The Gadfly, May 2022, Vol. 43 Issue 11

THE GADFLY St. John’s College Vol. XLIII, Issue 11

Annapolis, Maryland May 13, 2022

CONTENTS Logos

From the Editor’s Desk:

Ukrainian Cultural Festival Tutor Spotlight Greek Alive!

Johnnies of Color Club An Imbalanced Relationship Antigone Reviews

3 4 6 8 11 14

Symposium Wollstonecraft on Equity

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Polis

Songs Sung, Songs Loved The Black Box Harlem 1953 DC President Mistake The NFL Draft Evelyn's Review What is a Johnnie?

What Does This Mean?

20 22 25 26 27 28 30 31

THE STRUCTURE Logos typically holds news reports and narratives of immediate relevance to the Polity. The purpose here is to develop a shared reservoir of information relating to campus life and the community.

Symposium offers the opportunity for our readers to thoughtfully consider contrasting opinions regarding a particular topic.

Polis serves as a platform for elevating voices in our community. Here we find letters to the editor, columns, cartoons, and submitted pieces.

THE COVER Photography of Humphrey's Hall

by Meliha Anthony

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the Gadfly / May 13, 2022

Dear Polity, The theme of this issue is Community, Justice, and Social Responsibility. Inside, you'll find engagements with these themes through a variety of means. There are four interviews, an investigative report on off-campus housing, a crowdsourced review of KWP's Antigone, an essay on virtue and equity in the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, a meditation on the Foo Fighters, a review of a film, a poem, a criticism of a recent delegate council decision, a consideration of the NFL draft, a restaurant review, and an argument about what a 'Johnnie' properly is.

I hope that you enjoy this second to last issue of the Gadfly, and I look forward to sharing the final issue of the year with all of you before long.

Yours, Craig Koch PS. There's still time to submit for the next issue. If you have a submission for the contest, for the "Senior's Last Words and Final Thoughts" article, or for the report on campus club's activity throughout the year, please send it to sjca.gadfly@gmail.com by the end of the day today (Friday, May 13th).

THE STAFF

Bibhu Chapagain Luke Briner Lysithia Page Catherine Elizabeth Greer Meliha Anthony Connor Shin M. Elwell Cooper Ussery Craig Koch Michael Jeramaz Nat Martin El’ad Nichols-Kaufman Rose Zhang Isaac Vail Josephine Dowd Zara Brandt Liz Dowdy SUBMISSIONS Christopher Turney Drew Maglio George Kalandadze Max Anthon Max MersmannJones Ranger Kasdorf INTERESTED IN WRITING FOR THE GADFLY? EMAIL CRAIG KOCH AT CEKOCH@SJC.EDU

{student life}

The Ukrainian Cultural Festival An interview with Kostiantyn Rymar

by Josephine Dowd '25, photos by Liz Dowdy '23

In preparation for the upcoming Ukrainian cultural festival, I interviewed one of the festival organizers, Saint John’s College Kostiantyn Rymar. He shared with me some of his fondest Ukrainian traditions, how his life in the U.S. compares with Ukrainian life, and his views on the invasion of his home country.

O

ne tradition Kostia mentioned described how couples would show the strength of their partnership by placing flower crowns in a stream, and, together, jump over bonfires.

Kostia also highlighted how his family upbringing differed from those of his friends, such as how he lived in a big city while some of his friends lived in smaller villages. During the Easter holidays, he and his family would enjoy Easter bread together and go to different workshops and potteries to paint eggs.

As an Annapolis resident, Kostia has encountered contrasting personal attitudes between the U.S. and Ukraine. He noted a different type of straightforwardness and sarcasm between the two peoples. Ukrainians get to the point and convey messages much faster without being unnecessarily blunt, and he jokingly said that you can’t tell if someone is being sarcastic or sincere. On the other hand, he believes U.S. residents tend to be more genuine and courteous. Kostia was troubled, however, by how many people drive in Annapolis; he used to walk everywhere, and has yet to get a driver’s license. He had planned to go back to Ukraine to get his license; however, once Russia’s war on Ukraine accelerated, he has opted to wait until he absolutely can’t go without it.

Reflecting on the invasion, Kostia expressed his ambivalence. He shared

his sadness, shock, pain, and anger over the brutality against his loved ones. He described how “people were treated worse than people usually treat objects” and he is unsettled by the amount of bloodshed and hate over this period. He spoke of his mother’s bravery as evidence of Ukrainians’ strength and determination, and he said she was not worried about the situation or getting family members within Ukraine to safety.

With regards to the SJC community in Annapolis, Kostia said many people on campus have given him much support. However, though the response has mostly been positive from students and Tutors alike, there have been instances of ignorance, with people “talking about something they don’t know.” Kostia hoped the festival

could provide cultural resources, so others could better learn and understand Ukraine.

The event was a success. The Ukrainian cultural festival allowed the SJC community to embrace Ukrainian culture. The festival was filled with contributions ranging from art, including music, paintings, and various writings, to foods and much more. With Ukraine suffering a significant loss of life and resources, the festival also raised money through a variety of organizations and charities supporting Ukraine including Ukrainian Red Cross, Save the Children, and Fight for Right. And, as a thank-you gift, students were given Ukrainian-designed notebooks and bookmarks!

the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

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{tutor interview}

Tutor Spotlight

An Interview with Ms. Dougherty

interview by Craig Koch '23, photo by Liz Dowdy '23

How did you become interested in philosophy?

I grew up during the Cold War, and that certainly had an effect. I withdrew from my church at 14. Not much later, I read a lot of Marx and concluded he didn’t understand human nature. I read a good deal of Solzhenitsyn too. The opposition between liberal democracy and communism, and the claims and the flaws of both, were thought provoking for me, and I had questions about what was true more broadly. I read a lot but unsystematically, many novels and some philosophical works, including bad translations of Platonic dialogues. As a freshman in College I had a professor who assigned me (it was a one on one reading class) large portions of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind. I don’t know what the professor was thinking but I guess I did imagine that a comprehensive account of the truth was possible. I read enough of the Phenomenology to think “Yes, this may be the truth.” But since I couldn’t tell whether or not it was the truth until I read all the thinkers Hegel had read, I had to keep reading and studying. I somehow thought I could ultimately judge for myself.

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As you began to take an interest in philosophy, how was it that you hoped to pursue the subject? What factors were you looking at for continuing your education?

I had no plans. I was on a full scholarship so I figured I had four years to learn everything important.

I was a philosophy major because I assumed philosophical texts would include the important things, but I approached classes in other disciplines hopefully, too. I didn’t know anything about graduate schools, probably until I was a junior, when I discovered that my professors expected me to go to graduate school. I applied because I wanted to keep studying. I didn’t have a clear idea of how one went about becoming an academic.

In your time as an undergraduate, what were some moments that were especially influential on your intellectual development?

One semester I took a class on Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza. I talked to the professor after class one time and started to make comparisons (or draw contrasts) between Descartes and Aristotle. My professor dismissed my suggestions, saying that Descartes

the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

hadn’t read Aristotle. The implication was I should absorb what the professor said in his lectures and ask only for clarifications of his views. Dead end. That was a memorable moment because I knew the comparison was worth making despite the rebuff. I took classes on Kant with an extremely careful reader who ran his classes like SJC classes. He taught a class called “Kant’s Copernican Revolution,” which was on Kant’s First Critique.

He asked an opening question and we went at it. He said almost nothing.

I remember approaching him with some big claim after class and he just said “I’d like to see that.” It was up to me either to ditch the idea (after all, Mr. O didn’t see it and there was probably good reason for that), or to develop and support it and come back with something persuasive. If I became a more cautious reader and thinker it was due to that professor’s example.

My department was stronger on Descartes through Heidegger than on the ancients so a few friends and I took theory classes in the political science department. Why was Socrates put to death? What is human wisdom? These were questions I hadn’t heard anyone address before. In general, reading Platonic dialogues with professors who weren’t preoccupied with scholarly questions but with human concerns was very compelling. I still wanted to know the truth and how humans could know it, but I recognized that when those questions arose in the context of human experience they could more easily be grasped and addressed.

After your time as an undergraduate, you went on to graduate school at Harvard to study government, and, after graduating with your doctorate from there, you

went on to teach at Stonehill College for a few years before becoming a tutor at St. John’s in 1982. What was it about St. John’s that drew you to the college? How did you expect the College would help you to achieve your philosophical aspirations?

I knew about the College from when I was a senior in high school and considered coming here as a student.

The Program was both compelling and (I have to admit) intimidating. I didn’t think much about the phrase Great Books but I definitely had some sense that there were books that were coherent works that conveyed thought of a high order. When I was in grad school I met some Johnnies. They liked to talk. They could even talk about politics when they thoroughly disagreed. I started reading old copies of The College and learned a bit about Klein. I was impressed that Klein thought the books could form the basis for the education not just of an elite but of human beings who choose to open their minds to them. I took the position at Stonehill before I finished my dissertation (on Montesquieu) and didn’t intend to stay there permanently. My dissertation advisor told me to “be a Montesquieu scholar” and I realized I didn’t want to do that.

I wanted to come teach at the College because I didn’t feel compelled to profess. I was more likely to perish than publish because I didn’t know what to write that would be worth publishing. Besides, I’d read Kant and Hegel but I’d never looked at, for example, Newton. I wanted to do math again. I still was somewhat under the spell of Hegel but at that point I was trying to discern why I suspected he didn’t know the whole truth. Most of all I wanted to study the ancients. In general, I was confident the Program would give me a chance to continue inquiring without having to pretend to an expertise I didn’t possess.

Have you found St. John’s to meet those expectations?

I love the College. I am extremely grateful to the opportunities teaching here affords me to rethink convictions I have formed at one time or another and begin anew with the many questions that I have never fully addressed. Since I never aspired to be a scholar, after writing my dissertation I had the exaggerated (and absurd) reaction that I never wanted to read secondary literature again if I could avoid it.

It is a bit frustrating sometimes at the College to read so much so quickly.

I didn’t realize as a grad student what a luxury it is to read something over and over, and let it lead you to another work which you then read with similar care before moving on.

Having the time to write and rewrite something with care is precious, too.

But the interconnections between different works on the Program, the opportunity to discuss great books with interested and thoughtful students and colleagues is well worth the disadvantages of life at the College.

I can’t quite imagine life apart from the sort of conversations I have taken part in here (i.e., both in Annapolis and in Santa Fe).

Has anything about St. John’s surprised you during your time here?

Like any student here, I think, I have been impressed, not necessarily surprised, over and over again at how difficult material becomes accessible when you work at it, breaking it down into small steps.

Your preceptorial this year was on Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Anabasis, and you are also a great admirer of Plato and the other ancients. What about the work of the ancients drives you to a consideration of their work, and how has thinking about them helped you to think about philosophy and

human life?

It seems to me the ancients pose fundamental questions in a more direct way than later thinkers in the western tradition. I don’t deny that they are sometimes responding to earlier thinkers – Aristotle explicitly refers to them, for example. Still, his account of what a polis is seems like an account of political activity in general, unencumbered by theoretical commitments and historical accretions.

Platonic dialogues illuminate not only fundamental questions but the human hopes and yearnings out of which they arise and which inform how they are posed. The concerns of Plato’s interlocutors are at the very least recognizable to contemporary readers.

I’m tempted to say that they are finally indistinguishable from our own.

What does the study of Xenophon allow us to realize that perhaps isn’t as evident in the work of other ancients like Plato or Aristotle?

In his Socratic writings Xenophon presents a Socrates more thoroughly immersed in the city, and Xenophon defends him not only as just but as a teacher of gentlemanliness. Xenophon himself is a political and military leader as well as a student of Socrates.

