There are certain texts from which one can derive new meaning and value upon every occasion of reading and re-reading. There’s the Declaration of Independence, The Great Gatsby, and the Bible. It is not surprising that one might encounter this sort of masterpiece during four years at Princeton. And lo and behold, in what was only my first week here, one was slipped under my door.
I have read the Princeton Tory’s freshman welcome letter, “Greetings and welcome, Class of 2018,” many times since that day, and I have found that I derive the most meaning and the most value from a sort of meta-reading of the article. Yes, the artful mastery of the written word that is demonstrated by the Tory in this instance taught me so much about writing as a craft, and also, about myself.
For those of you who did not have this issue delivered to your dorm, (1) my condolences but (2) I actually happen to have a few extra copies, as every time I brought one into my room, another was promptly left in its place—kind of like leaving a hotel towel on the floor to let the cleaning service know you want it washed, except a process more aggressive and less understood by both parties.
But let me paint the scene for you. In this letter, the freshman class is welcomed to Princeton and encouraged to make a plan for their next four years. The plan suggested by the publisher? Carving out a path that will least challenge the conservative ideas that we freshman hold, and that will instead allow us to further develop an insular sense of moral and ideological superiority that one assumes our acceptance to Princeton was contingent upon in the first place.
This may sound simple enough, but there’s much to learn from this argument and its how it is laid out. Take a look at the opening paragraph, for example.
“As I begin this letter, I fear that I will choke on all the standard welcome-to-campus cliches in this opening paragraph. To avoid platitudinal suffocation, let it suffice to say that we’re all glad you’re here, we look forward to meeting you, and, moreover, we hope that you will get involved with the Tory.”
Immediately, I was the writer’s clear sense of his audience. Very much a man of the people, he’s not talking down to freshmen but just trying to give them what they want. Which, as any freshman will tell you, are such Microsoft-Word-spell-check-defying adjectives as “platitudinal.” And the lessons continue from there.
Before this letter, I had never truly considered quotation marks to be rhetorical. But in non-discriminatingly applying punctuation marks, the author brings up many meaningful questions that words alone could never do. Why is “personal identity” in quotations? Why is “expand your horizons” in quotations? Seriously: why is “be tolerant” in quotations? Is the quotation key jammed on his keyboard, and did he decide to just roll with it?
The bounty of quotation marks is matched only by high-school vocabulary words. For example, the Tory wisely warns against letting faculty advisors advise too much, explaining that they might actually “obfuscate” the best course to a worthwhile education.
For anyone who forgets the meaning of “obfuscate” –am I using these correctly?–it is to make something unclear or unintelligible. You know, sort of like overly verbose writing does to mediocre ideas. Though, at the moment, no specific example comes to mind.
Using words like this make it clear that the author did very well on his SATs, establishing a strong appeal to ethos. Classic technique, extremely well-executed. Moreover, this level of mastery is undoubtedly intimidating. I admit, I was scared when I read this article for the first time. After the second time, I was terrified.
I wondered if everyone at Princeton was like this. Would I be able to keep up with this level of pretension? What if I erred from the recommended path of truth, and chose not to become a James Madison fellow, or worse, to take a Creative Writing class in place of “Fall of the Roman Empire?” Would these transgressions mean that I would be shunned by my peers, destined to spend four years pursuing the mysterious folklore of progressivism at Princeton? Where was the apparent liberal cesspit? How big was it? Was it at all possible that the majority of students on campus were members? Is it on tap tonight? Is it PUID? Is it Terrace?
Obviously, these are dangerous and unfounded musings, best to be pushed to some irretrievable corner of the mind and replaced instead by the Anscombe Society’s mission statement. And if such a repression is impossible, I guess I might as well walk out the FitzRandolph Gate now.