The Problem with Labels... and Perspective

Photo Credit: Sex and the Ivy

"What people forget with labels is that they fail to capture the uniqueness of individual relationships."
Read the full entry at Sex and the Ivy

My friend Lara sent me a blog entry written by a Harvard student about the pressure of her friends and society at large to label her personal relationship. Today I had a conversation with a friend from home about the inability to label friendships.. as well as the impossibility to fully understand any relationship from the outside. Yet, towards the end of the summer, I was having several conversations with friends about the problems in their relationships with significant others. And I was offering my opinions as if I could predict the outcome of future actions. I do believe in the uniqueness of each relationship. However, I also believe in the truth of the human experience. As I've said before, we are unique in our combination of experiences and history. But not one of our qualities is completely original. When something goes wrong in a relationship (or even when something goes right, perhaps according to societal standards), friends generally take the 'I saw that coming' stance. Often, friends see the problems more clearly than the person in the relationship. Then again, relationships outlast fights and frustrations and overcome outside opinion and obstacles. So my question is... Who really sees relationships more clearly? The couple? Or their friends?

Wake Up and Smell the Truth

Photo Credit: dpatterson.blogspot.com

As I was walking to class today, the school newspaper caught my attention. More correctly, something sticking out of the newspaper caused a double take on my part: a supplemental ad for Walmart.


I've been to Walmart once in my life, but I hear about the great prices. Blah blah blah. However, more frequently I hear about the protests against the corporation. Unfair wages. General abuse of employees. All kinds of issues against justice and rights. I do believe our university continually contradicts itself on the global issues it stands for.

1) People across the country stand against Walmart, yet my "progressive" campus allows newspaper sponsorship, we can assume, for the purpose of advertising money.

2) Social justice groups annually protest the unfair treatment of hotel employees at the Hilton LAX, yet Student Life approves the use of the hotel's facilities for another student group's formal.

3) A multi-year campaign for campus diversity ends with the following facts (And note that the term "diversity" has frequently been defended to include not only race and ethnicity, but socioeconomic background and hometown/out-of-area students):
-Every year admissions follows a pattern of 12% acceptance of certain racial groups.
-This year, 1/3 of the freshmen class is on financial aid, compared to the 3/4 of the graduating senior class who are.

4) Tons of people on campus promote environmental change, yet recycling is not exactly encouraged and definitely not enforced. Composting? I don't even think a fourth of the population knows what that is.


We shout SOCIAL JUSTICE! DIVERSITY! CHANGE! from the rooftops, yet fail to instill these values in all of our students. Many students are or become advocates for global issues, but far more graduate without educating their whole person. According to a member of the Jesuit community at Santa Clara University, this entails "an integrated humanism, faith and scholarly inquiry, and engagement with the world in pursuit of justice." As of now, our university is lucky if alumni exemplify one of these missions of growth.