I don’t mean to suggest I see a conflict between Plato’s and Xenophon’s representation of Socrates. Rather, reading Xenophon is an opportunity to think again about who Socrates is.

If there was an opening question you could ask the college community to begin thinking about an author, topic, or work dear to you, what would it be?

How can we maintain our commitment to the reading of great books in the current climate in which greatness is often considered elitist and the commitment to truth-seeking inquiry is confused with ideology?

the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

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{campus life}

Greek Alive!

An Interview with Christophe Rico interview by El'ad Nichols-Kaufman '25

Christophe Rico is the Dean of Polis, the Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanity, and a professor of Greek Philology at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem. He has pioneered the Polis method, which involves studying living and ancient languages in a full immersion environment.

Nichols-Kaufman: Just to start off with, could you explain a little bit about what the Polis method is?

Rico: First, full immersion. This is not something which is exclusive to Polis. Secondly, we have another main principle: we try to teach the language according to an algorithm that is natural to that very language. When I wrote the method of Greek, one of the most difficult things for me was to find the proper order of elements to be taught so that the process of acquisition of the language would be as smooth as possible.

Something that helps a lot is to see what happens with children when they learn their mother tongue. Of course, we don't have any studies on children learning ancient Greek in antiquity, but we do have very interesting studies on modern Greek children learning their mother tongue. Even though modern Greek is quite different from ancient Greek, you still have many elements that are common in the structure of both languages. For instance, in both ancient modern Greek, there are two categories of imperative, the present tense imperative and the aorist imperative. It's very interesting to see that modern Greek children learn the aorist imperative first, and only afterwards they assimilate the present tense imperative. We take into account the results of this research on children's language acquisition in our own way

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of setting these steps.

There are some steps that are very important in any language. You start with greetings because this is the first thing you need in order to communicate. When you start a conversation, you start with greetings.

“Hello, how are you?” “thank you,” “bye bye,” these kinds of things. Then you have the second step, and it's the most common imperative: “get up,” “sit down,” “run,” “give me that,” “show me this,”. Next you have the deictics: “this is that,” “this is this,” “what is this?”

“What is that?” That has to come at the very beginning, then we can move on to other elements of the language.

If this natural order is followed, the acquisition process goes very quickly.

Once we have talked about the principles, we have the techniques.

One of them is TPR, total physical response. You ask someone to do something, she or he does it and then she or he gives the same command to somebody else, and you learn through commands and things that you do or that you are asked to do.

Then you have the storytelling, telling stories and asking questions in a way that is understandable by those who are listening to you. Then you have another technique which is called story building, where you have a story which is told through images. For each image you ask the students to say what they are seeing. Then you have other

the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

techniques, like working in small groups to talk, because you have the input followed by the output. If there is no output, you are not going to learn a language.

There are many techniques like this to reinforce what has been learned through reading easy texts within the language. In the case of ancient Greek, if we look at ancient literature we have very few easy texts for beginners. So you have to make them up. One of the things we have done recently is to publish a translation of Hansel and Gretel into ancient Greek that was prepared for those who had finished only the first book, which means after 120 hours of instruction you can already read. Each time you have a new word that the student doesn't know, you have in the margins an explanation of the word which is given in ancient Greek with the words they already know, or else you have an illustration that helps understand what happened and what the word is about.

Then there is a technique which is specific to the Polis method called living sequential expression. It is based on an idea of François Goiun, who lived at the end of the 19th century. His idea is that the first logical connection that a child will make in their head is sequentiality. In some activities, there is something that you do first and something that you do afterwards. So he tried to teach French with the same

pattern through sequentiality. He has a famous example: to open a door. So I stand up, I go towards the door, I put my hand on the handle, I open the door, I get out of the room, I close the door behind me. He was very surprised to see that it worked, that children really became very interested in the language when they had the opportunity because he was repeating the same process.

Based on his inspiration, we have developed this method of the series to a new technique, living sequential expression.

What we have done is to try to figure out what are the most common activities, the activities that we perform several times a day. So there is a very basic activity: I stand up, I walk, I stop, and I sit down. There are also activities that we do perhaps once a day, or once every week or once a month. And then you arrive at around 300 activities that are performed sometime during your life that are more or less frequent. And then these activities comprise each of them, with six or seven verbs or six or seven small sentences.

When you become able to talk about what you do several times every day, or once every day or what you do once a week, or what you do once a month or once every year, you can talk about virtually anything.

These are things that matter for training with the students. So, you start with the imperative. For instance, in the example of riding the bus, you tell the student to go to the bus stop, and the student has to go to an imaginary bus stop to wait for the bus, for the bus to come to get into the bus, and so on. At the end you ask the students “What have you done?” And the student has to say the same thing in whatever tense we’re learning. This gives students the tools to develop their vocabulary and acquire at the same time all the morphology of the language. This is more or less the Polis method.

And acquiring is learning and becoming able to use what you have learned. So that really has to be the beginning.

But then within the Polis method, there is an explicit teaching of grammar. At one stage, of course, if it was your very first language or if we had a lot of time, you could just learn the language without reflecting about grammar.

As a child, you learn at school that there is such a thing as grammar. At Polis, we start acquiring the language through an immersive way. Very soon, there are the first elements of reflection on the grammar, developed within the language.

So it has to be conducted very slowly and adapted to the capacity to command the language that the students have.

And then building upon that, you have a reflection on the language. The idea is not that there isn’t an explicit teaching of grammar in the Polis method, but the explicit teaching of grammar comes once that grammar has been assimilated.

Nichols-Kaufman: To wrap up, I’ll ask a question that I think often asked of me: why? Ancient Greek is a language which is no longer spoken, and acquisition of the language is mostly directed towards translation of texts, many of which have already been translated. Why is it worth studying by immersion?

Rico: One reason is that there are many texts that are still not translated. The second reason is even when they are translated, sometimes they are poorly translated. And even when they are well translated, you have to convey an idea that is given with a specific image in one language. You have to put it in a very different way in the target language. And then, even if you get that, there still is a very famous saying which is lost in translation. You always lose something. I would say that translations are like the text in black and white and flat, and the original is in color, full colors, full of ups and downs and all the variety. There is a big difference Nichols-Kaufman: At St. John's, one of our focuses between the original and the translation, even if you take in teaching languages is understanding the logic of the texts that have been translated so many times, like the language. Greek is a very synthetic language. To speakers Bible. To speak the language, and really have acquired it, of mostly analytic English, concepts like the aorist tense, or is something that obliges you to enter into the logic of the use of a participle, can be difficult without being able the language and understand things that you wouldn't to kind of discuss and process them in English. How can understand if you only had the translation. this be addressed in a full immersion environment? How do you grasp these things that don't have a parallel in the student’s native language?

Rico: Well, first of all, we think that before reflecting about the language, you first have to acquire the language.

That's the first step. You can reflect about what you have acquired, but not about what you are just learning. There is a difference between learning and acquiring. Learning is like learning like a parrot or just by heart or in a superficial way. the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

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{social spotlight}

The Johnnies of Color Club

An Interview with Linda-Cecilia Bellamy and Stephanie Harris interview by Connor Shin '22

During Black History Month this year, the Johnnies of Color club hosted a barbeque and movie screening for the enjoyment and appreciation of the polity. Following a veritable banquet of smoked meats, potato salad, and hamburgers fresh from the Campbell kitchen (which was absolutely demolished in a Johnnie-fueled feeding frenzy), the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther was then shown to an enthusiastic audience. Shortly after the event, I was able to sit down with the two Archons behind the club, Linda-Cecilia Bellamy and Stephanie Harris, to get an in-depth perspective behind the planning of such a major event, as well as what this club aims to bring to the St. John’s community.

CS: First thing’s first, what drew both of you to St. John’s in particular, and now that you’ve been here for a couple years, how do you view the cohesion of the polity as a whole, especially with the return to in-person classes following a fully-online year?

LCB: What drew me to St. John’s was that the discussions we have here are really interesting to me. I think it’s normally more of a debate when you’re discussing matters of virtue, morality, and whatnot, but here, we’re all being rooted in a text, with the same knowledge, in a way. The consistency is the main thing; I can talk to someone who graduated St. John’s five years ago, and they would still remember what they did in their freshman year, and participate in the same discourse that I’m learning now!

I also really enjoy the aspects of a small college. The community is really important here; everyone is together, going through the same things, like writing periods, for instance. I’m a sophomore now, so freshman year was pretty iffy in the sense of really feeling this community at first, but coming back to in-person classes made all of that struggling online worthwhile.

Meeting people that I might not have gotten to know just in-class is very

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nice.

SH: I always say that it feels like we’re still freshmen, because we really didn’t get that “freshman experience” that you’re supposed to get. I feel like I’m experiencing many things, like clubs and events, for the very first time this year.

What drew me to St. John’s, though, was that I wanted to think differently. In high school, I thought that I wanted to go down a STEM route for college; I really wanted to major in Math and Computer Science.

I remember having an interview with my admissions counselor for St. John’s, and she was telling me about the Program, and she told me about the way in which Johnnies think. I thought: That’s incredible, this sort of creative thinking that high school can’t teach me. So I took a shot for it, it worked, I’m here now, and I enjoy it so much!

CS: This barbeque was my first experience with your club, and it was obviously a major commitment on your part, especially on that kind of scale. What went into deciding upon a barbeque-slash-movie screening to begin with, and what kind of challenges did you face while making sure that the event progressed smoothly once it

the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

began?

SH: I was just in a room with two of my club friends, and we were discussing how there wasn’t much planned at St. John’s for Black History Month, and how we wanted to do something. It kind of started out as a sort of joke: “Let’s just have a cookout, let’s do this!” But I didn’t think that we were actually going to go through with it. Then, I wondered: Why does this have to be just a joke? Let’s make this happen. So I talked to Linda, who I knew I could put a lot of trust into, to help me run this thing. We planned the event in just three days; we were so nervous, and things ended up going a bit weird along the way! But I think what made the event go well is that I was able to put my trust into who I ran it with. We also had a lot of friends backing us up along the way, a lot of club members… as a new club, getting those members to commit so easily was such a great thing. What started out as just a joking wish actually happened, so I’m very thankful for that.

LCB: We were both so exhausted, because while we were planning the event, making phone calls and sending emails, we also realized that we needed to restart the club itself. This meant calculating a budget, creating a charter, and meeting with the Delegate Council, all within three days. But as Stephanie said, who you’re working with matters; I think she’s a great coArchon, and we both played to our strengths, which really helped keep the club’s energy up when dealing with issues like the nasty wind on the day of the event, or having to move burgers between buildings. We thought: It’s okay! Let’s get some music going, we can host the cookout indoors, and

keep the party’s energy going.

With a cookout, people should feel like they’re part of one big family; listening to music, eating food, talking, and so on. In that sense, we didn’t want the event to feel manufactured, and I think we succeeded in making the atmosphere naturally inviting to everyone. With the film, we wanted something that had an emphasis on people of color, but also something that was fun and light-hearted; we didn’t want to intellectualize it as much, and we wanted it to appeal to a wide audience, so that influenced our decision to choose Black Panther in particular.

CS: The barbeque was undoubtedly a hit, based off of the piles of empty trays that I saw scattered all over the place after less than an hour (Luckily, I was able to pick up a plate before it was all gone). Do you think that the success of your event will translate to more concrete results for your club, like an influx of new members, for instance?

LCB: I definitely think so. We had a little sign-up board at the event, and we had some new members already join; people I wouldn’t have expected to want to participate in our club, like seniors who I’ve never interacted with before.

It’s really cool, because it’s not just our existing friends, or people who we know personally, but people who we don’t yet know on campus, from other years and whatnot. I think the barbeque really helped initiate that new interest in our club.

