On Wednesday, The New York Times ran a front-page story detailing how Florida State University and Tallahassee Police had left multiple rape allegations, including the one against star quarterback Jameis Winston, uninvestigated.
Deep in the article, I found a heartbreaking quote from one rape victim. The student said in her complaint to TPD, “Why was I not given an advocate to speak with? I was raped and was stressed and scared.”
How could a police department make a rape victim feel so helpless? Tallahassee, like many other college towns, is notorious for trying to keep rape cases on the down-low. If that’s the case, are the police officers in Tallahassee somehow uniquely immoral?
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.” This idea that our moral compasses don’t function well under social pressure explains why FSU, with its obsessive sports culture, didn’t take the charges against its star quarterback seriously.
The same holds true for all aspects of life. Often our gravest concerns, whether they have to do with a Greek organization, a respected family member or an influential group of leaders, get completely ignored. Why? For one reason: Once someone or something becomes part of the “establishment,” it’s harder to level charges against that someone/something.
The true moral dilemma for many of our problems, ranging from the interpersonal to the societal, has to do with the value we attach to people. In an ideal community, individuals — not institutions — are sacrosanct.
Before bashing institutions and other social groups, Emerson paid his highest respects to the singular human being, saying that each of us represents a unique “divine idea.” We came to existence to bring to fruition a unique part of the overall divine blueprint, but the true expression comes only through self-respecting our individuality.
The greatest calamity in our time has been society’s push toward impassivity. Even health care professionals are urged today not to get “emotionally attached” to their patients, while the aloofness of our politicians and pundits has led to serious human struggles becoming abstract subjects of intellectual jousting at the dinner table.
The most common piece of advice dispensed today is to “grow a thicker skin,” but do we realize that desensitization leads to a more tragic end?
Rarely do we find a person today who has no “skin” — someone whose unadulterated, moral individuality calls for outrage even when society sits back with apathy and the occasional bewilderment.
But where do we find moral clarity?
Real honesty, as Emerson put it, can only be found within individuals, not in groups.
“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members… The virtue in most request is conformity… It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs,” Emerson cautioned.
This explains why, when a bold sorority member dares to speak her mind against her repressive climate, she is quickly labeled “un-sisterly” and accused of not showing respect to her superiors and loyalty to her peers.
On the other hand, if we began pledging loyalty to our individual selves and to that slice of divinity within each of us, we would consider each others’ moral honesty as more sacred, and ultimately more helpful, than the self-proclaimed values social groups pretend to possess.
Those rare moments when we confidently express ourselves, undeterred by others’ influences and are completely honest with each other are what justify our existence.
The infinitely fertile words of the Quran speak to this moral axiom: “Mankind is in loss, except those who believe and do good, and enjoin on each other Truth, and enjoin on each other Patience.”
[Zulkar Khan is a UF microbiology senior. His columns appear on Tuesdays. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 4/22/2014 under the headline "My final remarks: A call for honesty"]
