This letter was written Sunday before last.
A funny thing happened to me yesterday. I overheard a friend of mine declaiming that the Wesleyan Pep Band was without a drummer. Next I knew, I was en route to Williamstown, Mass, to crash cymbals and roll snares. Needless to say, Wesleyan lost brilliantly, but there were moments of excitement and the like. We played “charge” and “De-fense! [crash-crash]” a whole lot. A pleasant Disaster of everyday proportions. The strange thing was, I felt a part of something, invested in the fighting if not the outcome of the game, sympathetic to one side and not the other, strongly loyal to the team.
Such fitting contrast to the national contest can hardly be imagined.
Where yesterday I was forgiving, and certainly spirited, but disinterested, on Tuesday I was dispirited, condemnatory, and altogether too invested in the day’s final tally. I was all for the winning and never for the fighting.
Nothing that happened made me feel any closer to the Team, and for the most part the only sympathy I felt was perhaps with the Edwardses, who by now are probably on the verge of atheism.
If anything good is to come from this disaster of global proportions, it must surely be the recognition that you and I are not members of some team, in whose winning and losing we must take an empty pride and a personal offense. We are social beings, whose fickle natures are made the more so by being subject to continuous investigation, by us and our would-be leaders.
It is often said that a movement ends when it gets what it wants; and that some portion of its membership would be happier without success. But if instead it is only the act of being co-opted which reveals the true priorities of the young social movement, then the same surely holds for individuals. And as this event shows, for any person who has ever wanted change for the better in the world, the only thing worse than being exploited for the gain of others, is not being exploited at all.
Yours,
Matthew J. Roe
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