SH: More than anything, I think the cookout brought the school together more, which is what I really wanted from it. If we’re able to do more things like this, it’ll mean a steady increase of members, even if future events won’t be exactly as big as this one was.

LCB: One of my friends told me, “This was great! I saw so many people here who I’ve never seen on campus before!”

That’s a really beautiful thing to me, that we were all having a good time together, just like what Stephanie said.

CS: Did the event pretty much meet your expectations, or did anything happen that threw you for a loop?

SH: I’ll put it this way: we bought enough food for forty people, and we thought we’d have leftovers afterwards! But besides that, we wanted to grill some more food too, but the grill was literally falling over at the last minute. We ended up having to cook everything down in the Campbell Hall kitchen, and we had to run back and forth to the Great Hall to keep the trays full for as long as possible. The turnout was incredible, and not at all what we expected, especially with the last-minute changes we had to work with for the real deal. Even with a slight delay, the cookout was way better than I could’ve hoped for.

LCB: I couldn’t have imagined the event going as well as

it did! We expected to show the movie outside with heaters and blankets for the audience, but even though we had to change some of our plans like this at the last minute, it was still a wild party!

CS: Based off of what I could find online, the Johnnies of Color club existed in one form or another since at least 2020. And Linda mentioned how prior to the event, you two had to pretty much restart the club from square one.

Can you tell me a bit about the history of the club, and how it fared through the Zoom classes of last year and the tentative normality of this year?

SH: Johnnies of Color was actually the only club I reached out to during my Zoom classes. It started out as a student-run deal; they didn’t even have a charter at the time, and we had to make one ourselves. It was a crosscampus club, so I was in contact with the Johnnies of Color Archon at Santa Fe (Misgana Sharew). Funnily enough, I didn’t know that I became one of the new Archons of the club in Annapolis until we looked online; I had no idea that [Misgana] did that!

The majority of the club was based in the Santa Fe campus. I think that when I first joined, there was only one other Annapolis-based member. For some reason, I thought that the club simply ended, because I hadn’t heard from the Archon for a while after I joined. So when I got on campus this year, I wanted to start this up again, because of how important it was for me and other students of color.

The cross-campus aspect of this club was very complicated, and kind of forced us to use Zoom to keep in touch with our Santa Fe classmates. I knew I didn’t want to stay purely on Zoom, so when we started up the club again, we wanted it to be focussed on our own campus this time. We’re still able to reach out to the Santa Fe campus if we want to host events like panels, for instance.

CS: According to Misgana, during her time as the Johnnies of Color Archon, the aim of your club was to “bridge the gap that exists between the two campuses” of St. John’s, and to “provide a safe space for students of color to connect and join to build a community”. Is this still the vision of the club under your supervision, or are there any new goals that you have been working towards instead?

LCB: We’re not emphasizing the cross-campus aspect as much nowadays, and we welcome anyone who is interested, regardless of their race. The focus of the club is still people of color connecting with each other, and things that weigh on our hearts and minds is the main topic of many of our discussions; but at the same time, the club is open to the entire polity, and anyone who would like to join. While we may be looking at some things differently, I think the main the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

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soul of what Misgana said is still here.

CS: As we reach the end of Black History Month this year, racial injustice, especially in the United States, continues to be an intensely-divisive topic. Do you see these tensions manifesting around Annapolis, or even within the so-called “St. John’s Bubble” itself ?

SH: I’m from Oregon, and the racism that I see is somewhat different here in Maryland. In my home state, racism takes a more subtle form, that doesn’t really show up unless a person really wants you to know this side of them. Here, though, people seem to be actively trying to understand this intersectionality of races that they just can’t figure out. As a student at St. John’s, I hear jokes that this school lacks diversity, but it’s not even a joke at this point; everyone knows that. I think that’s why I gravitate so much towards other students of color.

If I’m honest, I feel like there’s not just a problem with race here, but a problem with misogyny too, but that’s a whole other story. As a black woman, these add up to make being assertive in class harder. I often feel ignored in class, not just because I’m black, but also because I’m female. It makes addressing the class feel very different, which I think is the biggest thing I notice as a Johnnie. We’re supposed to be vocal about how we feel about the texts we’re reading, but if we have these preconceived notions in our head that we won’t be listened to because of who we are, it makes being a student at St. John’s that much more difficult.

LCB: I completely agree. Socially, the racism we experience here is quieter, or perhaps just borne out of ignorance or a lack of experience in interacting with people of color. In class though, I feel very isolated, but I’m grateful that this year, my classes have been surprisingly diverse. I appreciate my classmates a lot, because they are able to bring their own perspectives on how they interpret the Program’s readings. However, I still feel a lot of tension when trying to share my own views as a black woman. When I’m the only black person in my class, for instance, I’m afraid that my perspective won’t be understood completely by my peers, if I don’t express myself absolutely perfectly.

I remember being told some advice along the lines of, “Drop your viewpoint into the conversation, and trust your peers to carry your thoughts along.” But I often don’t feel confident that my perspective can be a valuable contribution to the class, because of how differently I might view things compared to my classmates.

With Annapolis as a whole, racism feels a lot more inyour-face. I’m from Washington, D.C., so it feels jarring, even though these two cities aren’t that far away from each other. It adds to my feeling of isolation, in a way. That’s why this club is so important to me, because it’s nice to just meet

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the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022

people who can feel and understand your struggles in the same way, even on a campus as small as this one.

CS: That’s actually a perfect segue into my next question: what issues would you like the Johnnies of Color club to focus on and reach out to our community about?

SH: As far as issues go, I don’t want our problems to be the only thing we ever talk about; I want our club to be a place of togetherness, in which learning to understand each other’s struggles simply comes naturally as a result of such a welcoming space. I want to focus on the joy that we have together.

LCB: When we’re together, it’s absolutely important to focus on the happiness we can share, because I often feel like there is so much focus on a lack of something or a negative aspect of our lives, that takes up both time and emotional energy from us. Dealing with issues here is very nuanced; how do you balance necessary changes to a school’s culture with preserving the positive aspects that made us choose it to begin with? I would like to address classroom dynamics, but it’s very hard to talk about when it’s so connected with conversations between different people; you’re almost asking people to change who they are, because their own thoughts are what drives their discussions in the first place.

Hiring more people of color as tutors is a more straightforward goal that we’d like to promote, but I think our school is already aware of this and is trying to reach out more, which I’m very grateful for. Ultimately, one of our bigger goals is to promote more diversity in our student body overall, but our club is not exactly meant to tackle any particular issues head-on. Instead, as students of color, what this club does for us is allow us to build a sense of belonging here, as well as appreciate what St. John’s has to offer; it’s still a great school, and I love it here, and I want to just keep spreading this positive feeling around our community.

CS: What does the rest of the year hold for your club?

Does the success of your cookout mean we can expect more polity-wide events in the future?

LCB: For the rest of this semester, we might stick to smaller gatherings, but we’ll definitely have some major events planned for next fall or spring. It was so fun to host this cookout, and putting all of our time and energy into making it work made the whole experience feel authentic to me.

CS: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to say to the polity before we wrap up here?

LCB: Yeah, be sure to look out for an email regarding meeting times for next year!

{student life}

An Imbalanced Relationship

The Struggles of Off-Campus Living in the SJC Community

story by Meliha Anthony '25 and Zara Brandt, '25, photos from Ella Harell, Sarah Lieberman, Sachin Stanislaus, and Grace Calk

S

arah Lieberman (A23) loves living off-campus. Nestled above the shops on Francis Street, her apartment is walking distance to campus, and Lieberman enjoys having her own space.

“I just love my apartment. It’s really beautiful and there’s a lot of open space,” she said.

The option to live off-campus and abandon the dorm life is an enticing one for many rising upperclassmen.

Currently, nearly 30 percent of students at St. John’s College live off-campus. But between a stressful rental market, poor living conditions, and the difficulty of navigating the landlord-tenant relationship, the dream of living independently as a student in Annapolis is not always a reality. Lieberman and her boyfriend, Keaton Jahn (A22), discovered these challenges shortly after moving into their apartment.

At 4am on one of her first nights in their new one-bedroom unit, Lieberman woke to discover a cockroach crawling over her face.

Upon noticing the hole in the seam of the wall through which insects could enter the apartment, she called to request permission to seal the hole.

Her landlord, Rita White of Annapolis King Properties, was unresponsive. In the end, Jahn caulked the hole himself.

About a month later, in the early hours of the morning, a man knocked on Lieberman’s door claiming that he was an exterminator sent by their landlord. He insisted that he enter the apartment. According to Lieberman, she and Jahn were not yet dressed, but the man ignored their efforts to turn him away, barging into their apartment and spraying chemicals

without permission.

“We have cats, so we didn’t get an exterminator on purpose because it’s toxic for our cats … We didn’t ask for this, we didn’t want this,” she said. “It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

Lieberman has dealt with many similar issues during the two years she’s been renting her apartment.

Along with mysterious water leakages from the floor above, Lieberman has encountered legitimate health risks including gas leakages and black mold in her air conditioning unit. In all cases, her landlord has been slow to respond, and the repairmen they did eventually send behaved unprofessionally and did not resolve the issues.

Lieberman’s experience is not an isolated case.

Allegra Hall (A23) and her roommates rent a three-bedroom apartment off of Main Street. Hall describes it, with half-ironic affection, as an eccentric, wood-paneled bachelor pad with “mirrors everywhere and absolutely no locks on any doors.”

Similar to Lieberman’s case, when

Allegra Hall

Entryway of Francis Street apartments issues have come up in the apartment, Hall’s landlord is often unresponsive or ‘ineffectual,’ as she puts it. The garbage disposal in Hall’s apartment, for example, has been broken since she moved in, and remains out of commission.

“It’s full of mold and it smells like death,” said Hall. “We’ve just been living with it.”

In addition to these issues, effective communication with her landlord has been difficult for Hall. She says that she and her roommates pay an exorbitant amount for gas, although her lease stipulates that they only cover the cost of electricity. The issue has been a cause for conflict, and, according to Hall, her landlord has taken no decisive action.

“She’s insisting that electricity and gas are the same thing,” said Hall.

Hall has also found some of the pressures from her landlord to be intrusive. She admits that her landlord is understanding when she and her roommates occasionally submit

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their rent late or host parties in the apartment. However, sometimes she and her roommates feel uncomfortable going about their routines because the apartment is situated above her landlord’s office. For example, Hall tends to avoid showering during the day in case it is audible below.

Additionally, her landlord sometimes makes comments conveying pressure for them to leave – “It’s just sort of a weird relationship that we have with her,” Hall said.

And whenever Hall approaches her landlord with a problem, instead of working to resolve it, her landlord brings up issues she perceives Hall and her roommates to be causing.

When, for example, Hall asked that the garbage disposal be fixed, instead of confronting the issue, her landlord accused her and her roommates of smoking inside.

“There’s always something that you need to do first, it's always a sort of conditional thing,” said Hall. “She will have a problem with us, or we’ll do something wrong… I think she just feels badly about our existing there.”

Many students move off-campus specifically so they can enjoy the independence of managing their own affairs. Miles Johnstone (A23), like Lieberman, rents an apartment from Rita White. His unit is on King George street, and he expressed general satisfaction with his landlord’s hands-off approach. He feels he has the liberty to cook, smoke, and host friends without interference.

As a whole, his relationship with his landlord has not been hostile.

“I think it’s mainly positive,” he said. “Our landlord more or less lets us alone.”

Lieberman and Hall likewise express their appreciation for having a landlord who is mostly uninvolved in their day to day life. But the lack of attentiveness is both a blessing and a

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curse.

“She’s largely removed,” Hall said of her landlord. “Which is my praise and my criticism. It’s helpful in some ways, and detrimental in others.”

