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Cousin Hobbes travels half way across the country only to end up in a totally different place than he started

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But it was too long so.... there you go.

I’ve been slacking off in my Cousin Hobbes writings, but now that I have tons of homework this weekend (as well as the Purdue vs. Notre Dame game) I figured this was the perfect way to avoid it. For those of you wondering (and probably no one is) the second half of my Tour de France explanation is still going to happen, let’s just hope its going to get here faster that Icarus’s parody of the Chick tract.

If you don’t know, my home is in Boulder Colorado, and I am currently at Purdue University in Indiana. Most of Colorado is pretty conservative, nothing outrageous but it is most definitely on the right side of center. Saying that Boulder differs from that norm is like saying Bill Gates is well off. The phrase “hot bed of liberals” does not do the place justice, in fact, no phrase does it justice so I guess you’ll just have to imagine a really, really liberal environment.

Indiana is not the most right leaning state in America, not even close. But it is definitely on the right side of the spectrum, and for a large, public college, Purdue is well seated on the right hand of moderate. Coming here has been a really good change for me; not because conservative is better but because I have lived almost my entire life surrounded by only one view of the world and now I get to interact with a different one.

When I go through my beliefs I find that I’m about half and half, liberal and conservative. The thing is that the ones that everyone is interested in talking about I seem to be conservative. I supported the war with Iraq, I’m on the right when discussing economic matters (though I hate the Republican’s plan to boost the economy), basically whatever is a hot topic I’m conservative about. The thing is, the most important issues (on a day to day basis) are ones that are almost never discussed here, and are the issues on which I feel comfortable sitting about a mile away from the baseline.

The best part about growing up in Boulder was race relations. There are few Black people living there, but many, many Hispanics and Asians. In elementary school I literally didn’t know what the difference was between the races, and it seemed no one else really did either. Once we did figure it out, there was no change in relationships because of it. In fact, I still often have to think about it before I remember what race any of my friends are, simply because no one was ever defined by their racial background.

This is a wonderful thing, and certainly what I miss most about the radically liberal culture. It took me a week or so to really notice it here, but there is almost never groups of friends that are multi-racial. I never see any discrimination or even general snubbing of people of different races (in any direction) but I’ve almost never seen a group of white kids hanging out with black kids. And if they do, you always get that impression, that there are white kids hanging out with black kids, not a group of friends getting together. To be honest I don’t know why this happening, is it because of the background of all these kids makes them afraid to have friends of a different race? I don’t know, but it’s really kind of making me sad, that friendship is some how restricted based your skin color, that we’ve barely taken baby steps since the civil rights movement.

Which leads into my second main concern with the conservative outlook here, homosexuality. Personally, I don’t know anyone here who is gay (though I may but just not be aware), so I have never witnessed how people would actually handle it, but all of the remarks made about it are so vulgar and unseemly. Homosexuality is something that’s just not allowed, something that everyone laughs at and mocks. It seems to be the ultimate insult, calling someone gay, as if no other crime could top sexual drive. Admittedly this isn’t new to me, but in Boulder it was a minor thing, where anyone who made those comments was admittedly rebuffed; here, it is the norm.

I consider KarlEd to be a friend, as well as Caleb. I doubt I’m a significant enough poster that they really have formed an opinion on me, but I would hope that if they did know me they would think of me as a friend. To most people here that makes me “gay by association”, someone who deserves having insults thrown at them and avoided just in case. This too, makes me sad.

I’d say these are the main draw backs I’ve experienced in moving from one political ideology to another, but I’ve also had good things come of it. For starters, it’s good just to be surrounded by a new world view (as I’ve already mentioned). I think that Boulder is a good place to grow up in, but that it’s very hard to judge the world when you’ve only experienced such a small view of it.

Also, I can now say those evil conservative things I’ve been wanting to say without shocking and morally offending everyone around me. When I told my English teacher that I didn’t think McDonalds was complete evil and that I disagreed with a lot of stuff in the book she assigned (Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal) I was almost shocked to see people nodding their heads in agreement. Some people actually agree with me here, and it’s a real relief.

I was willing to say what I thought in Boulder but it was always tough and whenever I did it always required a fight against the kids around me, and if in class, against the teacher. I think that this was a good challenge, but it is nice to not be jumped on by 30 people every time I say what I think.

Another positive aspect has actually been on a social topic. That is to say that people here are much freer about expressing their religion, which was not looked highly upon in Boulder. Not to say that Christians were regularly being fed to lions, but merely by having a Christian affiliation you became kind of out cast until you could show that your still a good person. People often walk around with crosses and shirts that have the name of their Church on them. People are perfectly comfortable with believing in God, or not believing (which there is plenty of here too).

Overall I have to say that going to college here has been a positive learning experience; which I realize is a very corny phrase, but I think that it really does capture it. I’m getting new influences and new experiences and I certainly hope I’m learning.

That’s the news from West Lafayette, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

Hobbes

Posts: 10602 | Registered: Oct 1999  |  IP: Logged | 

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One of the speakers told us this story about his dog, which had only one leg. He was taking his dog for a walk when...

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Wow, impressive. He must have had incredible balance.

Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000  |  IP: Logged |