5/15/2013!

Wowza, it’s been a month since I’ve written to you last. What have I done since then? At least 40 hours of improv and a nice chunk of job interviews. I guess I cracked the cover letter code ’cause the percentage of responses I’ve gotten has gone way up! And with every interview I do, I get closer to employment and closer to conducting real world research for my story about a guy losing his sense of humor because of his employment and going on a journey of self-discovery that entails re-discovering what it means to be funny.

I think regular employment will be good for my improv because it may ground me in doing improv for its own sake as opposed to in order to get better at doing improv or to stand out as an improviser (because I’ll crave improv more after working or because improv will be less on my mind in general).  While I might deliver the laughs, the desire for getting laughs may be placing a wedge between myself and my scene partner. The result is that what my partner says to me is an opportunity to say something funny rather than to provide a more genuine response or to further build the scene together.  Or maybe that’d be the opposite of what’s best because who doesn’t like a show from a unique personality that’s fulla laughs?!

But that’s not why you’re excited to be clutching this letter in your hands (I’m assuming you read your Internet by holding the monitor like a book). “Ah, geeze, more philosojunk?” No, no philosojunk! Instead I’ll be laboring for laughter, toiling for titters, and gigging for giggles!  The leader of the fuck around gang is back! It won’t be 100% philosojunk is what I’m sayin’. “Jeeze, he’s back peddlin’ already!”

No, no! Check this out: is it just me, or are you also confused every time someone says, “My wife,” but they don’t say it like Borat? I don’t just mean you want the person to have said, “My wife,” but you’re also looking around the room wondering, “Seriously?” Especially if someone says, “My wife,” a bunch of times in a single paragraph because then it starts to feel like this person might be going out of their way to not say, “My wife!” Do they have a vendetta against Borat? I mean, they’re already on the verge of self-parody by talking about their wife as much as they are. We get it! You have a wife! So can they really not say it just once? Not once?! Really? Ridiculous! And don’t get me started on, “Great success!”

I’m back!

TTYS!

With love, Ben

4/15/2013!

I started writing a letter and partway through I realized I had to backtrack, re-examine my thoughts, and start all over. At the outset I was thinking about gerrymandering and how it doesn’t seem worth it to me to compromise the integrity of democracy to push through a particular agenda–especially since I think an agenda is more like a wish than a guarantee. That’s because people are imperfect and, as a result, any system they try to create will ultimately be imperfect. That doesn’t mean to me that you ought not to try; rather it’s an invitation to be less strident and less unwilling to compromise because even if you got 100% of your way you’re wish still isn’t going to come 100% true.

Next, I turned my attention to the question of how do you decide how much of your agenda you want passed and why do you want it passed right away? I thought about all the different arguments, protests, campaigns, etc that I’ve seen and how a lot of times people’s behaviors seemed arbitrary to me because I didn’t have a sense of their interiority. I would just see glimpses of people’s reasoning while missing their emotions, associations and memories, lives, etc. These are all things that are in play when people make decisions, but often times they’re left out of the discussion.

I remember I used to think that all conflicts were the same in so far as conflict is the opposition of two or more forces. What that meant to me was that events on the micro scale can allow us to make sense of events on the macro-scale and vice-versa. I also thought that a lot of times people don’t feel comfortable addressing issues directly so they use the language of politics, for example, to code their views so that they can have an approximation of the discussion they really want to have in the public arena.

Given the above and my feeling that I was missing a sense of interiority from these different people/movements, I decided to flip the script and direct my attention on why I do things instead of why other people do things.  So let’s say someone did something that irritates me; I’d lose my temper because, hey, why are you doing that thing that I find annoying– I’m mad!–or I could let it slide. Why not let it slide? “Because they should know better! They could change!” But what’s wrong with what they’re doing anyway? Maybe it doesn’t matter or maybe you’re the one that’s in the wrong! These are realizations I’d come to as I grew up. Do a lot of people simply need to grow up?

How about this: sometimes I say to myself, “I’m never eating cake again!” And then I say to my family, “No more cake in the house!” ‘Cause I’m compensating for cake eating! So when I hear people speak out at length about, say, homosexuality, I, like many others, often think, “What are you compensating for?” And when I get judgmental about something, I’m often just being pissy, focusing on the negative rather than the positive. Why? Plenty of times it’s because I’m jealous of someone or simply because I find a particular behavior threatening.  “But I think homosexuality is immoral!” Sometimes I say, “You shouldn’t eat cake,” when, hey, what about all the cake I’m eating! And what about all the stuff I’m doing that I shouldn’t do! “That doesn’t mean cake/homosexuality is okay.” No, it doesn’t, but it does point to the question of, “Why are you so concerned about others rather than yourself?” Because, in my experience, being concerned with yourself and those in your immediate proximity take a lot of effort! So how are you deciding where to direct your attention?

One possibility is that even though I say I’m imagining other people’s values that I’m not really experiencing them in the way I experience my own values. Even something like the environment, which is important to me, is not something I’m as emotionally invested in as, say, abortion protestors I’ve seen. Sure, those people are being highlighted because of the level of commitment they display to their cause, but how do they decide on abortion? I’d probably protest like that if believed my family or improv comedy were under attack.

I guess what I’m saying is that there’s a lot of stuff I don’t understand so I should get off my high horse–and get onto a different high horse!

(jokes coming back soon, I promise!)

TTYS!

With love, Ben

4/4/2013!

A while ago I was going to write about this place called Otarian. It’s an eatery that keeps track of the carbon footprint of everything it sells. Part of its marketing is that if you eat there you leave a smaller footprint than if you eat elsewhere. “But why stop there?” I wondered. Use your own utensils, bring your own water in a re- usable container, use a handkerchief to wipe your face, and don’t eat at Otarian–just make your own food at home!

(Two more points about Otarian.  First: the establishment bragged about having a multi-cultural menu, but it struck me as more of an appropriation than a respectful pastiche. Second: the items on the menu were expensive, which seems at odds with the spirit of an ethical/sustainable business in so far as it alienates those who can’t afford to eat there. Now, plenty of eateries aren’t affordable, but they also aren’t marketing themselves as an ethical alternative to fast food.)

I’m waiting for the day when McDonalds stops giving out free napkins and utensils and starts selling branded cutlery–or at least starts using faux-silverware. I consider these disposable items not only wasteful (the plastic fork is going to outlive me!) in terms of material goods, but wasteful as far as human labor is concerned as well. Why have someone put forth all the effort to make a product that we don’t actually need?

