Cycle of Cynicism

At Opening Assembly last week, Principal Hassan welcomed 406 new students to the Exeter community. The Assembly also marked the beginning of a new year, and across campus, new preps, lowers, uppers, seniors and PGs alike began the Exeter experience all returning students are well familiar with: the search for a place on campus. Throughout the year or years each student spends here, he or she will occupy a variety of different roles at the Academy, including that of student, athlete, dormmate and club member. This search for one's identity is a crucial component of the Exeter experience and is often an extremely fulfilling journey.However, new students face a significant obstacle in their pursuit of an identity on campus: cynicism. You hear it in the dorm, dining hall and sports fields—talk of the “contrived” nature of the 333 and various organizations on campus; how people do things only for college apps; how the idea of “passion” for one's work is simply unrealistic at a place like Exeter.The unfortunate thing about cynicism is that it tends to trickle down. When uppers complain about the 333 and board turnovers for various clubs, the lowers inherit their cynicism and pass it down to the preps the following year. The result is a self-actualizing and self-perpetuating cycle of meaninglessness: by convincing ourselves that the things we do are contrived, we make them so. Such a mindset is utterly antithetical to the ideals of the Academy and must be eliminated from our campus.We acknowledge that some of this cynicism is innate to the system of secondary school education. The incentive of college admissions, though we often cast it in a negative light, is often too real and too expedient to ignore. Colleges tell us to be ourselves, but how can we be ourselves when the very act of doing so would put us at a relative disadvantage? There is, therefore, some portion of the widespread cynicism that may be ascribed to factors outside of our control. To absolve ourselves completely, however, would be irresponsible. Despite the pressure of college admissions, each of us is still ultimately responsible for the attitude we take to our Harkness classes, club meetings and sports meets.Take this very paper, for example. Officially, we stand for the ideals of free journalism. And indeed, it is these very ideals that draw scores of new Exonians to our first writers’ meetings every year. This idealistic mindset, however, invariably dissolves at the end of each fall term during board turnovers into a mess of politics and resentment. In a sense, this is understandable; however, even after the fact, many are left with a bitter taste in their mouths and will proceed to carry it with them for the year and pass it down to other years. The result is the persisting mindset that the paper is an inherently cynical and purely self-interested organization—a mindset that ultimately inhibits us from actualizing our journalistic ideals.We all have a duty to uphold the idealism of Exeter. It’s ingrained in our very motto, non sibi, which encourages us to think beyond ourselves to our collective mission of bettering the world. For returning students, this means being more conscious about the effect your “wise words” could have on the new students, and for the new students, this means always keeping your own reasons for coming to Exeter in the first place close to heart. In doing so, we will leave a better Exeter for future generations.