TO THE EDITOR:
In looking ahead to spring break, columnist Matt Moran exhorts us to loosen the binds on our inner miscreant, rightly highlighting the power of new experiences to edify and broaden our sense of direction (“Make the break a time to be naughty,” March 1). One must wonder, however, if Moran’s goals and means are truly consistent.
He writes, “Sometimes stepping outside the well-worn path leads to your discovering a wholly new direction for yourself.” How can one discover a new direction for his or her life when one’s very faculties of discovery are, for example, drowning in drunkenness? The pursuits Moran suggests as leading to better insight are actually those obscuring self-discovery.
More importantly, these “misdoings” tend to have the “serious consequences” that Moran glosses over, particularly for women. According to the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Study, 89 percent of female sexual assault victims reported consuming alcohol before the assault. Moreover, a 2006 book by UCLA psychiatrist Miriam Grossman identifies Moran’s suggested activities — drinking to oblivion, drugging, one-night sex — as common denominators of the majority of students appearing at campus mental health clinics.
It seems that Moran is quite right about the followers of his naughty program, “They’re the ones that are talked about, the ones with great stories to tell.”?Those stories, however, are told not to friends, but more often to a psychiatrist.
Nathan Tilley
Freshman
Philosophy and Religious Studies