But how about one step further? Why not bring containers to supermarkets to have them refilled?! That might be a little more difficult because there’s so much variety, but if soda dispensers in high trafficked areas can do it so can a supermarket! Canvas bags for groceries (don’t buy too many!) and maybe crocheted bags for fruits and vegetables (cause they need to be handled with care!). But then what do you do with your garbage and pet poo? We can’t have little toilettes just out on the street to flush down animal poo when we’re done (look, I’m brainstorming!), but there are biodegradable and compostable bags. The thing is, sometimes these terms mean that the bag breaks down into smaller pieces of plastic (which would probably happen a lot on its own due to pointy garbage), but that’s not the same as breaking down into dirt (which landfills are not necessarily the best place for–ahhh!) . Although, come on, who’s in the market for bags that break down into smaller pieces of plastic as opposed to full on dirt?

I think, though, this is more about trying to be less wasteful and about acknowledging that sustainability is an issue.  More and more people are doing that and connecting into larger and larger networks and, with that, comes market power. I can see people willing to pay a premium for goods that leave less waste, but what about using the Tompkins 300 model (wherein PFT got 300 people to commit to going to a show and then booked it), but with goods and services. A petition or contract with a company that says, “I’m willing to pay for this if you make it?” If film companies can do that with old movies (we’ll burn it to DVD for you!), then I don’t see why other companies wouldn’t do the same.

You know what, I’m going to look into online movement building.

TTYS!

With love, Ben

3/27/2013!

I uploaded to my website what I thought was the best of my Johnsonville Press articles. I winced during the parts where I talked at length about philosophy, so I cut those parts out–they detracted from the narrative and were far too self-indulgent. Also, why did I even put them in there? “Hey, did you know you can think about yourself?” I think I might have had my mind blown to hard by philosophy because I spent so little time thinking I didn’t know how to be insightful. I remember I’d read Noah Cicero’s blog and wonder, “How is he able to be insightful?” I admired his courage but I also literally wondered, “How is he able to make those thoughts happen?” And then I went to college and majored in thinking.

The first three articles I put up were about New Brunswick politics and play up the importance of hearsay in that so much of what I saw there was different people saying, “this is how it is.” I loved following the trails of what people claimed was the case and how, in the process, I’d learn about different ways of perceiving situations–not just in terms of peoples’ personal POV’s but also different ways of looking at things in general (it was especially convenient that New Brunswick served as a small scale representation of much larger issues).

I also loved the details of some of these stories: how students in a certain school in New Brunswick went to school in a school that looked like a warehouse on the outside and was in the industrial part of town, but was all school on the inside; how when I wrote about sexual assault I ended up seeing someone catcall behind the Take Back the Night March and called them on their shit; or how when I went to a LaRouche meeting the presentation I saw ended up being about colonizing Mars and had nothing to do with their Obama conspiracy theories.

I loosened up as a writer as the articles went along. I also pulled more toward humor at the end, with a turning point happening during the Humorless Budget Report article where I literally got bored with the student run budgetary meeting (it was all charts, complaining, and no solutions!) and went to a comedy open mic. This was picked up later with a self-indulgent autobiographical article about how I used to be into comedy, felt too insecure to do it, and felt more comfortable at the time and hoped I’d end up doing it again. The last piece was me crackin’ jokes about being a philosophy major in more or less the style I write in now (with, still, a little too much philosophizing in that article than I’d care to do presently).

I also developed an interest with solution-oriented journalism at that time. I felt that the news I consumed was too negative and problem oriented–but I also felt that I personally had to do something about the things I saw as unethical. I think it’s important for stories to give readers a way of getting involved with things beyond just liking something on Facebook (even if it’s just a donation). Be the change you wish to see in the world, yes, but also make your vocation something that contributes to the common good.

I also liked how I gave a humanized account of figures that might otherwise get maligned (the press secretary for the New Brunswick Mayor’s office and the figurehead of student activism). It also made the whole thing feel more like literature than journalism when I re-read it. I also think it’s important to do that because looking at someone’s intellectual justifications for doing things paints an incomplete picture of why people do what they do–you need the person’s emotions, history, associations, etc. I’d dig deeper with that in the future. I think this would provide invaluable insight as to why people pick the sides they do for various political issues. A purely intellectual look, for example, into the way some people respond with extremely hateful language to talk of rape culture doesn’t really help me understand these responses (perhaps a possible article for me to write!).

So, here are those articles.

Inside The Hub City: The first article–in which I tour the city with Charlie Kratovil and first learn about the “swing-space warehouse school”

The Bill Bray Tour: I tour the city with Bill Bray, press secretary for the mayor

Inside the “Swing-Space”: I get inside the “swing-space warehouse school” (this article hints at a follow-up article about education in New Brunswick that I never got to write).

Optimism in the Face of Hunger: I learn about food insecurity and homelessness, and what the city has to offer. A little too research papery, but it highlights my attention to detail and showcases my genuine appreciation for social welfare programs and theory.

LaRouchies: I find out that the Obama with a Hitler Mustache people are followers of Lyndon LaRouche and go to one of their meetings–which ends up being about colonizing Mars. This topic is endlessly fascinating to me!

Sexual Assault on the Rutgers Campus: I learn all about sexual assault on the Rutgers campus. I think this might be the best of the articles I wrote.

Humorless Budget Report: I articulate my interest in solution oriented journalism and hint at my desire to return to comedy.

Exit Through the Gift Expo: I go to a gift convention where only bad gifts are on display!

Rutgers: Turn off the Dark: I go through so much bureaucracy to get a DVD copy of the Q and A from address given by the President of Rutgers (at one point I have to sign a release to show people a copy of a DVD I already own!).

Reflections on a Past Life: My self-indulgent autobiography that ends with me wondering if I can trick myself into getting back into comedy.

Reflections of a Philosophy Major: The last article. I make jokes about being a philosophy major. Not onboard with my past self calling people in philosophy classes idiots!

TTYS!

With love, Ben

I did just that in the third grade. I had an epiphany while watching Animaniacs. I noticed that one of the character’s names was Dr. Scratchensniff. It was a joke! I hadn’t picked up on it until then. The show, I discovered, was full of jokes and I realized that if I paid attention I’d be able to identify plenty of other jokes too. And if TV was potentially full of jokes, so was the world. All I’d have to do is pay attention to what was going on around me, and the second I thought, “It’d be funny if,” saying the thing I thought was funny might get laughs.

And get laughs it did! I quickly earned myself the reputation of being funny, not just amongst kids but adults as well. Making someone older laugh was a way bigger deal to me than making someone my own age laugh because it meant I was operating on a higher level. And I strived to reach that higher level as often as I could, especially in high school when I started writing; serving on the student council so I could make jokes in posters, in my speech, while dishing out ice cream at the weekly fundraiser; and telling jokes at talent shows or while emceeing a number of after school events.