Often, young tenants such as Hall and Lieberman are navigating renting and living independently for the first time, which comes with a unique set of challenges regarding the relationship between landlord and tenant—a sentiment which Hall expresses.

“What I’ve found most, with myself or with my friends, is just being taken advantage of, whether it’s monetarily or [the landlord] just sort of expecting that you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hall said.

Lieberman shares this feeling.

“Being a first time renter—and I think this is something that King Properties takes advantage of… that they rent to so many first time renters—I don’t really know what’s owed to me as a renter,” Lieberman said.

The Gadfly reached out to Rita White regarding her relationship with her tenants, but she declined to comment.

As first-time renters, tenants such as Lieberman and Hall feel that

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they do not necessarily have the life experience to know what is owed to them from their landlords, nor do they have the money or power to retaliate in circumstances where they are not being treated fairly.

The gas leakage and black mold in Lieberman’s apartment both caused significant health risks to her and her boyfriend. Hall’s landlord tacking on gas prices to the electricity bill was contrary to their agreement.

For both of them, there was always a lack of response—or long wait for a response—regarding issues that need to be fixed in the apartment. And, on top of it all, the general sense that the landlords were irritated by them and their needs as tenants.

Hall voices frustration about the seemingly inherent imbalance, or even exploitation, of this relationship.

“They know you have no power, and they know you have no money, and so they don’t care to do anything for you,” Hall said.

Housing and the cost of living in Annapolis are issues that afflict many members of the St. John’s community, and not just students. Tutor Hannah Hintze relays some of the struggles she and other tutors face to find affordable

Street view of King George Street apartments

housing. According to Hintze, the school has done studies which show that the rental market is “very far out of the range of tutor’s salaries.”

“It’s actually quite difficult for tutors to find housing,” Hintze said. “When tutors decide to teach here, they can’t expect that they will be able to afford housing.”

The difficulty to find adequate, affordable off-campus housing, a burden for both upperclassmen and tutors, can present itself as an impediment to the academic environment which the college strives to foster. This has not always been an issue, however. Hall highlights some of the changes that have occurred in Annapolis between the time the New Program was founded in 1937 and now.

“They chose Annapolis because it was sleepy and it was cheap,” Hall said. “And now it’s become this King Properties dominated hellhole.”

To Hall, these circumstances are not only suboptimal, but also unjust.

“I’ll say it: housing is a right,” she proclaimed.

Hall believes that it will ultimately fall to the college to make real improvements in the housing situation for students. She feels that the way the college administration handles housing sometimes pushes students off-campus or prevents them returning to campus from an off-campus apartment. She supports the idea of having college-owned off-campus housing, or increased housing capacity on campus.

“I think St John’s should invest some of their money in real estate in Annapolis, close by,” she said. “I don’t know how it would work, I’m just a little guy, but it feels to me like we gotta break up the monopoly that is Rita [White].”

Lieberman simply expressed the desire to have a landlord who cares

about their tenants.

“Having a landlord that was more attentive… someone who you can trust to help you out when situations arise, I think would be wonderful,” she said. “I have no idea whether or not [White] is going to slander me to the next person I rent to, or how she’s going to perceive how I behave in her property.”

In spite of the many grievances and difficulties associated with off-campus living, there is perhaps a light at the end of the tunnel. Taylor Waters, the Director of Student Services, has plans in the near future to gather resources for students wishing to live off-campus, as well as to designate someone as the go-to person for students to seek counsel about renting, living offcampus, and signing contracts. And, there are options—albeit limited ones—for tutors to live in off-campus housing rented by the school.

Due to a need for more time, funding, and planning, there are no current plans to expand either on-campus or off-campus housing for students. Still, though, Waters outlined some of the plans to improve on-campus living, including upcoming renovations to Campbell, Pinkney, and Paca-Carroll Halls.

“Our primary focus right now is to make what we have better,” Waters said. “It’s deferred maintenance that we haven’t had the funding to take care of, and now we have it, so we’re going to build that into the next couple of years, to make the dorms better.”

In the meantime, Waters encourages seniors who are leaving Annapolis next year to share information about their apartment on the housing bulletin board in the Assistant Dean’s office.

She also noted that the college does their utmost to provide on-campus housing for any student who requests it, though priority is given to students already on campus.

As a whole, the off-campus living

experience is a mixed bag. It offers the independence that many students crave as they enter adulthood, but comes with the challenges of navigating an entirely new business relationship. These triumphs and woes are something Lieberman is familiar with.

“For the most part, my life is very lovely and very manageable,” Lieberman said. “I don’t want to scare any underclassmen from…getting an apartment that would be wonderful for them. But…know what you’re getting into. Don’t expect a lot.”

Elias Christian, roommate of Allegra Hall in front of their Gorman Street apartment

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{campus events}

KWP's Antigone A Multi-Author Review

Reviews by El'ad Nichols-Kaufman '25, Max Anton '23, Megli Micek '23, Wyatt Sweeney '23, Cooper Ussery '23, Elias Christian '22, Ellie Laabs '22, and Hannah Rose '22, photos by Liz Dowdy and Rose Zhang

Maya Lake's Ismene

M

aya Lake is the first actress onstage in KWP’s Antigone, walking solemnly along the edge of the Boathouse balcony – at the edge of Thebes – silent, placid, awaiting the arrival of her sister. Regal features set with an implacable, if not somehow sad expression – a picture of perfect poise – Lake’s Ismene provided a strong contrast to Kammeyer’s Antigone. A part of this contrast was evident in the costuming: Antigone dressed in the dark colors of mourning and deep earth, feet rag-strapped; Ismene attired in the airy, undisturbed white of impartiality. But the differences between the two owed itself more to Lake’s performance, which deftly handled these nuances and these gravities in the character. Conveying the sense of tensely well-mastered emotions, Lake exuded an Ismene who is desperate to feel pure and is resolutely certain that this purity lies in following the law of her city. She chooses loyalty to the State as the mechanism for forgiveness, rather than the gods, and to the individual rather than her family.

Where Antigone, who cannot forget, is graceful and honest in all her active raging, Ismene is graceful but duplicitous in her silence. Lake bore the proud face of an Ismene who desires so much to let the history of her family’s passions die with her brothers yet struggles to witness her sister choose another path toward what both sisters believe is redemption.

With noble subtlety, Lake’s Ismene brings greater depth and insight into Sophocles’. She reminds us that Ismene wasn’t simply Antigone’s lesser sister but a tragic figure, indeed the last remaining child of the curse of Oedipus, beneath whose still waters runs a deeper turmoil and conflict. She stands stately – almost royally, – one who may in fact, after Creon’s fall, become the new Queen of Thebes.

—Elias Christian '22

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Jordan Kaymmeyer's Antigone

M

s. Kammeyer portrayed Antigone as a sure-footed, if sometimes petulant, youth, desperately trying to hold her own in an uncongenial world. Her speech was precise and clear and, in this alone, she lent a certain bite to her character. Her movements were graceful, yet weighty.

As she strode across the stage, it felt as though her Antigone had already submitted to the fact that she is in a tragedy and cannot escape her fate. Her scenes with Creon stuck out in particular, as Ms. Kammeyer adopted a lawyeristic style of argument. She let the logos of the text speak for itself, not lending too much emotion to Antigone’s pleas.

It was refreshing to see an Antigone unfettered by her own tragedy, forcefully espousing her ideals, and ready to accept the consequences.

—Ellie Laabs '22

Birdi Mueller's Messenger

K

WP's production of Antigone was an absolute sensation of a show. Featuring talent from every class of the college, the production was stark and captivating from the first moment Ismene and Antigone converse. In a cast so tremendously talented, each actor brought to the fore a tremendous range, and each displayed their artistry impeccably, though I will confess that I was particularly captivated by the performance of Ms. Birdi Mueller (A23).

Her Messenger appeared with the presence and candor of Charlie Chaplain at his prime, complete with dingy black bowler hat and comically exaggerated features. She immediately took command of the stage with an affable and expressive air that complemented the message her character was impelled to relay to Mr. James Siranovich’s Creon. The timing and command of her movements, both facially and spatially, made the stories she told come alive, with seamless transitions into and out of the narrative as she coaxed sympathy from the audience in its telling. A gripping raconteur, she brought the universe of the story to life on the stage; perhaps no greater testament to her mastery of timing existed than the frequency of the audience’s laughter, and the building tension of the narratives.

Even in her much more dour later appearances, she continued to possess the piety essential to the human condition. She guided the audience’s sorrow by humanizing the clown she’d created in the first act, and ensured that those present didn’t have to endure an archetype. Her sensitivity and receptiveness to the rest of the cast gave her character an unexpected depth and awakened the power of her lines from the page. Watching her perform was a demonstration of the heights theater at St. John’s can reach, and I for one cannot wait to see what character she vivifies before an audience next.

—Wyatt Sweeney 23'

James Siranovich's Creon

A

lthough masterfully acted by Mr. Siranovich, I couldn’t help but feel that this production’s portrayal of Creon limited both the character and the actor. To be sure, some aspects of Creon’s essential character shone through; Mr. Siranovich embodied the spirit of the general, mercurial and commanding, barking orders and haranguing Ms. Mueller’s excellent Messenger in turn. Nonetheless, something about this interpretation of Creon felt like a bit of a let-down.

Certain moments throughout the tragedy were played for laughs, which is certainly a respectable decision but which both diminished the import of Mr. Siranovich’s dramatic chops and made it difficult to take Creon’s character seriously. The ruler of Thebes can be childish at times, but when Mr. Siranovich crossed his arms and stamped his feet, I couldn’t help but feel a bit put upon. Creon is a terrifying figure, not because he is short-sighted or immature, but because he is powerful and all the more dangerous for it.

Using Mr. Siranovich’s excellent tragic range, demonstrated particularly in the astonishing final scene of the play, to play what came across at times as a caricature of a silly, out-oftouch leader with no idea what his people want or need, just didn’t do justice to either the character or the actor.

—Cooper Ussery '23

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Alex Calk's Haemon

U

pon my first rather cursory reading of Antigone, I did not take much note of the youth of Haemon. On my second reading, here at St. John’s, I still missed much of his significance. Alex Calk, however, did not, and in a masterful performance, expressed youthful purity and passion in both speech and manner. Calk’s portrayal of the rapid unraveling of Haemon’s relation with Creon was direct, with the shift from quiet reasoning to impassioned argument appearing so natural that the viewer could not help but feel a strong mixture of admiration and pity.

—El'ad Nichols-Kaufman '25

Joseph Richard's Tiresias

B

rief though his time on stage may have been, Joseph Richard’s Tiresias, dignified in rags, was an impactful presence. As foil to the tempestuous finery of Creon, his appearance felt grounding to the production without being incongruous. Barefoot, wavering, and understated, Mr. Richard repurposed his usual thousand-yard stare to give the impression of total blindness. A well-modulated voice lent his performance of extreme old age an astonishingly natural character; if the lack of his customary Chelsea boots wasn’t enough to render him unrecognizable to the audience, the skillful vocal acting surely completed the transformation. Even through a range of emotional expression, the consistency of his portrayal never faltered.

All in all: subtle, balanced, emotive, striking.

—Hannah Rose '22

The Costume and the Stage

T

he stage and costume design was impeccable—every detail was in conversation with each other. As darkness fell around the boathouse, the lighting on the stage paralleled the drama of Antigone throughout the duration of the play. Also, Antigone and Ismene’s rustic/earth toned costumes drew from the natural adornments on stage, while Kreon, Euridice, Haemon and the Messenger all wore costumes that reflected their places as members of the hegemony of Thebes; Kreon, in his red velvet suit, provideds a particularlythe starkest contrast with Antigone’s simple linen dress and bandaged feet. The contrast of styles, so essential to this play of contrasts, was united beautifully in the details—even the show'sshows programs showcased this attention to detail in each unique leaflet. Overall, theis production was absolutely gorgeous, and the design elements did a fantastic job of tying the drama together.

