas rooted in a mechanical view. According to Alexander, Descartes’s method was this: “If you want to know how something works, you can find out by preThis is a giant problem here at the College. To believe that tending that it is a machine. You completely isolate the thing value, that the good, is a matter of personal discretion, deteryou are interested in...and you invent a mechanical model... mined only by unaccountable, idiosyncratic internal forces, which obeys certain rules and which will then replicate the is effectively to believe that what we do here is useless. If we behavior of the thing.” The mistake of Descartes’s populariz- believe in “the dignity and privacy of value,” then we believe ers, then, was to confuse actuality with mechanism, to say that that philosophy can only be done alone, that its fruits are only reality actually is mechanical. To what effect? Alexander: “The for us to eat, and that philosophical discussion cannot lead to picture of the world as a machine doesn’t have an ‘I’ in it....The knowledge of anything except other people’s opinions. inner experience of being a person just isn’t part of this picThe poverty of the mechanistic worldview in dealing with ture. Of course, it is still there...but it isn’t part of the picture Continued On Pg. 05 we have of how things are.”
“
The Gadfly Continued From
05 Pg. 04
determinations of value banishes the most important ques- even give accounts of what these feelings are and how they tions from serious academia—“What is the good?”, for exam- act. These feelings are not relative; they are objective as the ple—since they cannot be answered by mechanistic inquiry. truth is objective, and that is likely because our feelings acTheir answers become a private matter, aided only by the arts, tually are informative about the way things truly are, though which in a mechanistic world have to do only with essentially most of us have trained ourselves to mistrust them. idiosyncratic regions of ourselves. There are no longer grounds to conceive of the world, or Yet the very formulators of the mechanistic worldview— of ourselves, as actually mechanical (though that is not to physicists—became its most potent critics. The say that mechanistic modeling cannot be apmechanistic view only gained traction and repropriate for certain applications; only that ...there was scispectability by analogy to the hard sciences, ence before there it should never be confused for a faithful deespecially physics, but it is precisely there, in scription of what is really going on). Hence, was a mechanis- there is no reason to deny the validity of our quantum mechanics, that such a worldview is tic worldview, overthrown. As it turns out, the basic, underlyfeelings. But where does that leave us? What and it may have ing composition of the world is not like a maconception of order is the right one, or at least chine, which can be analyzed into independent a better one? gotten someparts, but like a living thing, whose parts defy We can look to quantum physicists, who thing truly right analysis because they are proper to the whole. continue the intellectual arc of Bohm and that we’ve been It may even be that the whole can feel (nonStapp. Modern quantum physicists know that getting wrong for the world isn’t mechanical, and we can look to local causality recalls Aristotle’s Prime Mover). 400 years. Yet we did not need quantum physicists to see what kinds of things these scientists untell us that the mechanistic conception of order earth in the future. We can look, in the presis inadequate: All we have to do is go into McDowell to re- ent, to Christopher Alexander, who attempted to broaden member that our feeling is real, even though no machine could science to account for feelings and value judgments that the recognize it. We encounter this truth unimpeachably during mechanistic model was too impoverished to explain. (Alexansophomore year. We note that no oscilloscope can register or der lays out a new worldview in his four-volume series The model dynamic qualities, but that these are nevertheless feel- Nature of Order; the earlier quotes came from the first volume, ings that we all have. These feelings are objective, even though The Phenomenon of Life). But we can also look back, before they do not submit to mechanical modeling. These feelings are Descartes and Bacon, to those like Theophrastus and Aristoscientific in the sense that one can observe them as universal tle. After all, there was science before there was a mechanistic phenomena that possess such precision and consistency that worldview, and it may have gotten something truly right that all of Western music can be built on them, and that we can we’ve been getting wrong for 400 years. !