People would tell me I should be a writer, do stand up, or perform improv, but for some reason I had low self-esteem that would undermine me at every turn and prevent me from taking advantage of a number of opportunities. If I found that people were paying too much attention to my jokes, I’d feel as though I couldn’t live up to their expectations. I was thrilled when a circle of friends I’d developed freshman year dissolved during the summer break because I wouldn’t have to feel like I was performing for them. I still wanted to talk to people, but I abstained from talking to any group of people for too long because I felt as though I was simply being a bother. So, at best, I’d make a joke, and then move on, drifting from conversation to conversation without ever finding a niche of my own.

I occupied a paranoid world, where I constantly found ways of rationalizing why it was that I couldn’t actually be the funny, smart person people seemed to think I was. I had a humor column, but I discounted it as being out of pity more than out of anything else; if people gave me a compliment, I thought they were just doing it to please me; and if I happened to earn recognition outside of school, then the venue must not have been worthy of merit in the first place because a truly meritorious place wouldn’t have me as a member.

Any joy I might experience from an accomplishment, then, was short lived. When I found out about McSweneys, specifically about their love of lists, I started writing pieces until I had one accepted. The satisfaction didn’t even follow me out of the computer room, even after they told me that “Sexual Euphemisms that Won’t Catch on” would be featured in the paperback edition of their first Best Of anthology.

What might have been going on was that I had conflated the utility that all comedians recognize in humor with my own utility as a person. As a result, my acceptance was always contingent upon being funny. As the old saying goes, “Your only as funny as your last set.” I found myself feeling empty because being published wasn’t enough to fill a hole that deep.

I didn’t know this at the time. All I knew was that I desperately wanted to succeed, but I also really wanted someone to prove to me that I was bound to fail so I could give up and do something else. It got to the point that I couldn’t write or perform at all because I had too much anxiety and it made me too unhappy, so I gave up on both aspirations. I was twenty at the time. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went to college, something I swore I’d never do because of my disgust with my K through twelve experience. I hoped it would distract me from what had turned into a monotony of months of waking up to intense dread, anxiety attacks, random crying, and cyclical negative thoughts i.e. the general symptoms of depression.

My friend Dan was always going on about philosophy, so I decided to take an intro class with the professor he was perpetually endorsing: Carl Thomas. If you ever find yourself a student at Brookdale, I recommend you take a course with Professor Thomas (and with Robert Mellert, Jess Levine, and Roseanne Alvarez). I may have been a good student in high school, but I only started to see myself as one at Brookdale. It was a transformative experience that led to my finally feeling confident about myself.

Throughout my time at Brookdale, I was being published on a regular basis in a variety of outlets. It all started in my senior year of high school when I had to do an internship as a graduation requirement. I choose a local entertainment publication. My first day in the office, I was asked about my interests. I said, “Comedy,” and found myself running the comedy section, which entailed updating event listings, writing the occasional reviews, and conducting interviews with comedians. It was then that I discovered that besides Jesse Thorne, America’s Radio Sweetheart, no one was substantially interviewing comedians on the web. So, I decided to do it.

And do it I did! Within months, I was interviewing comedians—and plenty of other subjects—for Gothamist.com and a variety of other outlets in print and online. I learned how one becomes a comedian, what sort of people become comedians, the tricks of the trade, and plenty of other tidbits that continue to serve as an invaluable resource to aspiring comedians and comedy fans alike (or so they tell me!).

Plenty of people try to figure out the secret of crackem’ ups and makem’ laughs. Most of these attempts, however, are misguided. Sure, there’s surprise, juxtaposition, repetition, etc, but all it boils down to is figuring out what one feels is funny and telling someone else. That’s all there is to a joke. All the fine-tuning that the revision process entails is just trying to better capture that funny feeling. And with enough practice, it becomes intuitive; comedians just know and feel what they need to say in order to make people laugh.

Because it’s intuitive, many people see the ability to be funny as natural, but framing being funny as “natural” mystifies it. Those who share this belief don’t realize that all those jokes they heard or told growing up, just messing around with friends is exactly the practice that develops the intuitive ability to make jokes. The appearance of it being “natural” is nothing but an appearance. Comedians aren’t born; they’re bred. And it takes years of practice to get good at it.

I, however, gave up practicing. My self-esteem was too low and it gave me anxiety to even think about. I no longer have those problems, but I’m also a very different person. But the person I was is very much the sort of person that grows up to be a comedian or comedy writer. Making jokes, saving jokes and honing them over the course of telling them to others, getting involved in activities that are excuses to tell those jokes, etc. The question now is should I get back on that track and pursue that childhood dream.

Childhood dreams are interesting. We have strong attachments to them because they are amongst our most sacred values. They’re what people on TV stay true to when someone says, “Hey, stay true to yourself,” to someone on TV. But if I wanted to, I could discard this dream of mine. Plenty of people do just that because they don’t have the time, the desire, the strength, etc, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be a professional rocker/baseball player/astronaut. It’s just not realistic for some people. And new dreams are no less valid than old ones.

I continue to be drawn to humor. I may see philosophy as rewarding and challenging, but I see jokes to be one notch above. There’s always going to be new problems facing the world, and while I feel compelled to get involved in finding solutions or dissolutions, I can’t help but think to myself, “What’s funny about this?” every time I think about systemic disenfranchisement, economic inequality, or non-flush toilettes.

It seems to me that a lot of my improvements since starting with school at age twenty were the result of subtle successes that imbued me with confidence. And, as with my interviews, I didn’t really think of school as something I was going to do in order to succeed. Part of what made me feel comfortable was a sense of there being nothing on the line. If I didn’t do well, I wasn’t invested enough to feel disappointed. Really, I did both because I didn’t know what else to do, and when I noticed I was enjoying myself I just stuck with it. Success was not something I aimed for; it was something I found after deciding to just try to do the best job I could do.

So, I will continue doing what’s been proven to work for me: doing things at my own pace. I’ll do it when I’m ready if I do it at all. Maybe I can trick myself into getting back onto the track I was on. The question is: how do I intentionally fool myself with out knowing I’m intentionally fooling myself? Maybe I’ve already done it. Maybe I’ve been on track all this time and didn’t even know it. After all, it’s only when we’re at the end of a journey that we can see the path we’ve taken.

I hit the web, but unfortunately, coverage of the Q and A was seemingly lacking both at the Targum and NJ.com. I managed to find a video (and transcript) of the address itself at the President’s website, but nothing on the question and answer session. So, I decided to make some phone calls.  At one point, someone told me that no one had ever requested to see the Q and A. I say “someone” because I was bounced around quite a bit before somehow ending up at Kim Manning’s office, talking to the VP of University Relations herself.