—Max Anthon '23

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Alayna Raymond, Lysithia Page, and John Hollowed as The Chorus

T

he Chorus of Antigone entering the stage in all black robes and painted faces made for an ominous introduction. Their makeup exaggerated their expressions and with the help of their dance-like movements, something spiritual came across from their performance.

Each actor was convincing and enthralling to watch. Even when they were silent, I caught myself watching their reactions to the arguments between Creon and the other characters. Overall, the Chorus did an amazing job creating a foreboding aura throughout their time on stage.

—Megli Micek '23

Wollstonecraft on Virtue and Equity

By Luke Briner

I

n her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft sets out to discover what has grounded the inequality of the sexes and what that ground has consisted in throughout history. In her attempt to answer these questions, she begins by setting down some preliminary principles concerning reason and virtue in general: In what does man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason. What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue; we spontaneously reply. For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes; whispers Experience. Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness, must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge, that distinguish the individual, and direct the laws which bind society: and that from the exercise of reason, knowledge and virtue naturally flow, is equally undeniable, if mankind be viewed collectively. (p. 11) If human beings are naturally preeminent due to their capacity to reason, and if their excellence is found in virtue, then our virtue depends precisely upon the exercise of our reason, since “it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason” (p.

21). If the virtues that we possess are merely incidental, that is, not proceeding from willful and rational determination, then they are in fact not rightly called virtues at all.

But if our excellence, our worthiness consists in our virtue, and if virtue is itself necessarily founded on the possession and exercise of our reason, then it follows that if women have an equal possession of reason to men, they will also have an equal capacity to participate in virtue, and

thus in a general human excellence. Since women do possess the same inborn capacity for reason that men do (p. 20), and since the reason that serves as the foundation of virtue is itself uniform, it follows that there is a single, universal standard of virtue that both men and women are subject to, or that simply exists beyond the distinction between men and women to begin with: I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard?

I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they have the same simple direction, as that there is a God. (p. 27) In face of the unitary nature of virtue, and thereby the basic equality of men and women on the basis of their shared possession of the rational faculty, the inequality that has existed between men and women appears to us as even more nonsensical and egregious. “Who,” Wollstonecraft asks, “made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason?” (p. 4). Since the natural capacities of men and women for reason and virtue are fundamentally one and equal, the social inequality that women have historically suffered, must be basically unnatural, must be something artificially imposed from without. Although she admits that a “degree of physical superiority cannot… be denied” in the male sex (p. 7), this is “the only solid basis on which the superiority of the sex can be built” (p. 40).

The general subordination of women over men might be justified if we did not possess a rational faculty and were thus no different from wild animals, but it is precisely because human pre-eminence consists principally in reason rather than brute physical strength that such a subordination of cannot be justified simply on that basis. Any systemic social inequality between the sexes that goes beyond the the Gadfly / συμπόσιον / May 13, 2022

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inherent difference in physical strength must be something the human character, and which raise females in the cannot, therefore, be explained or defended as “natural”; scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively thus, Wollstonecraft remarks that, “not content with this termed mankind;- all those who view them with natural preeminence, men endeavour to sink us [women] a philosophic eye must, I should think, wish with still lower” (p. 7). me, that they may every day grow more and more Women, in fact, have thus sunk lower due to their own masculine. (p. 9) kind of exceptional physical quality; unfortunately, this is Since virtue is one and universal, and since all people as simply their sex appeal to men. Seen by men only as objects of rational beings have the capacity to attain it, then there is sensual pleasure, women are accordingly “taught from their no justification for the relegation of the sexes to different infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre” (p. 46); their mind, moral norms, or for respecting one sex’s capacity for virtue consequently, “shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round and excellence while preventing the other from even its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison” (ibid). In order endeavoring toward the same. to reflect and reinforce this sentiment, men have relegated Wollstonecraft ventures even further than this, however, women to an education and points toward the that teaches them to attend transcendence of the very to subordinate, sensual, binary of sex that has and strictly practical duties served as the basis of this rather than the duties that inequality in the first place: would genuinely exercise A wild wish has just their sovereign reason flown from my heart to or edify their souls. In my head…I do earnestly being kept to this kind of wish to see the distinction education, women are kept of sex confounded in in their subservient social society, unless where love position not only by a animates the behaviour. general lack of knowledge, For this distinction is, I but also by the artificial am firmly persuaded, the distinction made between foundation of the weakness “masculine” and “feminine” of character ascribed to virtues which is reinforced woman; is the cause why the externally by men and understanding is neglected, internally by women whilst accomplishments themselves, rendered in are acquired with sedulous such a way ignorant of even care: and the same this artifice. cause accounts for their To combat this artificial preferring the graceful inequality, Wollstonecraft before the heroic virtues. deems it necessary to reject (p. 60) this binary conception Since distinct social and “Mary Wollstonecraft” by John Opie of virtue and return to the natural, uniform one which moral norms men and women are arbitrary and have served patriarchal society has deviated from. She thus exhorts to perpetuate the subservience of one sex to another, the very women to acquire those qualities that have previously notions of “man” and “woman” must themselves contain been conceived of as belonging only to men, and thereby something artificial, unnatural, invented. Wollstonecraft to break free from the petty femininity that only reinforces hints at this when she observes that men have developed the their subservience: habit of “considering females rather as women than human I am aware of an obvious inference:- from every quarter creatures” (p. 6), acknowledging the distinction between have I heard exclamations against masculine women… the mere biological realities of the female sex, independent but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, of the many extraneous assumptions and impositions that or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those have been put upon it, and the socially-constructed idea talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles of “woman” that has in fact alienated women from being

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simply and fully human.

Education is continually on Wollstonecraft’s mind, and her emphasis on its importance for womens’ political, intellectual, and moral equity spans from the beginning to the end of her Vindication. “My argument,” she sets out, “is that if she [woman] be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice” (p. 3). This companionship we aim for, as opposed to the turbulent and degenerate inequality that has thus far defined the relations of men and women, can be achieved by instructing men and women in common, and with a common subject matter. By educating everyone equally and without any regard for sex, we are alike

exercised in our sovereign capacity for reason, thus granting us all the opportunity to rise to that “universal standard” (p. 27) of virtue. Moreover, in having each sex embrace, in their recognition of the unitary nature of virtue, the virtues previously withheld to the other, or, better yet, discard outright the arbitrary polarity between “masculinity” and “femininity,” we will be far closer to being able to live with other not as enemies in a bitter hierarchical struggle, but as friends and simply fellow human beings. “Let,” therefore, “an enlightened nation then try what effect reason would have to bring them back to nature, and their duty; and allowing them to share the advantages of education and government with man, see whether they will become better, as they grow wiser and become free.” (p. 178).

Title page of A Vindication with inscription by Susan B. Anthony on facing page the Gadfly / συμπόσιον / May 13, 2022

19

{songs sung, songs loved}

Foo Fighting as Meditation Christopher Turney

T

here are moments every so often which prompt a return to old favorites, great works, or classics.

Though it’s possible to find nostalgia in a familiar Bach concerto or film soundtrack, these old favorites are rarely musical masterpieces. Yes, nostalgia is the word. The songs which sooth our memories and transport our affections to warmer, brighter times; these are the classics. Moments which provoke a return to that song or album are varied and mysterious, and the feeling of nostalgia is never quite the same. Provoked by the death of Taylor Hawkins, the drummer for the Foo Fighters, I recently made one of these returns. I found nostalgia, but not as I expected. Other emotions crept in, a new light fell upon old memories, and affection for the music softened and wavered. I write this reflection to pay tribute to a favorite musician and to inquire into those dark, confusing emotions which beset a familiar tune.

In the throes of my sophomore essay, I heard the news of Hawkins’ passing a full three days after its announcement.

First I was shocked, then I grew angry I hadn’t heard about it sooner. I paid my respects with a tour through the Foo Fighters’ albums, a necessary κάθαρσις following such a tragedy. This return to old favorites enlivened memories of bike rides, yard work, days in the sun, and the cool solitude of the basement. I remember ‘discovering’ Everlong and showing it to my middle-school buddies. I also recall the countless afternoons trying and failing to play this song on drums, teaching my parents true patience through longsuffering. The Foo Fighters were my first musical idols; I played along to all their albums and saw them live at a baseball stadium in Atlanta. I loved their music, and I still do. Their straightforward, highly ordinary sound provides something of an anchor to my taste and appreciation for other artists. “It’s only rock n’ roll, but I like it”, so sings Mick Jagger.

Returning from these reveries back to the catalog in front of me, I found myself still unsure of what to expect as I continued to listen. Perhaps sadness would prevail, perhaps I’d continue to delight in fond memories. Unfortunately, though it pains me to say it, the truth is that after an hour of listening the songs began to blur together. Familiarity breeds contempt, and all that. Eventually, however, I stopped at a track titled Let It Die off their 2007 album Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace. Let It Die is an old favorite and an oft-returned-to classic. The acoustic intro,

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subtle bass, steady pulse, soaring backup vocals, electric ‘chug’, and epic finale are reasons enough to like the tune, but I always loved it because it plays well in the car, especially on a long stretch of road through rural Georgia. The Fooish blur clarified when I played Let It Die and an eerie quiet followed. A surge of goosebumps and flurry of emotions beset my listening experience; Let It Die was different from all the others. It felt new, each part carried with it a heavier burden and graver purpose. My return to a classic began to feel more like an adventure into uncharted territory with dangers and pitfalls at every turn. Hostile is the word, the song seemed hostile. I felt apprehensive, almost fearful. I remember pausing the song before it finished, fearing the end would spell doom for the singer and his band.

Why did it feel so different? Why did it communicate such a heavier message? The title must be partly to blame.

Right off the bat, it strikes a heavy chord that the timely, on-the-nose lyrics deliver upon: “Why’d you have to go and let it die?” Suppose for a moment there was a seminar on Let It Die. What about the lyrics of the tune would catch the table’s attention? Very likely their focus on the body would be a point of interest. “Heart of gold but it lost its pride, Beautiful veins and bloodshot eyes, I’ve seen your face in another light, Why’d you have to go and let it die?”

Another consideration might be the singer’s dialogue with whomever he’s addressing. “Do you ever think of me?

Taylor Hawkins Drumming It Out

You're so considerate. Did you ever think of me? Oh, so considerate.” Lastly, an observer might note the singular line, “A simple man and his blushing bride.” The seminar table could easily wonder about this line and then ask who the man being referred to is and what significance this has for the song. Speculation and ‘outside sources’ suggest that the man is Kurt Cobain and that the song is about his premature death. That being said, a closer listening of the text suggests a more general anguish. The aggressive, violent, painful repetitions towards the end paint a grander picture of inner suffering and spiritual confusion. “Why’d you have to go and let it die?” is a question with a greater range of meaning and application than the singer’s personal relationship with Cobain.

What is the source of this anguish? What is it directed towards? I can’t answer these questions yet, but the event of Hawkins’ passing adds a new, brutal context to my dialogue with the song. The anguish seems deeper, the object of the song’s inquiry deadlier. The song seeks an answer for both deaths, and perhaps for death in general. Why do people have to die? Why is there death in the first place?

The song paces towards an answer but ends unresolved.

