When I first came to college, there were a number of students I encountered who found it worthwhile to discuss their SAT scores, as if comparing themselves with the mean of the incoming class. There was a contingent of those who compared the "fuckability" of the Pomona student body with that of their high school classes.

There was an array of students from low income backgrounds who considered it fashionable to brag of their poverty, and some from inner city schools who bragged of all the interesting cultural phenomena that were daily occurrences in high school, and which do not and cannot happen at Pomona because the school draws its students primarily from a different socio-geographical location.

And there was a clique of vain and vacillating discontents who trumpeted their diffidence by proclaiming themselves to be "too cool" for the scale and nature of the socialization which occurs here.

All this poison-brewing and spreading of dissension is circulated primarily around the lower two classes– or so it seems to me; once people earn a little more experience and realize that they’re not so special after all, then Pomona college begins to seem like an all around good idea again.

It is not my wish to exaggerate this phenomenon, but this is something that all of us, perhaps, have heard at least once. People assert that they ought to have been accepted to a better school, claim that the institution stifles "free-thinking," or imagine that they really have something else in their lives that would be a more worthwhile occupation of their time and energy than studying important things at a somewhat respectable liberal arts college and drinking from kegs of Natty or Icehouse at parties of allegedly sub-par scope and frequency.

This diffidence is by no means unique to Pomona College; indeed I have heard people at other colleges foolishly disparage their institutions to my ears as if attempting to disassociate themselves from something they perceive as being subpar in comparison to my standards.

And I have heard the same idle whining in reference to hometowns, countries, and even entire civilizations. Even though I have not heard this kind of thing unequivocally and directly expressed for a long time, having been abroad for a year, I have heard it expressed in metaphor, or indirectly — ‘gotten at’ in mosaics of juxtaposition. In this article I focus on this topic and answer that subset of people who talk negatively of our college’s party scene, and argue in favor of the latter.

As far as I can remember, this is a case that has never been seriously put forward as an issue in a public forum, and a position sorely in need of defense.

I have read a great deal of op-ed pieces tearing to shreds everything from CCLA to frats to the individual college student and his apathy, but the only opposition to all this posing and hurdy-gurdy that I have seen in writing is listings of student organizations and activities such as those that appear in the prospectus and student handbook. And now my case in favor of the Pomona College social life - what it is and isn’t, why people feel the need to scoff at it, and why they are not justified in doing so.

Pomona parties don’t suck. At least they didn’t before Phi Delta got forced underground last year. No really, we have SYR, Booty!, the grovehouse, Smiley 80’s, swing parties, motley salsa parties, frat socials, punk concerts, raves, reggae semi-formal, winter ball, and all sorts of other fiestas.

Anyone who says that all Pomona parties are the same is either blind and deaf, lacks the imagination to attend anything but big, thematic CCLA weekend parties (and is unqualified, therefore, to criticize anyone else’s imagination), or is motivated by some internal drive or impulse to believe something contrary to fact and maintain a position that is inconsistent with reality.

This last item, I believe, describes the greatest number of those whose criticism of the social scene is that all parties here are merely variations on the same dumb theme, weekend after weekend.

The truly ironic thing about these people who disrespect my college is that when they decry the party scene here as being monotonous, belaboured, and lacking in excitement or originality, they are in fact describing their own lives without even being aware of it.

People who advance the type of criticism I have described are truly dissatisfied not with the party scene (as they claim), but rather with the fact that they have nothing better to do with their time than go to parties and stupefy themselves with the stinking masses five nights a week.

This fact explains why the people who belittle Pomona College parties are the people you see at parties all the time. One would think that those with a low opinion of parties would be the ones who stay away from them while those who find them enjoyable would be the ones who attend, but a great deal of the time it is the other way around.

It is not parties that suck, but the fact that partying has become the central activity of one’s life in a way that it shouldn’t be. Anything would seem to suck if this could be predicated of it, regardless of it being homework, a girl or boyfriend, partying, making money, or smoking weed.

Another reason why the party scene seems lame to some is that any party scene would eventually seem lame to these very persons except for idealized ones that exist only in their minds.

Some people decide that party scenes at big schools are much better than at small schools. At big schools parties are enormous and you can always meet new people.

But to paraphrase Newton, for every positive adjective there is an equal and opposite negative adjective. Although big school parties seem great to our hypothetical discontented Pomona student, if he were to actually end up at such a place he would eventually begin to use descriptions such as "it’s so impersonal" and "it’s difficult to find your friends at an overcrowded party where every face is a new one."

He would probably also find that parties there begin to look the same after a while. The reason why I stated earlier that when people describe the party scene they are sometimes describing their own lives without even knowing it is this:

I have, through careful scientific experimentation, observed that the quality of a party is almost entirely a function of perception and not of external reality, so that when a person describes a party he thinks that he is describing reality whereas he is in fact describing only his mode of perception, and thereby bearing witness to his experience of life.

This is not true all the time, but certainly more often than not. When I say that the quality of a party is a matter of perception, I mean this: One person describes a party as ‘packed’ while another describes it as ‘crowded’ — two distinct adjectives (or descriptions) symbolizing precisely the same external fact but two very different attitudes toward it, one positive - meaning that the party is of high quality- and one negative — meaning the opposite.

Does anyone really think that the bar scene is any more happening than what we have on campus? I don’t know much about bars, but what I do know is that the price of a wild night of painting the town red is at least $50 more expensive than the price of the same activity at college.

Moreover, if you don’t make it home you end up sleeping on a sidewalk instead of on Walker beach or in someone’s room. You’re much more likely to get arrested, get seriously hurt in a brawl or drive drunk, and if you meet a potential partner you cannot easily manipulate a situation in your favor as we do in college by suggesting a stroll over behind the wash or a walk back to the dorm to listen to records. Most importantly however, going to bars on weekends is at least as boring as going to college parties on weekends because it is precisely the same activity merely dressed in a different costume — drinking, having conversation, and getting one’s ‘mack’ on.

If this has become boring for you, as it has for most of us at one time or another, socialization will suck for you anyway and you should at least be honest and not blame it on your surroundings. People scoff largely because they distrust themselves and they desire vindication at the expense of the level of esteem at which the college should be held.

That is to say, if one is able to somehow put a finger on what it is that sucks about the school, then he insures himself against the possibility of his audience assuming that he sucks in the same way. And he proves that the college is slave to some state of existence from which he, the observant one, is free.

I must add one important point: although I have presented a very negative portrait of those people who talk foolishly in this manner, I do not wish to imply that the social scene cannot be justifiably criticized or even blatantly scorned. Criticism is not pejorative in tone and usually occurs at, for example, CCLA or senate meetings.

Outright scorn requires an exceptionally strong and free person and it is something that I rarely hear. For the most part people content themselves with meek and equivocal whimpering.

This is my message to all those uncertain of their will: if you cannot hold college parties in high esteem, then don’t go to them. There is no one more ridiculous and worthy of my contempt than a guy who walks up to me at a party with a beer in his hand and then starts telling me that the party sucks. If you can, then go to it, friends! GO FORTH AND POLLUTE THYSELVES–with wine, with love, with the company of good friends, and above all–with gratitude and with a good conscience.