As a result of my chat with Mrs. Manning, I ended up with a copy of the DVD, although I did have to sign an unofficial non-disclosure request to get it. It read:

Dear Ben,

Enclosed is the DVD of the President’s Annual Address 2010, which includes the Question & Answer section that you were interested in reviewing.  While the speech is currently posted on the web, I am requesting that the Question and Answer portion not be posted on the web or reproduced without the written consent of the individuals who are speaking, out of respect for their privacy.

Please sign and date below as acknowledgement of your receipt of the DVD and your understanding of this request.

I found the request peculiar given that it didn’t seem like one could make a legitimate claim to privacy after having talked into a microphone in front of a crowd with cameras pointing at one’s face while being simulcast over the Internet. So, I decided to see what the law had to say.

First I got in touch with Don Heilman over at Rutgers Legal Services. He told me he couldn’t personally advise me because he cannot do so in those instances where Rutgers is a possible defendant (it’d be a conflict of interests). He did, however, recommend that I do a search through the Westlaw database to see if there were any precedents for this sort of thing on the state level, and to talk to Sybil James, the university ombudsman.

I did my research first, filling Mrs. James in on what I’d learned soon after. It seemed that on the state level one could not make the claim to privacy in public forums such as Q and A’s and that neither could one do the same according to the Rutgers bylaws.  Mrs. James said that she’d speak to Rutgers Council on the matter and after about a month I was told the decision: that the claim to privacy was not one that could be legitimately made in regards to public forums but that, in the end, it was at the discretion of Kim Manning if the Q and A were to be posted.

I guess the first time I got a hold of Mrs. Manning I was lucky because all future correspondence with the office of university relations was handled by Greg Trevor over at media relations. I wanted to know why it was the case given the concern for privacy indicated in the request that ample warning was not provided for the participants. He told me that ample warning was, in fact, provided, leaving me puzzled. Why, then, was the Q and A not put up online?

My query, in turn, puzzled Mr. Trevor. He wanted to know why I thought concern for privacy was the reason the Q and A was not online. I explained to him the whole situation and he told me that the president’s address was put up as a courtesy. I asked him if there were plans to extend to the same courtesy to the Q and A, which I thought was something University Relations should do. Mr. Trevor got back to me a couple days later, informing me that my “opinion” had been passed on, that the stance of the office was that the present policy would remain in place, and that he’d be unable to tell me why such a decision was made.

I’d noticed over the course of my conversations with Mr. Trevor, who I found to be very helpful and prompt (just like everyone else I spoke with), that his words seemed to be chosen carefully; with his use of the word “opinion” almost employed as a means of denigrating the significance of my suggestion that the Q and A be placed online. I felt as though my opinion was not seen as an opinion, but as just my opinion. This, of course, could all have been on my end, but I doubt that it’s only my opinion. I imagine that many feel that the same courtesy extended to the president’s address should be extended to the Q and A as well.

Regardless, I wanted to get the Q and A online for those who wanted to see it. Unfortunately, getting waivers from all the participants just seemed like too much work. So, I went the route of OPRA, the Open Public Records Act (“As opposed to closed private records, which are, you know, private.” to quote fellow JVP alum Brendan Kaplan.) What that meant is that I filled out a form to get a copy of a DVD that I already have. This one, however, I can put up without having to fuss over any waivers.

Once the video is up, I’ll be able to reproduce parts of the Q and A for the purpose of commenting upon it, allowing me to separate hearsay from matter of fact in terms of what was actually asked at the Q and A. Unfortunately, what I won’t be able to separate is matter of fact from speculation as to why the Q and A actually wasn’t put online. I, for one, will abstain from making assumptions as to why the courtesy was not extended to the Q and A and encourage others to do the same.

What I do encourage, however, is for my readers to weigh in on the issue. Should the Q and A be hosted along with the president’s address?

“You mean obvious!” If it’s so obvious, why aren’t you teaching a philosophy class? “I don’t want to!” Really? All you’d have to do is say a bunch of obvious shit for eighty minutes to a bunch of idiots. “Why idiots?” Who if not idiots is gonna pay to listen to some stranger spew obvious shit for an hour plus? “Good point!” It’s obvious though, isn’t it?

That a knife in the face might kill you may be obvious, but if you didn’t know that you’d be dead by now or have half a face.  ”I wouldn’t pay someone to tell me obvious stuff!” Obvious stuff isn’t necessarily worthless though. If philosophy’s worthless, then my degree isn’t worth squat. And by that logic, raising kids is worth less than squat because that’s what we pay our mothers. “But mothers are priceless!” And that’s what I’d call my degree: priceless. Well, two-fifths of it. One fifth I’d call timeless since I minored in history, and the other two-fifths I wouldn’t know what to call if you wanted to debate the merits of English.

For the sake of argument, though, I’ll grant that philosophy is obvious. In fact, I’d say that the philosophy that resonates with me most is the most obvious, indisputable (yet controversial!), and blandest stuff anyone could tell me about myself or the world. “I coulda told you that!” Huh? “I coulda told you that you learn about yourself from others.” Holy crap; keep going! “You often see ourselves as others do!”  This guy’s a genius! PUT THIS IN A BOOK! There’s not going to be anything to put in a book if you keep spoiling it like this. That took me six pages to say! (I had to put that in italics so that you’d know I was doing a third voice. And I had to put all this between parentheses so that you’d know it was me, Ben. Hope you can keep up!)

One of my issues with philosophy is how long it takes many philosophers to say what they say.  Example: Thomas Nagel’s What is it Like to be a Bat? In this essay, Nagel talks about how we can study a bat and imagine ourselves as a bat, but we still wouldn’t know what it’s like for a bat to be a bat because the objective study of a thing does not reveal the subjective experience of being that thing. A very accurate description! Unfortunately, in the amount of time it takes Nagel to say all this I could have actually dressed up as a bat, flapped my arms around, eaten some bugs, and then thought, “Something’s gotta be missing because these bugs are gross, my arms are tired, and I haven’t flown an inch!”

I think there’s a good reason for writing philosophy the way that it’s often written, though. This is because I often think of philosophy as horribly, unfunny satire. See, a lot of philosophers try to give as accurate a description of everyday stuff as possible, but they do it in such a way that the everyday appears alien. That’s why so many philosophers write circuitously, use unfamiliar language, make up their own words, or just use traditional words and phrases in untraditional ways. They’re trying to wake you up to the world around you! Luke Wilson wakes up in the future in Idiocracy, but he really wakes up IN THE PRESENT! Philosophy’s a trip! So, if you love rollin’ dubbs, you’ll love Wittgenstein! Just don’t smoke Schopenhauer; he’s a bit of a downer!