There’s no ‘cadence formula’ or tidy conclusion; the song ends with an awful scream. The Foo Fighters have always had screams in their music, but this particular scream is uniquely horrifying, especially as the song is otherwise fairly subdued. Hawkins’ death recontextualizes the song beyond its original scope, beyond the death of Kurt Cobain, and beyond the singer’s original source of anguish. I might add that even the ‘taps’ in the build-up sound anxious or uneasy, like fingers tapping on a table.

It’s always a strange exercise to account for the ‘feeling’ of a song because, of course, all these observations are made from a basis of personal experience. I’ve listened to Let It Die for years now, so my return to the song following Hawkins’ death is inevitably colored. My memories of the song are unique to me, and thus I hear the song in a very particular way. Maybe some of these observations ring true for other listeners, but grasping at the ‘Truth’ of Let It Die is a question for another day. For now, let it suffice to say

Cover Art of the Foo Fighters 2007 Album Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace that the memories I have of this song are all but blurred and darkened. Nothing about the song has changed, nor did I know Hawkins personally, but simply the fact of his passing casts a shadow on those days in the yard and drives through Georgia. Does nostalgia work both ways? Can a feeling of nostalgia project a darker light on the good ol’ days? Either way, I must echo the great Lou Reed and say, “I don’t like nostalgia unless it’s mine.”

Hawkins was one of the greats. His technical ability and frenetic feel were evenly matched with a glorious stage presence and infectious smile. He played music with his drums, an ability often overlooked in a loud rock band. His part on Let It Die is close to perfection; not technically brilliant or culturally ‘iconic’, but utterly musical. The rhythm builds with the melody, matching its intensity every step of the way. The drummer’s role is supportive, his virtue is humility. Hawkins mastered his role and inculcated this virtue through a lifetime of focused work (beginning, mind you, on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill). I always thought of Hawkins as a sort of teacher and cool uncle, and I believed that if I played loud enough then maybe I could get his attention. I’ll end this tribute and reflection with a quote from the man himself, as is required of all sappy tributes: “In hindsight, if I could go back in time and relay a message to my younger self, I would tell him to work on his time keeping, and that the job of a drummer is not to be the one that gets noticed the most on stage, or to be the fastest, or the loudest. Above all, it is to be the timekeeper.” - Taylor Hawkins, 1972-2022.

Scan this code in the Spotify app! the Gadfly / πόλις / May 13, 2022

21

{the black box}

Gruppeknald: an Analysis of Lars Von Trier's The Idiots Ranger Kasdorf

The Black Box is a new column intended to serve as a home for polity submissions that engage with television, movies, and cinema. In this inaugural column, Mr. Kasdorf gives a compelling account of the film The Idiots and the themes of community and cruelty within.

I

t is rare– more now than ever– that a person belongs to just one community at a time. Beyond being part of the loose community of St. John’s College Annapolis, we, the Annapolis Johnnies, have also cleaved to one another independently, forming our own bands, groups, troupes, clubs, and cliques– not to mention any non-Johnny communities which students occupy on their own time.

One would have to be the most reclusive Room Johnny imaginable and lack an internet connection to be solely a part of the St. John’s student body.

These various communities tend to be both wholly compatible and wholly separate. A student who goes to church on Sunday, attends seminar on Monday, and watches a movie with their Discord server on Tuesday acts as a member of three separate communities, and not one of them is ever in conflict with either of the other two. What’s more, each community’s activities are self-contained: nobody in your seminar needs to hear about your priest’s latest sermon, nobody in your Discord server needs to hear about the Unmoved Mover, and nobody in your church needs to hear about last night’s heated debate over whether or not Robert Pattinson was a good choice to play Bruce Wayne.

But, as many readers of this newspaper are likely aware, this is not an absolute rule. Anyone who spends a lot of time in many different communities– especially since the advent of the internet and forum culture– will, at one point, encounter a disagreement between two communities more significant than a scheduling conflict, a cross-pollination of two incompatible groups, and be forced to choose one over the other. A particularly gut-wrenching example of this is the climax of the 1998 Danish film Idioterne, or The Idiots, directed by Lars Von Trier,1 of which I recently held a latenight, post-seminar screening with a group of friends.2 The central character of The Idiots is Stoffer, a young, mop-haired aspiring socialist with a taste for the profane, the obscene, and the pseudo-intellectual. He is the patriarch of the titular Idiots, a commune of middle-class Danes who all live together in a suburban home owned by

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Stoffer’s uncle. He is also the visionary who came up with the idea for the commune’s primary activity, which they call spassing3 and which I will euphemistically call performing for the remainder of this article. When they’re not sleeping on the floor4 or throwing parties for themselves, they go out to public places– including a public pool, a bar, and a restaurant– and pose as a group of developmentally disabled people, with one Idiot filling in as their “handler”. This is as upsetting to watch as it is to imagine, but the Idiots themselves, with rare exception, find it hilarious. Over the course of several sequences, which are both so offensive and so absurd that they provoked a curious kind of riotous, disdainful laughter among my friends during our screening, the Idiots use their perceived disabilities as license to do whatever obnoxious thing they please.

Stoffer in particular views this act not just as idle recreation, but as a bold, revolutionary statement, like a combination of performance art and civil disobedience– a way of striking back at a conformist society, man. Or at least that’s the justification he gives. In one pivotal scene, the commune is visited by a smartly-dressed member of the local housing council, whom (after asking him to use the battery of his car to provide one Idiot with impromptu

notes

(1) Due to The Idiots being part of the “Dogme 95” film movement (which I don’t intend to discuss here), crediting Von Trier as the director is discouraged, but the film’s Dogme-ness is virtually irrelevant to this article, and frankly I don’t like the idea of letting Von Trier evade responsibility for the creation of this film.

(2) Let it be known that neither I nor The Gadfly condone the practice of screening The Idiots for your friends, coworkers, prayer group, or any other community to which you may belong, unless you’re no longer interested in being a part of that community.

(3) The Danish equivalent of the ableist English term “spazzing”. The fact that this is the word these characters use to describe their favorite hobby should be all the characterization they need.

(4) Bewilderingly, the Idiots sleep in sleeping bags in spite of the house having several perfectly good beds, which are only ever used for tying Stoffer down during a fit of hysteria and during the film’s climactic gruppeknald sequence– more on that later.

electro-shock therapy) Stoffer chases nude down the street,5 repeatedly calling him a “f*cking fascist”. This incident may provide evidence of some authentic conviction in Stoffer’s belief that he is some kind of forward-thinking iconoclast, although by the end of the film the more obvious conclusion is that Stoffer is merely a sadistic misanthrope who enjoys exerting dictatorial control over those around him, even if those around him are a handful of unlikable malcontents with nothing better to do all day than mock disabled people and eat caviar.

It’s pretty clear that, apart from Stoffer, none of the Idiots have any delusions that what they’re doing is at all important or brave, or anything more than just a bit of fun. During one of the documentary-style talking head interviews that appear intermittently throughout the film, one Idiot says that their activities were essentially treated like a game, though Stoffer wouldn’t see it that way. Indeed, when Stoffer isn’t ordering them around, we do see some moments where the Idiots seem to just be enjoying each other’s company. There are even moments of genuine romance between Idiots. Aside from its primary directive, the commune is, in several scenes, distantly comparable to a totally benign social club.

Up to a point, that is. This impression that the Idiots are just a group of friends hanging out together and occasionally doing something unconscionable does not last, and a little over halfway into the film something happens which reveals that the dynamic between the Idiots– more specifically, between the Idiots and Stoffer– is much more insidious and toxic than it first appeared. After the aforementioned nude car chase, the rest of the Idiots organize a party to cheer Stoffer up. At this party, when asked what he wants to do next, he utters a word which the viewer will hear at least thirty more times before the scene is over: gruppeknald. Or, in English: gangbang.

What follows is a six-minute6 scene of Stoffer and several of the other Idiots engaging in a variety of apparently unsimulated sexual acts which, combined with the cinéma vérité filming style and deliberate use of low-budget filming equipment, make the sequence feel just a little too much like actual amateur pornography.7 This was perhaps the most challenging part of my post-seminar screening, as the incredulous laughter and irreverent riffing which had been so instrumental in getting us through the film up to this point were suddenly nowhere to be found, and we were all forced to sit in silence for six minutes as Lars Von Trier abused his power as director and made us watch his dirty home movies.

Yet, despite the apparent crass artlessness of this scene, it ends up being one of the most important moments of

Movie Poster for The Idiots the film. While the gruppeknald is going on in the main room of the house, two Idiots, Jeppe and Josephine, share a strikingly tender moment in one of the bedrooms, with Josephine suddenly “breaking character”8 and confessing to Jeppe that she loves him as they embrace. As Stoffer, like so many cult leaders before him, forces his followers to gratify his perverse desires, at the same time in another room a new, genuine love is consummated, and it is, despite itself, strangely beautiful. And then it is all torn away.

Not fifteen minutes later, Josephine’s father arrives at the commune, reprimands Josephine for not taking her pills, and drives her home, as Jeppe screams, cries, and pleads in one of the most arresting acting moments in the whole film.

By now, the notion that this commune is just a group of

notes

(5) Leading to the aforementioned tying of Stoffer to one of the house’s aforementioned beds.

(6) Though it feels like sixty.

(7) The grotesquerie of this scene is exacerbated, it should be mentioned, by the fact that the party which the other Idiots organize for Stoffer resembles a low-budget children’s birthday party in both aesthetics and general atmosphere. Hairy, slapping flesh is juxtaposed with scribbled crayon drawings, colorful balloons evidently inflated with breath rather than helium, and paper streamers. The effect is profoundly unsettling in ways which I fear to articulate in print. To cap it all off, miniature Danish flags are taped haphazardly to the walls and are present in the majority of shots, lending the sequence a bizarrely patriotic angle. After viewing this scene, Lars Von Trier will forever be known in my personal vernacular as "the Dane". Sorry, Hamlet.

(8) i.e., no longer pretending to be disabled. the Gadfly / πόλις / May 13, 2022 23

regular people bonding over what happens to be a horribly insensitive hobby is forever cracked. These people are all damaged, we realize, and while they had previously shown indifference to the cruelty of their “performances”, we now see that this cruelty is not incidental to their activities– it’s the whole point.

In the next scene, Stoffer seeks to test the commitment of the Idiots by commanding them to go and “perform” in front of people they know. From this we learn that many of the Idiots have entire other lives which they’ve been neglecting in order to be a part of this commune, including one named Axel who apparently has a wife and a child.

Something is deeply wrong in the lives of all of the Idiots, and in order to cope with their own dissatisfaction they mock a group of people whom they see as worse off than themselves, while at the same time bonding with others just as broken as they are. It is a kind of desperate, therapeutic cruelty. And at the center of it all is Stoffer, who, apart from an uncle whom he clearly doesn’t respect, doesn’t seem to have any family or life outside of being an Idiot. Being the leader of this strange, miserable little congregation is all he has to live for, and he lives out his sick power fantasy through them in order to cope with whatever made him the way he is.

There’s one character whom I haven’t mentioned yet: the protagonist, Karen. Karen joins the commune at the start of the film and acts as a kind of audience surrogate as the audience is introduced to the Idiots and their customs.

She observes the antics of the Idiots, she criticizes Stoffer for mocking disabled people– though she’s apparently not offended enough by this to leave the commune– and, at one point, she sits on a windowsill and stares off into space, drooling and making infantile noises in an attempt to “perform” herself. Despite this effort, we never see Karen fully assimilate into the group, and she is clearly set apart from them to the viewer. Notably, she is much older than the rest of the Idiots, looking to be pushing forty while the rest of the commune are clearly in their twenties.

