THE PANTOMIME HORSE: The Nile Is Also A River In Boston

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a friend’s apartment watching “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. This friend of mine had a pair of gerbils that were placed in a cage fairly close to the television set and were, apparently, in heat. Although I tried to ignore it, I couldn’t help noticing Napoleon and Josephine engaging in “romantic relations,” stopping to look at the television for a moment before returning to their more carnal activities. I couldn’t help noticing because I remember thinking that’s what John Silber must see in his head every time he thinks of his students — mindless, screwing gerbils.

I will always remember The Daily Free Press’ interview with Chancellor Silber at the end of my freshman year, the one in which he said something about his students rotting until Hell freezes over before the Guest Policy changes. When I read those lines for the first time, I was shocked. How could someone whose primary job is to advise the running and maintenance of a major university be so callous toward the most massive and important part of that university: the students? I remember thinking it was some kind of joke, and as my roommate read the interview aloud in our floor lounge, punctured with the occasional maniacal laugh, I joined in laughing. Over the last two years, I have continued to read, with interest, Chancellor Silber’s occasional lunatic rants in the Free Press, but lately I find that my laughter has been replaced with scowls and shouted expletives.

Silber’s most recent letter, printed Monday, makes it very clear he has nothing but disdain for his students. With a condescending tone and obnoxiously smug vocabulary, Silber belittles both his students and himself by showing how truly ignorant he is of both his students’ needs and of the times we live in. In the neighborhood of higher education, he is the crazy old man at the end of the block, the one who sits on his porch in a rocking chair, shooting at kids who hit baseballs into his yard and yelling at girls because their skirts aren’t long enough.

Much has been said recently concerning Silber’s fantastical views of his students’ sexual lives, but there is something else in Silber’s diatribes that bothers me even more than his hyper-Puritanical view of adolescence: his Nixon-esque concept of a silent majority. Recalling when the current visitation policy was first implemented, Silber writes of “many sighs of relief from students who were silent about their dissatisfaction with the old policies because they did not care to be bullied by those publicly opposed to restrictions on guest policies.” To me, this is just sad.

The statement does, however, seem to fit in with the rest of Chancellor Silber’s worldview. Not only are we students unable to control our hormonal impulses, but we are also unable to stand up and speak our own thoughts, especially if they are unpopular. I wonder if Chancellor Silber has read the myriad opinions that have appeared on these very newspaper pages. I wonder if he has ever listened in on an interesting political discussion between friends eating lunch at the GSU. More often, I wonder if he knows to whom the statue in Marsh Plaza is dedicated, or what that person did to deserve a statue in the first place. Can someone’s views honestly be that clouded by such an abhorrent absence of knowledge?

I know you’re something of a man of philosophy, Chancellor Silber, so let’s do a little bit of philosophizing. The principle of Occum’s Razor says the simplest solution is most often the correct one. Why don’t we try applying this to your current views about the silent sighers? Let’s say you receive a certain number of letters bemoaning the current guest policy as ineffectual, inconveniencing and outdated and another much smaller number of letters thanking you for implementing it. What’s the simpler reason for this? That there is an enormous network of people who really, really love the Guest Policy but are too intimidated by peer pressure to even send you a private letter? Or is it that the vast majority of people at the school truly dislike the Guest Policy? I’ve got a guess, but you’re the one with the Ph.D. from Yale. I wonder who will be right in the end.

The bottom line is this: The Guest Policy, as it stands today, is more of a hindrance than a help to the students of this University. It is illogical and unnecessary, and in my three years here, I have yet to hear an administrator use an argument for its existence besides, “Because we’re older and we know better,” or, “Most people like it, they just don’t say so.” Maybe it is time to step out of that murky river, Chancellor. Denial is a powerful thing, indeed, but truth will always triumph in the end. Even Nixon figured that one out.