“Long words? Telling me stuff I probably already know? These people sound elitist!” I’d say there’s more to elitism than using long words. You’d have to, for example, think you were better than other people because you used long words, sorta like how you think you’re better than elitists for thinking they’re better than you. “OH SHIT!”

Not all philosophers are elitists, of course, but a number of people I’ve come across seem to think that they’re engaged in privileged thinkin’. “I’m wonderin’ bout stuff common folks couldn’t even imagine!” I think of philosophy as just another type of thinkin’, which means that I think philosophers and non-philosophers think about the same stuff. “Like what it would be like if Arnold Schwartzegger was shrunk down to teeny-tiny size and injected into someone’s body like in Inner Space?”  The 1987 action-comedy-adventure, staring Martin Short, Dennis Quaid, and Meg Ryan?! “The Joe Dante picture?” Who? “ME! Directing’s been slow, so I’m taking on roles in third rate puppet shows to supplement my income.” Third rate?!” “Listen: I get paid by the hour, so unless this is going somewhere you better wrap it up!” Right, so, yes, I think about Arnold Schwartzegger being shrunk down to teeny-tiny size. I also think that a philosopher’s no more likely to find the truth or think rigorously than a non-philosopher.

I’m also of the opinion that there’s no necessarily inaccessible knowledge, although some disagree. I’ve had people (more than one!) tell me that there might be biological reasons why I couldn’t know or understand something. “I think they called you retarded,” my friend said. (I had to cite my friend on that one not so you’d know I have friends but because I’m writing a joke research paper. Thanks B.C.!) So if anyone knows something, I think they can explain it to you. And claiming otherwise is just a lie the man made up to keep you down!

When philosophers do explain things they often use analogies, which is fine if you recognize that thought experiments only highlight what’s similar between things rather than what’s the same about them. And when people fail to recognize this, they end up taking seriously something that’s absurd, like wondering if we’re always dreaming. Don’t worry, we’re not, because that’s not what it means to dream! Unfortunately, too often philosophers forget or aren’t aware of obvious stuff like what it means to dream or how we use words. Plenty of people make the same mistakes, but they don’t know they’re making them. As a result, people find ludicrous things to be genius. And that’s why hundreds of years later I end up having to write essays explaining how we use words and why we can’t always be dreaming; or why I find myself in a classroom being told that it’s a strike against a theory if it disallows time travel.

That’s right: in philosophy class, it’s minus points if your plans mean you can’t Quantum Leap into Genghis Khan. I’m pretty sure “no time travel” isn’t a problem anywhere else. “Hey, you wanna hang out?” With dinosaurs and Richelieu?! “No, with me.” Nah, I’m good. “Hey, I’m gonna order a pizza. Want some?” Is it one of those time traveling pizzas? “Is that like a pizza that’s already eaten by the time you get it? Because I’m not paying for an empty box.” Then, no, I don’t want any.

And that brings me to my final (for now) gripe with philosophers: they spend too much time mulling over stuff that cannot be practically applied to everyday living, like whether the world is made out of stuff or ideas. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to be told you didn’t understand someone’s long, convoluted, and circuitous paper—or book!— on why ideas are more real than stuff could ever be? Euch! And then, to cap it off, the author says that she’s figured out philosophy forevers. So we can rest our heads because the debate over whether stuff or ideas are the real deal is over. We can finally go on living our lives because she’s done all the important thinkin’ for us! No dice says this guy!

That’s right, lady I made up. I saw through your purported shangri-la of heuristics for what it really is–a dreamed up world of rules and regulations that shields you from an indisputable matter of fact:  that you, like me, are the same– just a couple of animals. And, like all animals, you and I will one day die. The real tragedy is not that your behavior alienates the people most likely to help you, but that you’ve been living in a dream for so long that you’ve come to mistake it for waking life. But, you know what? You can put up all the walls you want and stick porcelain or tile wherever you please, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re all squatting when we shit, that we all shit outside, and that everybody dies. Yeah, where’d you think the houses were? They’re outside! And maybe if Gargamel knew this stuff, he’d stop trying to kill the Smurfs (they’re just fun-sized humans!).

What I’m trying to say is I think what you think doesn’t matter as much as what you do.

Sometimes I stare off into the distance imagining that darkly lit, foggy room: Nu-metal fanboys crowded around their heroes, hoping for some sort of recognition that they could take back home with them and show off to their friends–that Brad from Mudvayne liked their Sabbath shirt and was really sorry to have spilled beer all over it, which was totally understandable, because the fog machine had made it really hard to see and sometimes it got backed-up and made this braying noise like it was a dying donkey, and that startled Brad, which was why he spilled the Coors. And all I can do is imagine it because I didn’t go.

So, when I got an email in my Inbox advertising a Gift Expo promising to bring me “the hottest new gift ideas,” I promised myself that I wouldn’t let this be another event that I’d only be able to experience in my mind. Besides, I was guaranteed plenty of free swag. I couldn’t miss that! But I expected more from the Gift Expo than just free stuff; I was going to get a taste of the American Dream: ingenuity, entrepreneurship, time-released caffeine pills that you take before going to bed so that you can wake up exactly eight hours later. It was all going to be there!

The Gift Expo was on the fourth floor of a hotel in New York. I had to take a classy escalator and a fancy glass elevator to get there. Outside the doors of the Expo was a cornucopia of tasty finger foods and gourmet coffees; inside were rows of tables showcasing everything from Legos and M&M’s to 3D TV’s and Roombas. Established brands were in limited number at the Expo, though, and instead I was treated to whatever go-getters happened to get a space at the event.

The best, and by that I mean “the worst”, of the products was pitched to me as, “Hey, have you ever read a work of classic literature and thought, ‘I wish this was about me.’?” “You mean re-written to include my personality and behaviour?!” “No, I mean with your name instead of Peter Pan’s.” “No, I’ve never thought that. But can you do it with porn?!” U Star Books Madlibs it up with books such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dracula, re-imagining them as The Wonderful Wizard of Your Name and Your-Name-Acula. But the real your-name and butter of the company is erotica. Here’s a taste:

“’Is that everything?’ Poo asked as Poo slammed the boot shut. ‘Then lets hit the road!’ As they drove from their home in Poo to Poo, Poo put her favourite album by Poo into the CD player.”

Sexy, right?

Nothing could compare to U Star; not even the woman trying to resurrect http://www.hipzbag.com/fanny packs as cellphone holders. She tried to convince me that it was a product worth having by asking me if my girlfriend ever walked around holding her cellphone like she was using it to stiff-arm the world out of her way. She insisted on seeing people do this, even though I’ve never glimpsed it. But even if anyone did walk around like that, a fannypack is not the solution. A fannypack is never the solution, even the if the problem is, “Where’s my fannypack?” I threw it away; don’t worry, I did you a favor. “But that fannypack was a family heirloom! My grandmother came to this country with nothing but her wits and a fannypack full of dreams.”

