We all hope to find a community in college—a place where we belong—because we’re among students with similar values. At last! Emancipated from the molasses-slow public school system, full of random people from our hometowns, we are in a place where we are literally accepted for our merit and personality! I found that at Carnegie Mellon at first, surrounded by like-minded students who finally understood my flavor of ambition (and nerdy passion). In this environment, I could thrive!
Tragically, it’s a beautiful illusion. Though it was personally nice to find this sense of community, especially through clubs like Kiltie Band, I was promptly confronted with the real world: in my internship, semester abroad, and even just walking off campus onto the Pittsburgh streets. The tipping point for me was this election, when fellow students of liberal Carnegie Mellon were shocked by the success of Donald Trump. Where did this seemingly silent majority come from? How, they asked, could he have won when the “logical” choice was Hillary?
Being raised conservatively and placed in a liberal environment, I will attempt to remain non-partisan.
While our sense of community on campus is comforting as a source of identity, a tight-knit community can deafen us to other opinions. In this “Information Age,” the plethora of information available enables us to expose ourselves only to media which confirms our beliefs. Usually unintentionally, we build an echo chamber around ourselves through social media (our friends and followings), with no help from increasingly polarized news.
I propose we can mitigate this inevitable problem by practicing community. Rather than focusing on those already within our community, we should instead use our resources to reach out to those without. Easier said than done, for sure, but I believe it can be achieved by two actions: awareness and invitation.
I am admittedly ignorant of many opinions that are different from mine, because I simply haven’t been exposed to them. My mission nowadays is to stay curious, because curiosity can lead to greater awareness of different lifestyles. My ignorance was bliss, but it’s surprising to find people of diverse backgrounds and opinions. For example, during the election, I was shocked by how few miles I had to venture out from Pittsburgh to see Trump signs throughout Pennsylvania. The “silent majority” is out there, and it isn’t as silent as I might be deaf to it.
Gaining awareness, we must then act upon it through invitation. Because different people aren’t even that far away from us, we need only open up a dialogue to be able to (1) hear what they are saying and (2) try to help others understand our views. This can be done by striking up conversations with someone on the bus or reading news articles online that seem… uncomfortable. It’s a different kind of liberation to know how big the world is, and how diverse we can remain peacefully—if we try (which is the hard part, sorry, John Lennon).
What about agreement? Try as we might to find common ground, if we disagree with others, the beauty of democracy is that we are allowed to disagree. General respect is necessary, but pure acceptance is difficult to achieve at the outset. And fake acceptance (such as the myth of “colorblindness”) is worthless.
Through awareness and invitation, “community” can be redefined from something we have to practice. It’s a constant challenge we’ll face throughout our lives, but we should face it! As young adults, it’s best to know the challenge and learn how to equip ourselves to face it now rather than later.