Volume CXXXIII, Number 14 February 1, 2002 f

Back to the Bubble
HUGH HILL

In case you missed it, President Bush gave his annual State of the Union address to the assembled houses of Congress on Tuesday night. This constitutionally-mandated address provides the President with a chance to communicate his agenda for the coming year to both the legislature and the electorate. They have assumed an increasing importance in the television age, especially in the last few decades, utilized for important announcements and priority shifts.

The only reason I bring this is up is that I am assuming that you did not watch it. I know a fair number of you did, but definitely not the majority. From my amazingly scientific polling method (namely, the famous eavesdropping/ask-your-friends method), most were not even aware that it was going on. While I won't say that I'm not disappointed by this, you are not alone. The majority of Americans did not watch the State of the Union; most were probably agitated that their usual fair of sitcoms, sports, and sentimentality had been interrupted. This has all been part of a general decline in public interest in public affairs over the past several decades. It seems that people really don't care what happens to them.

Well us smart kids at Bowdoin are supposed to be better than that, right? Because we have had the privilege of good genes and education, we're going to be involved and aware of the world around us. If not that, we should at least be as involved as other campuses of similar caliber.
Unfortunately, we are not. We live in the Bowdoin Bubble-our insular little community in an isolated corner of New England where our interests are definitely not global in scope. I know this is a rather harsh generalization and that there are many exceptions to the rule. However, an unfortunate feature about stereotypes is that they often contain an element of truth. Bowdoin is extremely inwardly focused and that is reflected in the attitudes of the student body.

I know others have said it before and, to a degree, this is beating a dead horse. But it's a gong that needs to be banged. I was hopeful that the catastrophes of this past fall would reawaken a more global focus in the Bowdoin student body's perspective. For a time, this was the case. I think CNN might have outdone ESPN and all the major broadcast networks combined.

Unfortunately, this interest was fleeting. Now that the new semester has begun, the same old attitudes regarding the outside world have returned, and we have retreated back into the Bowdoin Bubble. Granted, things are better now than they were when I arrived here four years ago, but not by much.

Bowdoin still has a long way to go in terms of awareness of and involvement in public and international affairs. We should all be interested in public events and issues, since the government of our land directly affects the daily lives of each and everyone of us. The events of September 11 made that all the more poignant. So let us endeavor to break out of the Bowdoin Bubble. If one thing is certain, the ostrich is not any safer when it sticks its head in the sand, and neither are we.