Before you douse the paper in lighter fluid and set it ablaze, have some sympathy for the “devil’s advocate.”
Firstly, I think we can all agree that our two schools have a rivalry. The evidence for this is overwhelming — although some may wish to be aloof and defy this objective social fact. At the formal level, we are paired off together during rivalry week — as are other “University of Blank” and “Blank State University” pairs. At the informal level, we refer to UNC-Chapel Hill as “the school down the road/over the hill” and make frequent jokes: the best signifier of a relationship. For example, in light of the recent academic scandals, members of the Wolfpack use the platitude “UNC-CHeaters.” Furthermore, if there were no rivalry, then there would have been no outrage these last two years in the absence of the publication of the “Daily Tar Hell.”
So, what are the implications of this rivalry?
My more cynical leftist friends would contend that the purpose of such a rivalry is a clever way for the administration to distract us, a la “Bread and Circuses.” Why concern ourselves with rising educational prices or the soft suppression of critical thought when we can worry ourselves with the outcome of a football game?
This line of argumentation asserts that an authoritarian figure constructs an image of some “enemy of the people” as to divert the political attention away from other problems. In a way, our identity is partially defined externally in our existence antithetical to this “other” — some group or person that carries an essential difference. This ideology can similarly be found in the constantly shifting national enemy of the United States: Mexicans, Germans, Russians/communists, to now the even more abstract notion of “terrorist.”
This paradigm does hold a kernel of truth; however, since I’ve been trying to live my life more optimistically, I will try to hold off from pessimism in my analysis.
A wise philosopher from modern day Palestine once said, “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Thus, when viewed through an alternate lens, rivalries can be seen as a mode of friendship — tough love. Think about it, are you always gregarious and polite with your true friends or your significant other? Of course not. You jaunt, you jest, you tease and you bicker.
We should avoid at all costs a demonization/xenophobia of UNC; doing so is toxic and blinding. We should instead use the Tar Heels as a mirror to reflect on ourselves and the path of our own university and student body. In other words, by using UNC as a competitive foil, we can prune our own tree of its weakest branches.
The common cultural perception characterizes the education at NC State as practical and vocational education while UNC as liberal — in the sense of learning a diverse body of knowledge to develop oneself as an educated citizen. From this, we can learn that multi-disciplinarity rather than hyperspecialization will be the key to resolving the problems of the 21st century.
Furthermore, UNC has a vibrant student activist movement, and the student body cares deeply about social issues. Maybe here at NC State, we can take a page out of its book and think long, hard and critically about issues of justice and oppression and how to fix them on our campus. Finally, cooperation in the academic sphere will only work to enhance the relevance of North Carolina and advance the body of human knowledge further.
Now, presuming you got this far through the column without using the paper as pet litter out of spite, we must strike a balance with our rivalry/friendship with UNC. We must not drift extremely toward either idealization or dehumanization but find a golden, virtuous mean. Through this, we can all improve ourselves and our student bodies.
