And yeah, lively debate is in fact a hallmark of healthy intellectual cameraderie. My centrist impulses and aversion to potential flamewars aside, I want us to move forward. But it reminds me of just how close we were (maybe not in opinions but in other ways) when I knew every single Olin student, and I wonder if we aren’t really just a little too big for our own good.

In a perfect world, we could do like some tribes and corporations do, and just fork every so often. I rather admired the description of Piratbyran in _Steal This Film_, which basically says that they grow by budding. When a project is big enough to stand on its own, they cut the cord and set it free. Olin does, after all, need to spread its ways. Pity you can’t exactly “fork” a $400M college and ship half of it to Texas or something.

Now, on to the point: I didn’t think that people would take the “Olin cultists” comment from me in such a negative way. I guess I should have thought more carefully about the common connotations of cultist. What I really MEANT was that Mel is VERY involved in Olin-building on many levels. Much moreso than someone like me, who tries to exist here and contribute to things that I feel well-qualified for. It seems to me like Mel jumps in and gets her hands dirty with just about everything to do with Olin’s curriculum, culture, organization, etc. That’s what I meant when I thought cultist.

“…the conflict in views held by my classmates here made me feel a bit sad.” Finally, I wanted to address this quote (a general sentiment that I keep hearing echoes of around Olin mailing lists and such.) Our student body has held conflicting views since the day we started! That’s the nature of getting more than one person together in a place. And it’s good, and very much a part of the real world, that people should hold different views and not all agree with each other or remain in solidarity. This is what fosters interesting discussion and makes the world go round. What we need in a small community like Olin is for people not to get so up in a tizzy when they find out that not everyone loves everyone in the world as their own children. I don’t believe that everyone within the Olin community has to love or even like each other. I DO believe that we need to keep treating each other as we would want to be treated in spite of whether we like each other or not.

Apparently a lot of Oliners jumped to (incorrect) conclusions on who Lex was – some with much less kind words than your post here, which saddens me. No matter how much you may disagree with someone’s philosophies, they still deserve respect.

Moving on with life, though, and back to changing things – more working on making stuff better, less whining about why they suck.

And I’m off.