“
06
The Gadfly
!"#$%&!'"(&) +$,#-.,! *
Tim McClennen
T
A’14
he principle of democratic (please note that this is a small self personally; he just thinks that “d,” and that I am not referring to any existent political a plan of his own imagining, or at party) representation is to elect the person who feels as simi- least choosing, is such a plan, and lar to you as possible about as many issues as possible, and will he wants his representative to imtherefore vote exactly as you would if you had their seat on plement that plan. as many bills as possible. The principle of republican (again, Finally, I seem to have erased any distinction between a resmall “r”) representation is to elect the person with the best public and a democracy, as long as there is universal suffrage. judgement, who will make the best decisions, even if you Certainly, in a representative democracy, a voter who is not would vote otherwise on the individual bills, through your a passionate patriot will want what is most good for himself, own limited judgement. even at the expense of a lesser good for the Of course, the definition of “best decision” nation as a whole (even if he does not want ...whether we is already an issue. That is: what is meant by what is good for himself at the expense of the posit passionate “best”? There is the decision that is best (most harm to the nation as a whole) and will elect patriotism or not beneficial) for the voter himself, without rea candidate who promises to do that when in gard to anyone or anything else. There is the office. In a representative republic, a similar passionate padecision that is most beneficial for the nation, tepid patriot will vote for the candidate who triotism, there is even if that decision is less beneficial for the will do the most benefit to them (the voter), no real difference particular individual voter. I am sure that otheven if they are not telling their representabetween republican er types of best decision are also possible. tive how to bring that about. But people disrepresentation and agree on what is beneficial to themselves, and Let us assume that all voters are passionate democratic reprepatriots and therefore want the most benefit so will vote for the representative who agrees sentation, except to the nation as a whole, not at the expense with them on what is beneficial to individuals, of harm to themselves (that would be radical or, to put it another way, will do the same as for honesty. patriotism, which is beyond passionate patrithat voter would, if he got the office instead of otism), but at the expense of lesser benefit to the candidate. So, whether we posit passionthemselves than the most possible. Therefore, if such a patriot ate patriotism or not passionate patriotism, there is not real is voting according to republican principles, then he will vote difference between republican representation and democratic for the candidate who he thinks is most likely to make the de- representation, except for honesty. That is, the one admits that cision that will most benefit the nation as a whole. he is only doing what his constituents want, while the other But there is not agreement about what will benefit the na- pretends to act according to some principle, while he is in fact tion. If two such republican patriots are voting in the same (in secret) a democrat. election, and disagree on what constitutes the good of the naLet us extend the analysis. When an elected representative tion, then they might make opposite decisions for the exact makes an unpopular decision, that is, a decision different from same reasons. what the majority of his constituents would do if they held the Thus, a candidate who wishes to get elected by republican seat, the result of that decision is an effect on the nation that principles must show that his understanding of what is good some will call a benefit to the nation and that others will call for the nation is the same as the understanding of the people not beneficial to the nation. Thus, when contemplating such whom he is trying to convince to vote for him. That is: that an unpopular decision, and athe will, when in office, do the same as these people would do, tempting to calculate what efif they had the office instead. That is, the republican fect it will have, the repreprinciple of choice is the sentative acts in such same as the democratic a way as to make principle of choice, the effect one with the added layer which the maof “for the good of jority of his conthe nation as a whole.” stituents will Of course, a democratic call beneficial to patriot also wants what the nation (if he was is good for the nation elected by passionate as a whole, even patriots, or beneficial at the expense to his constituents if he of what is less was elected by not pasgood for himsionate patriots). !
“
07
The Gadfly
Ian Tuttle
I
A’14
f despair comes naturally to conservatives, it is in the same way that obesity comes naturally: on the whole, as the result of too much of a good thing—the good thing being, for the conservative, what Spanish philosopher Miguel Unamuno called “the tragic sense of life.” That sense liberals don’t have. Despite a tendency to start from outrage at the world’s myriad injustices, liberals are constitutionally optimistic. History is a grand ascent toward Justice. We’re getting better (“evolving”) all the time. Once the human race sloughs off the knuckle-draggers, we’ll frolic our way toward Eden hand in hand. Some of that same reflexive optimism exists on the Right. Jonathan Tobin, senior online editor of Commentary magazine, edged toward such triumphalism in his recent web piece, “Rescuing Freedom from Despair,” at Intercollegiate Review:
again. In the years succeeding the fall of Rome, it fell to monks gathered in scriptoria to preserve the learning that had accumulated over the previous centuries, and by their teaching were the works of Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Virgil passed on. Even an unsympathetic twentieth-century scholar could say of the monks, “To them, both collectively and individually, was due the continuity of thought and civilisation of the ancient world with the later Middle Ages and with the modern period.” Their time and their task are not alien to the modern conservative. In his landmark volume After Virtue, philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre concluded, “What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us….We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless very If American exceptionalism means anydifferent—St. Benedict.” MacIntyre is not thing at all, it is that belief in individual despairing. He is articulating something “There is no such thing liberty is embedded in the political DNA conservatives already recognize: their as a Lost Cause, because monastic vocation to preserve, in Matof American society. The collectivist and there is no such thing utopian impulse that has ravaged other thew Arnold’s phrase, “the best that has as a Gained Cause.... societies...must always collide with that been thought and said.” When circumimpulse, and the result of such collisions stances are propitious, perhaps those We fight rather to keep is an inevitable if not always swift victory things can be taught, perhaps those truths something alive than in for those who stand for more freedom refined by the ages can be evangelized; the expectation that it against advocates of government as bewhen circumstances are not, the best we will triumph.” nevolent despot. can do might be to hunker down for the —T.S. Eliot long night. But amid the former we esI want to stand with Mr. Tobin in this chew talk of “victory,” and amid the latter declaration—it has such gusto—but his we do not despair of “defeat,” because we strokes are too sweeping. Conservatives ought not to despair recall that, in T.S. Eliot’s words, (it is, as William F. Buckley Jr. said, a mortal sin), but if they do, it stems from their crucial “tragic sense of life,” that conThere is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no stitutional hypersensitivity to the precariousness of their posuch thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes besition. Conservatives are acutely aware that our gains are gotcause we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preften incrementally, when gotten at all, and are always apt to be ace to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will lost at a blow. We do not see history as an inevitable ascent be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than toward Olympus, but as a struggle to maintain the garden in the expectation that it will triumph. against never-ending sorties of encroaching weeds. Liberalism struggles and strains toward new achievements. The barbarians are always at the gates, and conservatives There is always more to be done, progress to be made. But don’t presume that they will ever be stamped out. Rather, we conservatism strives to conserve. We are the custodians of accept that our task is simply to keep the flame of the eternal traditions tried and refined by history, and of those things things burning no matter how close the hordes come. ! within them that have, over the ages, enlivened and elevated the soul. We are the keepers of passé beliefs and old-fash- [An earlier version of this article appeared at the website of ioned ideas, which, though buried by the press of time, we are Intercollegiate Review. It remains available there, alongside certain will someday reassert themselves, strange gods come Mr. Tobin’s article, mentioned above.]
“
08
!"#$%&'() *+*',Tuesday 12/10 Kunai Netball 4 PM Collegium 7 PM Wednesday 12/11 “The Life and Legacy of a Proud Johnnie: Roberto Salinas-Price (A’59)” Library, Nutt Room 3 PM Basketball Championship 7 PM
The Gadfly
!""#$%&'()"'&**+',$-"
Blood Brother: A Film Screening Brian Liu
A’16
F
or me, the first “torpedo fish” of freshman year is the staggering complexity of virtue. What is it?, and how does it manifest itself? Indeed, if we try to sum up the entire Program and these Great Books, some may conclude that the whole endeavor is really to discover what virtue is. More importantly, many of us came to this college to begin seeking out virtue in the hope that, uncovering even a bit about it, we might live in a better way this life we have been given. I know I did. In sophomore year (so far), I’ve seen authors and characters continuing to probe the question of virtue. Lucretius, Epictetus, and Tacitus all give accounts, though sometimes abandoning the moniker of virtue. One of the most provocative accounts is that of Jesus Christ, who tells of denying yourself and carrying your cross daily (Luke 9:23), claiming that in doing so, your life can be saved and your self preserved. I’ve wondered what kind of virtue he was getting at with that illustration. But in that passage, one thing is clear: there is an exchange involved. There is a cost. I remember Aristotle telling me what to do to live virtuously, but I do not remember him telling me about any price or sacrifice. I know that for myself I often fail to realize that there is a price involved in doing good in this world. I don’t often understand how painful a choice sacrifice can be—and I also often don’t realize how much worth and meaning there there can be in fighting and sacrificing. It is for this reason that on January 18, the Film Society and I will be hosting a screening of the recent Sundance-winning documentary, Blood Brother. Blood Brother follows the life of Rocky Bratt, a young man with a broken, abusive past, who finds something worth fighting for: he sells all that he has and moves to an AIDS orphanage in India. His decision is difficult; it entails suffering and even death—but through it all joy, meaning, and friendship emerged. The film has garnered rave reviews for its powerful, provocative, evocative portrayal of an incredible life. So, allow me to add another question to the pile of those about virtue: Is there a price to it? If so, what is the price? (And seniors still pondering post-graduation life, perhaps Rocky Bratt can help....) So please, join us—maybe we can find some answers together. Blood Brother will be screened in FSK Auditorium on January 18, 2014. !