U Star and and the fannypacks weren’t the only gifts not worth giving at the event. Although, to be fair, it’s hard to imagine a stocking stuffed with Carmax brand chapstick or Gorilla Glue under the Christmas Tree. And while I wouldn’t be surprised if plenty of moms get vacuum cleaners from their kids and husband, cleaning implements also don’t seem like they’d be a joy to unwrap…even if it’s a Roomba. “Now you don’t have to do your usual job, mom!” So unless these businesses figure out how market themselves ironically, the gift giving season isn’t going to be kind to them. Except for the Roomba on account of people love robots.

The meeting began with the presentation of a survey regarding what some number of students thought about the current fiscal situation. I say “some number” because the audience was never informed of how many people RUSA spoke to for its survey. I’m not interested, though, in what random students think about who’s responsible for the current state of affairs. I’d care if random students knew how to fix the problem, but then they wouldn’t even be random students; I’m pretty sure we’d all know the names of the people who figured out how to balance the budget and save us all money. But rather than get something resembling a way out, I was given what struck me as a deeply unsatisfying narrative.

I was told that the cost of tuition was going up, that the amount of financial aid was going down, and that banks were profiting from it all. Meanwhile, the Obama administration had passed a bill barring private lending institutions from making a buck off the whole shebang, with the government handling the distribution of funds instead.  So: there was a massive problem and the closest thing to a solution came from the government. My gripe with all this is that there’s no room for me in the narrative besides as being the victim. The whole thing struck me as very disempowering.

Unfortunately, most of the information I get, whether it be print, online, on TV, etc.,  is oriented around problems rather than solutions thereto. I can see the appeal of framing particular parties as “bad guys,”; and it certainly seemed like the audience was none too pleased with banks or the government. But none of that tells me how the banking and lending system works in the first place or what I or anyone else can do about it.

I never found out where my money actually goes— unless RUSA meant the bank (ha ha joke’s on me!)— because I left the meeting early. I was simply too dissatisfied to stick around for the whole thing. So, I went to an open mic at the Red Lion Café instead. I watched the show rather than performed in it, but I felt very excited nonetheless. As a philosophy major, I like having things spelled out for me; as a comedy nerd, I like jokes; as someone that likes a challenge, I’d like to synthesize the two; and as someone who enjoys his sanity, I see no other option.

Philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein is rumored to have said that, “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. ” I can see that for sure. Something makes you laugh, you explain what it was to someone else, and that explanation is the joke. If something strikes you as funny about something serious and you can explain what it was to someone else, then you’ve got some serious comedy on your hands— you’ve entered Bill Hicks/Maria Bamford/Louis CK territory.  And there’s more utility to that sort of comedy beyond the good PR it’ll bring.

The first hour of the RUSA meeting was full of charts and bad news. A few jokes would have made the whole thing not only more palatable but easier to cope with too.  The latter becomes even more apparent when the budget meeting is taken as only a part of all the problems facing America and the world today. If I read nothing but bad news on the web followed by hateful, angry comments and combine that with a sense of impending catastrophe, impotence, and general absurdity, I’d feel awful. But absurdity can be a source of laughter as much as it can be a source of despair. And I’d much rather be full of laughs than dread. Besides, people are a lot more eager to listen to you and share your message if it’s as funny as it is insightful.

I figure that if I’m going to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, I’m going to need my sense of humor to lighten the load. But this sentiment, I would argue, is founded upon a misunderstanding of what it means to be a person. I alone don’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders; all people carry that burden if a person is to carry it at all. And, by the looks of things, we could all use a few more laughs, which is good, because I got me a hankering to tell some jokes.

In New Jersey, Sexual Assault is defined as “the penetration, no matter how slight, in which physical force or coercion is used or in which the victim is physically or mentally incapacitated”. Penetration is defined as “vaginal intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio or anal intercourse between persons or the insertion of a hand, finger or other object into the anus or vagina by either the actor or upon the actor’s instruction” (NJSA 2C:14-1). There’s also Criminal Sexual Contact, “intentional, non-consensual touching by the victim or actor, either directly or through clothing, of a victim’s or actor’s sexual organs, genital area, anal area, inner thigh, groin, buttock or breast, for the purpose of degrading or humiliating the victim or sexually arousing or sexually gratifying the actor,” (NJSA 2C:14-3).” (Ibid)

How often this occurs at Rutgers is hard to say. According to the Clery Act, Rutgers is required to disclose the frequency with which sexual assault and criminal sexual contact occurs to its students, whether it be on campus or off. From 2006 – 2008, there were four reported cases of sexual assault committed by acquaintances per year. And in 2006, there were five reported cases of forcible fondling (Criminal Sexual Contact), and then none for the next two years. This is a decrease in reported sexual assault since 2003 to 2005. In 2004, there were 12 cases of sexual assault in campus residences alone.

Of course, one must keep in mind that there’s a difference between the frequency with which sexual assault occurs and the frequency with which it’s reported. The frequency with which it’s reported also doesn’t directly correlate with the frequency with which it’s prosecuted.

Barbara Deacon, who worked part time as a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) with the Middlesex County Prosecutors’ Office from 2003 to 2006, said that she saw five Rutgers students during that time. They had all come in because of non-stranger rape. Most of them had come in during the holidays—winter break, spring break— after being encouraged to do so by their friends. None of them had moved forward with prosecution.

RU PD doesn’t keep track of how many of the people who report sexual assault do or do not move forward with prosecution. Captain Cop said that this is because such information wouldn’t aid in investigations. I think, however, that this is mistaken. A lack of faith in the police as well as an unwillingness to deal with them undermines their ability to conduct investigations. One step in addressing this issue, I would think, would be to keep track of how many people do or do not move forward with prosecution and the reasons given by those who don’t want to move forward. That way steps can be taken to address those issues.

Rutgers students have a lot more options than just RU PD, though. Students can go the health center, they can go to the Middlesex County Prosecutors, they can call the New Brunswick PD, the ERs at Robert Wood Johnson or St. Peters (they’ll get in touch with a SANE and will have the option of contacting the police if they like), they can go to the rape crises center, they can call the sexual assault response team, or they can go to the Department of Sexual Assault Services and Crime Victim Assistance (SAS/CVA).

Ruth Anne Koenick, director of SAS, came to Rutgers in 1988 after a taskforce recommended the founding for the SAS. Prior to Rutgers, Koenick was at the Middlesex County Prosecutors and, among other things, started what is often credited as the first college rape crises center at the University of Maryland along with two colleagues.

