The senseless loss of five university students in a house fire has stung my community. These were top students, accomplished individuals, and potential leaders.
Someone has got to ask the tough questions right now, while the pain of their loss is intense. In what kind of society do presumably the best and brightest engage in highly questionable activities? An all-night party? Started at what hour? Preceded by what? To end when?
How much alcohol flows? How many drugs are dispensed? Obtained from and by whom? Ingested by whom? How many cigarettes are lit? How many butts wantonly burn down to nothing? What else is lit and smoked?
Foolish Behavior Condoned
The largest and toughest question of all behind these is what kind of society, de facto, condones such foolish and, in too many tragic instances, reckless behavior? Drunk students falling out of windows to their death, engaged in chugging contests until they vomit, on weeknights no less, walking the campus in a state of high lethargy? Being rushed to emergency wards?
Sure, install the proper sprinkler and alarm systems, but acknowledge the ruthless reality that confronts us. Colleges today are the stomping grounds for legions of students who drink and take drugs with abandon. They sit like zombies in morning classes if they can make it out of bed at all. Professors pretend that it is not happening. University administrators accept such behavior as ‘part of the times.’
Such phenomena are more wide sweeping than anyone cares to admit. They are testament to the abandonment of standards, the ‘everything is allowed’ overly permissive culture in which no student is safe.
Break the Silence
If the students who died were among the finest people that communities engender, what does their loss portend for others? And when will responsible adults break the silence about the utter absurdity with which too many students live their lives?
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