These Accounts are Rotten

By EZEKIEL KINGSBURY

Earlier this week, I sat in Commons, overwhelmed with disappointment in this student body. I looked around me, and every face I saw came with the baggage of being a potential poster to any of our newest crop of anonymous Instagram accounts. These accounts spew vitriol, seem to refuse critical engagement with the work our staff has been putting out, and instead fall back on ad hominem attacks against this paper’s editors and writers and its subjects. This behavior, from a vocal minority of bored individuals, is a rejection of the goals of a liberal arts education. Although these attacks are not representative of the entire student body, the tolerance for this kind of behavior has brought me great grief. This is my last year, and I cannot leave proud to have belonged to a student body that has permitted such destructive discourse.

I worry that we are sick. Whether it’s the effect of social media, a devastating political climate, the slow death of the world, or whatever diagnosis you choose, there seems to be something wrong with us. We are angry, yet tepid; constantly critiquing, yet resistant to change. We are a morose people.

Recently, the Editorial Board decided to include specific suggestions for resolving the issues we reported within Sigma Chi. Our editorial on Sigma Chi was a call to dialogue, yet the anonymous discourse quickly turned into a misguided attack on the chapter president, missing the point entirely. It feels good, doesn’t it? To say whatever you want, without your name attached?

But the Round Table attaches names to pieces for a reason. We do not publish anonymous articles, and we are extremely reluctant to grant anonymity to sources. Putting your name on a piece of writing is more than claiming credit — it is to take responsibility, to say to the world, “You may attack me, you may criticize this work and call it wrong or disgusting or misguided, but I stand by it, because it is part of me.” Anonymous posts, on the other hand, strip away the personal and reduce discourse to a cold, detached monologue. They remove any trace of love or affection, any desire to engage genuinely with others. Criticism without courage is hollow. 

We are a campus of less than a thousand people. We know each other’s stories and are all too familiar with each other’s enemies. In such a local society, anonymity is a weapon of mass destruction, a force that destroys us from the inside. It is a rot.

We are already struggling. The college appears to be making every effort to save us from a quickly coming oblivion, the world is falling in on itself, and the future is terrifying. Why, then, must we turn against our neighbors as well?

Last year, I wrote an opinion titled “A Plea for Beloit’s Soul.” In it, I argued that the administration was forgetting its liberal arts foundation, choosing instead to poorly mimic career-oriented state schools and that this would destroy us from the inside. I still believe this is so. It is not just the administration that is losing sight of our soul. It is us. Why turn inwards? 

Let us question and respond, not with venom but with love. It is time to ask yourself: who do you want to be on this campus? Let us reclaim our voices and commit to building a culture we can be proud of. I do not want to be ashamed to be a Beloiter.

Graphic: VectorStock