Karen’s role is not unlike that of Jane Goodall– living among the apes, adapting to their ways, and gaining their trust despite being fundamentally an outsider. She certainly enjoys the experience; while many of the other characters go through their own personal dramas, expressing their discontent with Stoffer and with each other, Karen spends her entire time in the commune with a blank, placid smile on her face, as though just being around these people has a calming, sedative effect on her. Near the end, when it is her turn to feign disability in front of people she knows, she tears up as she tells the rest of the group that she loves them more than she has ever loved anybody, and that “being an

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idiot with [them] is one of the best things [she’s] ever done.”

In the film’s final scene, Karen returns home after two weeks with the Idiots, and we learn that she has an entire family: her mother, her grandfather, her teenage daughter, and her husband, Anders, none of whom are happy to see her. As the mother somberly serves tea to Karen and Anders, Karen picks up a framed picture of an infant on a table. In the opening scene of the film, Karen left a restaurant to join Stoffer and the rest of the Idiots; we now learn that this happened the day before her child’s funeral. The vacant look and soft-spoken demeanor she’s had for the rest of the film now, in retrospect, seem less like contentment and more like shock.

Stoffer at one point describes being an Idiot as “a luxury”, but for Karen, it is a necessity. The cruelty of the commune is not what drew Karen in; being around the Idiots was, for her, not an opportunity to mock those below her, but to block out reality. But now that she has returned to her family– the first community most people have in their lives– reality cannot be avoided. In the final moments of the film, as Karen’s family eats in silence, seemingly unable to forgive her, she shuts her eyes, leans back in her chair, and lets food dribble out of her mouth, “performing” right in front of her loved ones. Anders immediately hops up from his seat, winds back his hand, and smacks her across the face so hard that blood drips down her chin.

The film ends here. We are not shown explicitly whether Karen will attempt to heal her relationship with her family, or go right back to being an Idiot. But it is clear that she cannot do both; these two communities9 are fundamentally incompatible. As the credits roll, we are shown brief clips of the Idiots performing once more, while Karen stands with her back turned to the camera, staring off into the distance.

And we are reminded that, no matter how abusive and miserable this commune of Idiots is, it is all but certain that she will return. It is now the only community where she is welcome– and the only one to which she cares to belong.

notes

(9) That is, her family and the Idiots.

{poetry}

Harlem 1953 George Kalandadze

Wind Chime noise of Ice rocks in the glass of Brown liquor.

The burnt smell of Cuban leaves Undistinguishable chatter in the depth of the room Caress of a cymbal with a brush The murmur of the brass, And the moaning whisper of the ivory.

All muted by the dense, warm, Humid, unaccomplished dreams.

If only people on the outside Would stop confusing Crippling depression With the Chet Baker Quartet.

Louis Armstrong Reading in Bed,

by Dennis Stock

the Gadfly / πόλις / May 13, 2022

25

{campus opinon}

DC President Makes Mistake in Vetoing Service Project El'ad Nichols-Kaufman

A

s a member of the DC (Delegate Council) this year, I’ve had a chance to learn how one of the most important duties listed in our constitution is carried out: “the management of funds available to the Student Polity.”

I’ve seen first hand how all campus clubs and events are funded, from Reality parties, to KWP plays, to the Gadfly’s publication. Most of the time, this process is relatively uncontentious, as it should be. There is a certain amount of money that the Board Games Club needs for new games, or the Storytellers’ Guild needs for cookies, and the DC approves those necessary expenses. Even budgets that lie beyond these small sums, like swords for fencing or food for waltz parties, are almost always approved, even if the approval comes after lengthy debate. The only times that funds are denied is when the amount is too astronomical even for the DC’s extensive resources, or the project that they would go to is seriously problematic.

Because of this precedent, I was caught by surprise by the recent presidential veto on the decision to fund a service project for the Orthodox Catholic Fellowship. The club had requested $300, which they later reduced to $100, for a project in which they would buy food and supplies for unhoused people in Annapolis, make kits with the supplies and distribute them to Annapolitans who need them.

Relative to other budgets approved the same day, such as $4,800 for Prank, this was a small amount, and seemed to be for a good cause. However, DC President Tom Ni raised objections to it because of its nature as a charity project.

He argued on constitutional grounds that the DC cannot fund projects that go to benefit people outside the campus.

After extensive debate, the proposal went up for a vote, and passed with overwhelming support of the majority of the DC. However, Mr. Ni immediately turned around and vetoed this budget item, claiming that funding the project would set a bad precedent.

I greatly admire Mr. Ni in his role as president, for bringing new energy and ideas onto the Delegate Council, but I think in this case he has made a serious mistake. First, there is no constitutional basis for objecting to service projects. The constitution gives the DC great discretion in what money is spent on, and article IV. Section II. 8.a explicitly allows the DC to authorize spending that is not accessible to the entire polity. Of course, funding items directly for people outside the polity can be seen as problematic, but the items were to be part of a project

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of a campus group. The Orthodox Catholic Fellowship would have used the assembly of these kits as a club activity, which the DC certainly can fund. It doesn’t matter that they would be given away at the end, the fact it is a club activity to assemble them already makes it something worth funding, and something that benefits the polity.

More important than any of these small squabbles, however, is the kind of message the DC sends by refusing to fund this project. We are fully willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on parties, but unwilling to even give a hundredth of the sum to a cause that would benefit our wider community. Are we, as Johnnies, really so selfish as to deny even the possibility that service projects can benefit the entire polity? I would hope that with all the reading about virtue we do here, we would have some understanding that one of the most valuable things that people like us, students with a source of food and shelter, can do is to help support those who don’t even have these basic necessities. The DC should be able to see that funds that allow students to virtuously engage in the wider community are as much, or more valuable to the experience of students here than any loud party.

I do not mean to insinuate that anyone involved in this process had any malicious intention. As I have stated earlier, I think Mr. Ni really does try to work towards the best of the polity’s interests. However, the use of a veto, the extreme executive action overruling the decision of a majority of the polity’s representatives was uncalled for here, especially because the item vetoed would be good for both the college and the wider community. Sometimes, a good leader has to learn to listen to others, and to realize that he cannot lead a body fully isolated from the wider community. I hope that the polity as a whole learn from this mistake, and that in the future, we are able to look past our narrow Johnnie bubble and realize we can benefit by engaging with the wider community, and that college money spent for a noble project that extends beyond the Johnnie Bubble is money well spent.

{Sports}

The NFL Draft Max MersmannJones

A

s senior prank lay siege to St. John’s college, the National Football League conducted its 87th annual draft. The draft is a monstrous product to consume as an outsider to the football world, and it hinges around a strange dichotomy. It is a spectacle, a three-day affair packed with legions of raucous fans, this year held on the Vegas Strip. It’s easy to get lost in the show, the multimillion-dollar broadcast in front of a Ferris wheel that changes color for each team pick and forget just how much of the draft is a display of our limited capacity for understanding. This is the reality: more hall of famers went undrafted than with the first overall pick. Altogether, NFL teams have sunk some millions of hours into finding the right players, desperately searching for some signal in a sea of noise. This is a powerful industry backed by billionaire owners and refined by the hard work of a hundred years of passionate minds. And yet, not a soul watching the draft knows the fates of the young men that make up a talented and deep 2022 rookie class. Some players seem like they can’t fail, like the gritty pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson, a defensive end out of Michigan who will stay put in Detroit after being selected second overall by the Lions. But the first pick of the draft, new Jacksonville DE Travon Walker, while an undeniably unique athlete with speed, strength, and size, has relatively little actual production despite playing on a historically talented Georgia defense. He is unproven despite his attributes. And what do you make of a generational talent like Kyle Hamilton playing a less valuable position at Safety? Hamilton is widely credited as one of the best players in this year’s class, but he fell to the Baltimore Ravens at 14 because talent and value don’t always align. Perhaps the best example of that divide was the historic fall of this year’s quarterback class. Quarterback is one of the most complex and difficult positions in all of sports, and modern football relies on the pass more than ever before. Still, this draft saw only one quarterback drafted in the first 74 picks due to a striking lack of reliable top end production from any of the eligible throwers. That slide allowed the Washington Commanders to pick up Sam Howell, a toolsy if inconsistent three-year starter out of North Carolina, in the 5th round. Yes, the NFL draft is a gaudy celebration of potentially generational talents, but it is also a subtle celebration of the unknown; a rare chance to revel in the mystery of the future without rushing right along to the final reveal.

Eight Athletes by Otto Neumann We won’t see these rookies take the field until preseason in early August but the time for them to begin proving themselves starts now as they prepare themselves for the season. For the hometown Baltimore Ravens, there are 10 of these young men eagerly awaiting the season. In addition to Hamilton, Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta selected Iowa center Tyler Linderbaum near the end of the first round. Linderbaum looks to be about as sure of a bet as the draft could bring, with an extremely high projected floor. While the young center is a solid addition to the team, QB Lamar Jackson vented frustration on twitter at the Ravens’ decision to trade away WR Marquise “Hollywood” Brown to the Cardinals, the trade that gave DeCosta the pick to select Linderbaum. The Ravens again found value in the second round, selecting an injured David Ojabo, a pass rusher projected to go in the early first round before suffering a torn Achilles in a workout before the draft.

Filling out their board the Ravens found athletic defensive tackle Travis Jones, and a monster of an offensive tackle in the 6’8’’ 384-pound Daniel Faalele. The Ravens doubled up in later rounds, taking two cornerbacks and two tight ends, as well as a punter and a running back. Over their four-year rookie contracts, these players will weave their fates on the field at M&T Bank stadium — and their individual feats will determine the fate of the Ravens franchise to come.

the Gadfly / πόλις / May 13, 2022

27

{Culinary Criticism}

Evelyn's Elevates The American Brunch Experience Connor Shin

T

ruly, we live in the darkest timeline. Humanity is still stuck with a pandemic that can’t seem to go away, societal tensions are flaring up in virtually every country, a potential world war is brewing on the horizon, and the Naval Academy has inexplicably claimed the Annapolis Cup for only the eighth time in their entire history. In these times of crisis, it pays to have a local refuge to seek comfort in: a place without any pretentiousness, where you won’t be judged for who you are or what you order. I’m talking about a place like Evelyn’s, where for a glorious hour or so, you can bask in the comforting warmth of small-town Americana without a care in the world. Grab a mug of dark, caffeinated ambrosia, settle down with a warm bowl of buttered grits, and come with me on a gander through this magical little Annapolitan oasis; after my fever dream of a college dining hall review, it’s time for a proverbial palate cleanser, for my sake and for yours. Welcome to paradise.

Normally, I have quite a bit to say about the actual aesthetics of the restaurant I’m reviewing, but there’s honestly not much to say about Evelyn’s decor. It’s as normal as an American restaurant can be: a white coffered ceiling, rustic wooden floors, and a tiled kitchen area walled off with a pseudo-bar area. There are a few pieces of art hung up on the walls from local artists, although these are not nearly as prevalent as they are in places like tsunami or 49 West.

There are also some sections of Evelyn’s walls dedicated to chalk-scrawled messages, with the usual examples of daily specials and local farms from which the restaurant draws most of its ingredients from. However, what really caught my eye was on the far wall, with an entire story about how Evelyn’s got its name, as well as the staff ’s dedication towards “plant to plate” cooking and forming lasting ties to the citizens of Annapolis. I won’t spoil the details, but let’s just say that Evelyn’s is certainly home to some of the more wholesome restaurateurs out there.

A stated goal of Evelyn’s servers is to be on a firstname basis with all of their customers, which is certainly a respectable goal. In regards to their overall performance and demeanor, I have no complaints whatsoever. In contrast to other restaurants I’ve reviewed, the staff at Evelyn’s seem prepared enough to handle anything, even the hellish conditions of a 12 PM lunch rush. Even while juggling several tables’ worth of orders, my waitress was able to take my table’s order perfectly; all the little requests from my friends, such as an extra egg on an order of avocado toast,

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arrived in exacting detail. More than any other restaurant I’ve been to so far, Evelyn’s truly makes you feel like a unique part of their family. Just keep in mind that there’s often a wait time for free tables, since this place is pretty small for a diner-style restaurant; this problem has unfortunately seemed to have gotten worse as of late, since the building has gotten rid of Evelyn’s outdoor tables while renovations are going on with the roof.