One of the things that SAS does is curriculum integration. In the event that a faculty member is unable to teach a class, SAS offers Don’t Cancel Class, a program that provides substitutes who talk about how the course’s content relates to violence against women. An economics class, for example, could include a discussion of the economic impact of violence against women.

I asked Ruth how Rutgers handles sexual assault cases and she said it was hard to say because so few people report it. Most people don’t go to the office of student conduct, the police, or even to SAS. “Most people don’t come to us,” said Ruth, “although we have a fair amount of people that do. Most people don’t do anything about it and they don’t always know what their options are.”

“We’re very victim blaming,” said Ruth of American culture, “People are frightened by this, they’re ashamed, they don’t know who to talk to, and even when they do know who to talk to they worry about how people might respond to them. It’s an uncomfortable thing. We don’t teach people how to talk about this issue. And even though you see it on talk shows, in the press, talking about it face to face is very different from seeing it in a more generic way. And all this, it really stops people from coming forward.”

If one surveys the landscape of sexual assault literature, one will come across things like, “Try not to load yourself down with packages or bags as this can make you appear more vulnerable.” or, “When you go to a party, go with a group of friends. Arrive together, check in with each other and leave together.” RAINN, who offered the aforementioned tips, frames the discussion in terms of reducing the risk of sexual assault. Reading the list of tips makes it seem like sexual assault may happen at any moment, which is why a woman should “Avoid putting music headphones in both ears so that you can be more aware of your surroundings, especially if you are walking alone.” To me, this makes it seem like there’s an atmosphere of fear that would follow women everywhere they go. Most sexual assaults, however, are committed by non-strangers, so this particular set of tips isn’t especially helpful in that regards. The tips also make it easy for a woman to blame herself after being assaulted. “I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have worn headphones. I shouldn’t have carried so much stuff.”

“We create ways to denigrate people who are victims of things,” says Koenick, “We ask questions—not we here, but the culture as a whole—what was she wearing, what was she drinking, why would she think it was okay to go to somebody else’s room. We have a perception in our head that if we can make it something that the victim did, then you can say to yourself, ‘I’d never do that,’ and it makes you feel safe by separating yourself from the victim. So people have created this in the community as a means of looking at violence against women as a whole. We don’t say to you if you had your laptop stolen, ‘Were you drinking at the time? How could you have let that happen?’ That’s not the general response.”

Ruth is describing a particular and popular response very accurately. The idea that survivors of sexual assault should have been more responsible is held by all sorts of people, be they students or academics. Camille Paglia, for example, has frequently made the argument that while women may have won a lot of freedoms with the sexual revolution that they have not yet accepted the responsibilities that come with those freedoms. But the risk reduction suggested by such a sentiment just isn’t enough given that estimates are that as many as 90% of sexual assaults in the US being committed by non-strangers. Unfortunately, sexual assault has historically been framed in terms of “stranger danger” and “risk reduction”. Ashley Roome, President of Take Back the Night, shared with me two articles about how in 1979 RU PD, for example, handed out cards to women in areas deemed “dangerous” that said, “If I were a rapist, you’d be in trouble.”

“The problem is both RAINN and RUPD [circa 1979], by giving these suggestions on how to avoid ‘dangerous situations,’ are implying that you can differentiate between a so-called dangerous space and a safe space– and thereby prevent an assault,” said Roome, “ The breakdown isn’t that clear. What IS a ‘dangerous’ space?  A place where, statistically, I have a higher chance of being assaulted?

It’s really all contextual– for example, a friend of mine who was raped while working in Guatemala.  She was living in a city where it’s very dangerous to take cabs alone because a lot of drivers sport fake medallions and there are instances of people–mostly women–being abducted and raped.  One night she made the decision to not take a cab alone or walk alone and instead went home with someone she knew fairly well, who lived near her house. He ended up attacking and assaulting her.

All animals survive by differentiating between safe/unsafe spaces/situations.  The problem is, when we rely on narrow definitions/assumptions of violence to distinguish between what is safe/unsafe, we have skewed perceptions of what is really (statistically) dangerous and what is really safe.”

I talked about this issue with Koenick as well. “There’s two different ways to frame this,” she explained, “You can frame it in terms of prevention or you can frame it in terms of risk reduction. Risk reduction is ‘women in groups’ kind of stuff, being aware of your surroundings. As a college student, if I tell you not to drink, you’re going to look at me like I have five heads. A lot of people here drink. But not drinking doesn’t stop it from happening. What we really need to look at is who’s responsible for the behavior. And the people who are responsible for the behavior are the rapists. They’re not the women who participate in activities with their friends, it’s the men who rape. [David] Lisak says it’s a very small amount of men who rape, but those who do rape repeatedly. The messages we give to people are about primary prevention. How do we stop it before it happens? And that means focusing on Bystander Intervention.”

Bystander Intervention is an interesting theory. If you think about it, rapists are bred rather than born. If the self is biology filtered through experience—if who you are is defined predominantly by where you’ve been—then changing those experiences changes the self. Bystander Intervention is one way of making those changes. Every time anything that can lead to or is sexual assault, forcible fondling, or verbal sexual harassment, a bystander intervenes. ” The result is that the norms that say, “This is okay” are transformed into, “This is not okay.” As noted in research by Marty Schwartz and Walter DeKeseredy, intervention is especially important in groups comprised solely of men where the sorts of mind sets that make people comfortable with committing sexual assault are often cultivated.

Rutgers has SCREAM Theater, which has performances that instruct, demonstrate, and inform students about sexual assault and bystander intervention. Most students see SCREAM Theater at freshman orientation and the troupe also performs upon request for dorms, frats, organizations, etc. When I went out and about and asked Rutgers students about sexual assault, the overwhelming majority of them said that there wasn’t enough education on campus, with their viewing of SCREAM Theater being something that they’d long ago forgotten about. For transfer students, there’s STS, a transitional seminar that every transfer student is enrolled into. I asked Dean Diamond to what degree sexual assault is discussed in STS, and she said, “All that we mention are the appropriate resources on campus in the context of the services provided to students on campus.” Certainly STS could incorporate a discussion about bystander intervention at the very least.

Ideally, people should have already heard plenty about bystander intervention by the time they get into Rutgers, but, in my experience, schools just don’t talk very much about sex, gender, or sexual assault in general. I vaguely remember in high school a single representative from Planned Parenthood coming to talk to students before prom. And the only reason I remember that is because when she asked, “Why would a twenty year old be with a sixteen year old?” I said, “Because he earnestly respects her mind and body,” and the room erupted in laughter.