If you can think of a typical American breakfast food, then Evelyn’s probably has it. From fluffy Belgian waffles topped with refreshing fruits and whipped cream ($11), to a simple two-egg breakfast with the requisite accouterments of home fries, toast, and your choice of breakfast meat ($10), you’re pretty spoiled for choice when it comes to menu options. The entrée portions here are pretty generous across the board, but don’t neglect the smaller dishes either; the soup of the day is always warm and nourishing, and is definitely worth a try. Sometimes, the stars align, and there will be both cream of crab soup and classic Maryland crab soup on offer on the same day. Pull a Hogan’s Bipartisan from Chick and Ruth’s, and ask to have both soups mixed together; you won’t regret your decision as you let the perfect blend of tangy tomato, sherry-infused cream, and plump, sweet crabmeat invigorate your very soul.

Let’s say that I’m not only starving, but itching for something special; Do I want an omelet stuffed to the gills with enough cheese, scrapple, onions, and mushrooms to take up an entire plate? Yes, please. If you ever want to know true eggy bliss, you could do worse than building your own omelet to form your own decadent monstrosities ($12). Be warned, though; it’s best to avoid going too far with addons, since anything more than one cheese, one veggie, and one meat choice will result in additional costs. If you aren’t in the mood to customize, though, there’s an entire section of the menu dedicated to some of the best omelets I’ve ever tasted in Annapolis. Make sure you’re really hungry first, before you try to tackle a monster like the three-egg “Feed the Navy” ($15); this mass of steak, sausage, bacon, cheese, and home fries is enough to . Personally, I can never have an Evelyn’s omelet two visits in a row; sometimes it’s better for my health and my sanity to nosh on a simple, refreshing avocado toast with tomato ($10), hipster accusations be damned.

My favorite dish on Evelyn’s menu is an interesting variation on the classic combo of bagels and lox: the so-called

“Smoked Salmon Plate” ($12). Instead of a bagel, the strips of tender, savory fish arrive laying upon a perfectly-toasted slice of bread, along with the typical accompaniments of red onion, tomato, sliced hard-boiled eggs(?) and capers.

The toast is strong enough to withstand me piling all the ingredients on top, to form a delicious open-faced sandwich of sorts. I’d be willing to say this is the best breakfast dish I’ve ever had, bereft of any flaws whatsoever… if only I didn’t hate hard-boiled egg yolks with a burning passion. Still, if it’s good enough for me, it’s probably good enough for you, too; if you’re a hard-yolk hater like me, just scoop out the offending articles with a knife or something.

Lest I let Evelyn’s completely off the hook though, I’ve got one particular complaint to vent; mind you, it’s quite minor, but still worth bringing attention to. Reliability is, more or less, a non-issue at this restaurant, with one glaring exception: its grits. As a self-proclaimed “grit connoisseur”, I take pride in my love for this underrated beauty of a porridge; especially when it’s savory, thick, and buttery, just like God intended (no sugar, cinnamon, or other such Yankee nonsense). However, Evelyn’s seems to struggle with the consistency of its grits, and I’ve received overlyrunny or watery bowls of what is basically thin corn soup, almost as much as true, thick, stick-to-your-bones grits. This problem is exacerbated by Evelyn’s usage of what I think is coarse-ground hominy, which is the more traditional and

preferable method to smoother blends; the larger grains of corn makes this side dish taste and feel better on the palate, but also makes it much more jarring to eat if the grits aren’t made properly. I’ll stop ragging on Evelyn’s for this fixable issue, now; at the very least, they always make sure to give me two pats of butter, which is always appreciated.

Even if you’re a snooty bon vivant, to whom the mere mention of “Waffle House” brings to mind WorldStar fight videos instead of tasty waffles and hash browns, there’s no way you’ll be able to escape Evelyn’s charm. The first time I ate here, I ordered the most basic breakfast, and mostly focussed on chatting with friends rather than enjoying the food in front of me. It took me three years of coming here to realize just how wrong I was to neglect the tender care put into both the food and the service here, which I cannot state enough is the reason why Evelyn’s is loved by so many Annapolitans and out-of-towners alike. Evelyn’s is one of the more humble places I’ve been to in town; you’ve more likely than not passed by its eye-catching, huge outdoor fruit statues and never once realized that there was a really good restaurant here. Whether you’re coming back to St. John’s for another year or more, or whether you’re about to embark on a journey into the intimidating world of real life, give Evelyn’s a shot at least once during the time you have left here; not many other places can so reliably put a smile on your face.

Evelyn’s 26 Annapolis Street, Annapolis 410-263-4794 www.evelynsannapolis.com Open for inside dining Monday-Thursday 9:00 AM-2:00 PM, Friday 9:00 AM-3:00 PM, and Saturday-Sunday 8:00 AM-3:00 PM. Prices: Small dishes $6 to $10, main dishes $8 to $15, beverages $2 to $4.

Got opinions or questions? Is there a place I should try out? Email me at cashin@sjc.edu

the Gadfly / πόλις / May 13, 2022

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{Student Reflection}

What Properly Constitutes a 'Johnnie'?

Drew Maglio, SJCA GI '22

“What constitutes a Johnnie”—or “what ought to constitute a Johnnie” is a perplexing question that pervades the halls of St. John’s and the coffee houses and pubs of Annapolis (or at least those of Maryland Ave.). In response to this enduring conundrum, many plausibilities have been postulated and it is generally held that Johnnies are a strange but distinct breed of weird, seldom found and duplicated elsewhere. While this exposition is by no means intended to be a rhetorical didactic, there are—I think—some general and overarching characteristics that pervade, denote, and differentiate Johnnies from other types of learners and it is now my business to describe these characteristics.

First and foremost, let it be known that by ‘Johnnie,’ I do not merely mean a student at St. John’s, but rather an ahistorical and contextually devoid, ‘truly liberal learner’— who possesses a certain essence and spirit that constitutes their essential being or form. Thus, while there may indeed be a proliferation of Johnnies at St. John’s, a singular institution cannot claim a monopoly of liberal education, or the only education suitable free and autonomous beings in possession of the capacity for reason. Hence while there is undoubtedly a higher concentration of Johnnies at St. John’s, i.e. America’s greatest liberal arts college which is wholly dedicated to liberal educational methodology and the Western (and Eastern) Canon, there are also ‘Johnnies in Spirit’ found elsewhere, many of whom I know personally.

But what is the spirit that these Johnnies share? To answer this, I will attempt to explicate and delineate the intrinsic and inherent spirit that denotes a genuine liberal learner, or colloquially: a ‘Johnnie.’ To this I postulate that the first and most requisite contingency is the possession of an insatiable curiosity and desire to not only learn, but learn all things humanly possible. Flowing from this premise, a proper Johnnie is universally interested and therefore seeks to learn as much as possible about a wide variety of disciplines simultaneously. Accordingly, Johnnies are in possession of a vast array of sometimes conflicting and paradoxical interests, intrigues, inclinations, hobbies, and extracurricular ventures. Augmenting our Johnnie’s curiosity, is an almost infinite creativity that compels us to produce things of immense beauty and value for its own sake. Thus, in pursuing sweeping interests, a proper Johnnie possesses no ulterior motive—economic or otherwise— and therefore,merely seeks mastery and learning for its own sake out of a genuine spirit of learning. For a genuine

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Johnnie, the activity of learning and exploring can only cease with death. Consequently, the Johnnie is the archetypal generalist—and though intellectually capable of ascending to the heights of mechanized and specialized academia— prefers being a competent jack of all trades, rather than a master of one.

Always an idealist at heart, the Johnnie seeks mastery of all things pursued, however due to the sheer difficultly of attaining mastery in any given field—not to mention all— it is likely he will fall short. And yet, the idealized Johnnie remains a ‘Renaissance Man: polymath who is able to synthesize and tie a common thread through the seemingly disparate disciplines of philology, philosophy, and physics for instance, which—as it turns out–are indeed, all interconnected and interdependent.

Still, and this may be the most contentious claim herein, the Johnnie acquiesces to the probability (or likely certainty) of Absolute Truth—even if it lies outside the bounds of human reason and faculty. A vital feature of a Johnnie then, is a humble prostration before what actually is. Therefore, a proper Johnnie is constantly refining, reordering, and redefining their moral and philosophical disposition as they gather more information through the activity of living. In other words: as their preconceived maxims are tested, Johnnies amen and recalibrate in light of new evidence, for life itself is an incessant pursuit of individual self-improvement.

Generally introspective and introverted into a world of their own making by nature, Johnnies have a propensity to watch from the sidelines. As a remedy for this, Johnnies must be prescribed—in terms of learning methodology— both experiential and theoretical means: the central idea here being that in order to truly learn and grasp the abstract, it must be put into demonstrably concrete terms through various experiments and proofs. And thus, in order to actualize potentiality, a distinctly phenomenological component must be invoked to provoke motion in those more philosophic and contemplative individuals who have a tendency to remain at rest. Although it may not seem so at first, a desire for phenomenological novelty and reasoned labor are vital components of the ideal Johnnie’s essential character. Make no mistake however, that reading books ripe with rich and diverse ideas remains the vital and nourishing lifeblood of the Johnnie.

Being far more interested in ideas and things, rather

than people, Johnnies are typically socially awkward to some degree and are decidedly unfit for the modern world of corporatism, consumerism, and overall busy-ness–but being unable to exist merely as a transcendental form, the ideal Johnnie must descend to the world of men in order to engage in reasoned discourse in the public sphere; for the Johnnie’s Great Commission is to export the Great Books and liberal learning to all corners of the earth, in hopes that all who are so inclined, capable, and interested may hear its message and take part in the most-liberating and elevating Conversation that has ever been spoken: or that which inquires into—and ruminates upon—the enduring and overarching mystery of human existence.

Under certain circumstances, our Johnnie may be called to political action which he ought to brave with magnanimity and courage, however the proper Johnnie is a politically moderate individual capable of understanding present concerns with great depth and nuance: for he is skillful in the art of thinking and understands that no one faction can claim certainty in something as abstract and dynamic as human intercourse and society. Understanding this, the proper Johnnie is first and foremost an individual— an a mind before a body at that. As a result, he is most concerned with the courses of individual lives including his own, rather than that of nations.

Liberal education is then—at its very core—an enterprise that is conducted by the exercising of the mind and spirit and is therefore a quasi-religious activity whereby free and willing individuals engage with one another communally in an individual first, then collective, pursuit of Truth. A Johnnie must then be, one who embraces such an educational program and embodies its overarching and undergirding virtues.

{what does this mean?}

Sappho Fragment 104a Max Anthon

In this column, I am asking readers to send me their interpretations of the poem/fragment I select each week; a few responses will be selected and shared in the next issue. For this particular Sappho fragment, I am asking both for readers’ interpretations as well as for alternative translations. Responses should be sent to manthon@sjc. edu.

Hello dear readers, What do you think this poem means?

Sappho Fragment 104a Greek text: Ἔσπερε, πάντα φέρων, ὄσα φαίνολις ἐσκέδασ' Αὔως, †φέρεις ὄιν, φέρεις αἶγα, φέρεις ἄπυ† μάτερι παῖδα.

My own translation: Evening, bringing all things that light-bringing Dawn has scattered, you bring the sheep, you bring the goat, you bring child to its mother.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Sappho,

by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

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