Sexual assault is simply a subject that doesn’t get enough discussion, which is why it’s good that Take Back the Night’s Ashley Roome is starting Saturday Night: Untold Stories of Sexual Assault at Rutgers. “I hope that the journal will be a testimony to the realities of violence,” said Roome, “Sexual violence happens both on and off campus, in the home, in the streets, and everywhere in between; that it can happen day or night, weekend or weekday; that survivors of sexual violence are not only women, but are individuals of varying gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, class, age, and religious identities. I hope that through acknowledging and understanding the fact that sexual violence deeply impacts many individuals within our community, and thereby the community itself, preventing violence and providing survivors of sexual violence with protection, support, and care will become priorities in our community. ”

The night I went out to ask students what they knew about sexual assault on the Rutgers campus—which happened to be not a whole lot aside from a few anecdotes— happened to be Take Back the Night. I saw the march and heard the chants of, “No more silence!” and it gave me anxiety as I thought, “Oh, the humanity!” Right as TBTN passed, a guy in the backseat of a red SUV yelled, “Hey, sexy, sexy!” at a girl who walked by. When she didn’t respond, he called her, “Bitch.” I ran up to the SUV, which was stuck at the traffic light in front of the Grease Trucks and said, “Hey, you shouldn’t sexually harass people. It’s not cool.” He said, “I was being nice,” and I countered with, “You called her a ‘bitch’. And you did it right behind Take Back the Night!” “Is that what that was?” he asked. “Yeah, “I answered, “They’re protesting you.” He rolled up his window sheepishly and then rolled it back down, smiling. “He was using humor to protect himself,” my girlfriend told me when I relayed the anecdote to her. Verbal sexual harassment is something that happens a lot at Rutgers. Plenty of the girls I spoke to that night said, poignantly, “It’s a shame that it happens so often that I think it’s normal.”

Despite all my reading and the people I talked to, I still wasn’t left with a good enough idea of the presence of sexual assault and sexual harassment on the Rutgers campus. “I’m thinking of going undercover at some parties,” I told my friend Ryan. “Yeah, you better go undercover,” he answered, “Because otherwise everyone’s gonna be like, ‘Oh, shit, it’s Ben Kharakh!’” Of course, anything I saw at a party would only be representative of what I saw at that particular party. I wouldn’t apply it to the rest of Rutgers even if I knew the statistical methods for doing so. There could even be a sexual assault at the party or as a result of it and I wouldn’t even know, so it wouldn’t be particularly useful in that respect. And, of course, it’s not only at parties where sexual assault, fondling, etc happens. I’ve been at crowded concerts where guys grope and boast about groping girls, an acquaintance of mine told me she once slept over a dorm after a get-together and woke up to find herself being fondled, and I’ve heard stories of men brushing up against women inappropriately on public transportation or guys masturbating in public with the intention of being seen by women (or just about anybody). Besides that, there’s the obvious point that I already know that sexual assault occurs. The thing is, it hardly gets talked about. As Ashley Roome said, “Hearing– not shaming or doubting– survivors is the first step.” The environment, it seems, just isn’t conducive to that discussion.

Sexual assault, forcible fondling, sexual harassment, etc are also symptoms of a problem much larger then themselves—namely systematic gender inequality, which is itself something that people don’t talk often enough. “I agree that it is absolutely a symptom of larger problems– definitely gender inequality, at the very least,” said Roome, “ There are a lot of ways that the problem can and needs to be addressed.  The first thing— one that I am working on through initiatives with TBTN is to make visible the fact that violence EXISTS on campus.  You would be realllly surprised by how many people do believe that only 1 rape happened on campus last year, because only one was reported.  In actuality, 1 in 4 women will be raped/have a near rape experience before she graduates. There are 13673 undergrad women; of these, 3419 will experience an assault before graduating.  855 will take place this year.  This does not account for anyone who identifies with another gender, graduate students, staff, or faculty.  The first step is recognizing and drawing attention to the problem so that sexual assault programs won’t suffer budget cuts; so that accurate reporting of violence, the establishment successful prevention initiatives/programming, and providing assistance to survivors is a priority on campus; and so that the underlying factors that contribute to violence can be addressed!” Regardless of what one thinks of the statistics— and they are certainly heavily debated— it seems plenty fair to say that there were more than 4, 12, or even 30 cases of sexual assault or forcible fondling on campus, not to mention the countless cases of verbal sexual harassment.

When I brought up sexual assault at JVP, everyone agreed that the issue isn’t discussed often enough. The lack of talking about it is part of the reason why it happens as often as it does. Alex Giannattasio pointed of how people seem to think college students are adults when, in actuality, most of them are still kids. (Don’t worry college students, most “adults” are just kids too). This is certainly true, as evidenced by the countless hangovers people experience or the later regretted hook-ups. But these sorts of mistakes are entirely different from occurrences where a guy goes to a crowded concert or party, for example, and decides to start feeling girls up because no one will notice him doing it, when a guy singles out girls who’ve had too much to drink or gets girls drunk on purpose with the intent of assaulting them, or when a guy ignores it when a girl tells him to stop. That’s sexual assault. And yelling things at girls out of car windows is sexual harassment. Neither of those is acceptable.

Now, it might seem like bystander intervention is reductionist and overly optimistic. And if someone thought that asking every guy that walks away with a drunk girl at a party is going to stop sexual assault in general, I’d say it’s reductionist and overly optimistic as well. Of course bystander intervention is not a panacea. It’s just one of many things that needs to be done.

See: I might hear sexually degrading language or be exposed to a media that portrays women as stereotypes, but that’s not going to make me treat women with disrespect because I’ve already been taught to respect women. Other people, however, don’t get those lessons. Bystander intervention is an indication of just that—the failure of significant others and figures of authority to discuss sexual assault and gender. After all, if someone respected women, then they wouldn’t sexually assault them. And when people say, “It wasn’t rape, I was giving her what she wanted,” they’re appealing to a particular conception of woman that they’ve been taught—woman as a person secretly harboring sexual desire just waiting for a forceful enough individual to actualize that desire. And this stereotype continues to exist, again, because not enough effort is put into debunking it.

Sexually degrading language coupled with a culture that objectifies women on a frequent basis leads to a stereotyping and reductionism akin to that of military units gearing up for war. It’s certainly a lot easier to kill someone on the battlefield if you don’t see them as a person, just as it’s easier to sexually assault someone that you don’t see as a fleshed out human being. This is why bystander intervention is important. There are countless events in a person’s life that facilitate sexual assault or harassment and you can’t pin responsibility for the execution of assault or harassment to any one of them, but you can step in along the way and try to make a change. The problem is, it shouldn’t be just college where bystander intervention makes an appearance if it makes an appearance at all.  And it shouldn’t be only bystanders that make that intervention. It should be schools, family, the media, religion, significant others, and you.