Some balding, (not just a) cigar-smoking fin-de-siecle Viennese coke head once hypothesized that the trauma that results from exiting the comfort of the womb is the first and most distinctly troubling source of anxiety and psychic discord that all humans have the misfortune of experiencing. Whether or not this birth trauma, thought to be impossible to remember or acknowledge and thus come to psychoanalytic terms with, is the irremovable thorn in the side of humanity is debatable. Nevertheless, the fact remains that every human has experienced a birthing process, and whether or not they are conscious of it, the notion that there exists a fundamental desire to return to a place where your food source is taken care of, the environment is constantly warm and cozy trimester after trimester, and the interior decoration is a slimy shade of pink is not that unreasonable of a demand for every human to harbor. And that is exactly where the Claremont Colleges come in.

Take a good look around: it is fairly obvious that there is conscious design around these parts to simulate the fetus in not-so-subtle terms. The Spanish architecture, with its faux-adobe concrete and red roof tiling feels like it could have been used as the set for the opening sequences of "Look Who’s Talking." And what about the proximity of the dining halls? There may as well be an umbilical cord connected from every student’s to the vats of nourishment that secrete beef stroganoff and tofu vegetable stir fry as provided by the stern, but loving Father Frank and the gentle, though reasonable Mother Frary. (I will point out that we have a phenomenon called "Snack" here. It would not be surprising if in the years to come we would witness such corollary phenomena as "Recess" and "Nap Time.")

But the phenomenon of wanting to embark on a journey wombward resonates in even subtler and stronger ways at the five campuses than one would imagine upon initial consideration. Don’t you ever feel like you are being coddled by the administration, your every care and concern being met attentively if you cry loud enough or tug on the necessary cords attached to the proper administrative organs? And what about the constant chorus that echoes among every generation of Pomona students, year after year: being at Pomona is not real, it’s not the real world, and (the most prominent and reiterated) it’s a bubble here. You may have thought you were just adding your two cents of idle whining to the collective piggy bank of complaint, but you were actually more justified in your high-pitched lamentation than you thought. In fact, you are absolutely right. There is something very familiar and pleasant and even slightly intoxicating about being at these campuses. That drowsy sense of responsibility-free utopian drifting that occasionally infects every student here might be attributed to the fact that we, may in fact, go to school in a womb.

The evidence supporting this blissful retrogression towards juvenilia is overwhelming, even on the other campuses. If you ever eat at Collins (the cafeteria, not dining hall, of CMC), examine the fact that, although most people may believe they are in college, every single person is actually in the stereotyped simulation of a high school environment. This simulacrum includes such staples of High School, U.S.A. such as the school mascot on the wall, the women in cheerleading outfits with the word STAGS prominently displayed across their chests, the social hierarchies within social hierarchies, the lunch money stolen by aggressive larger males from weaker smaller males, and the general sanitary sense of conformity.

Take a gander at the student population of Pitzer College and you will only find reconfirmations of a need to hold onto the impossibly slippery grip of the past. I see T-shirts adorned with glitter, men and women sucking on pacifiers, and bags littered with icons of childhood: Hello Kitty, Keroppi, possibly even Barney, sported by some hip ironist trying to make a statement about stunted maturity. Although I have to admit that combined with this "first grade aesthetic," Pitzer also fosters a very well-defined, pissed-off adolescent reactionary spirit. There are more than enough chains, piercings, spiked hair, fuck-you attitudes, and ripped clothing up there to gray all of the sun-bleached hair of Southern Californian mothers in less than a one-year period if exposure ratios, testing conditions, etc. were just right.

It is not very difficult to fashion an argument about how Harvey Mudd is the collegiate equivalent of that smart kid in your elementary science class who knew about the periodic table and the difference between phylum and species a little too early and was thus accordingly ostracized for the entirety of his teenage years, resulting in his solace in personal academic growth, leading to extremely accelerated intellectual abilities, but a nonetheless tragically stunted ability to master social skills and a permanently thwarted sense of confidence outside the classroom. I mean, don’t they have mandatory classes that force them to take humanities courses (like Ayn Rand studies–sorry for the cheap shot)?

You may notice the absence of any formal mention of Scripps in this categorical analysis of the five colleges as locations where 18 to 22 year olds can abandon their current spatial and temporal coordinates in favor of an existence that they have already navigated, namely one distilled from their youth or at least some representation of their youth. I am afraid that I will have to leave it up to your imagination how the example of a utopian single-sex school in Southern California erected as an ersatz fortress, strewn with palm trees and fountains, fits in.

All this is not to say that youthful regression is a bad thing. Hell, if hindsight is 20/20 and the grass is greener on the other side, I am sure that each of us could probably pinpoint a time and a place where they were the most very special little someone in somebody’s book. And trying to get back to that time and place may even contain some bit of grace, nobility, and plausibility to it. I know that a group of affable young gentleman, in an attempt to simulate that wonderfully urgent and combustive mixture of awkwardness, excitement, expectation, and anxiety that was ever-present during the preteens, threw a junior prom in their hallway. And all things considered, it was pretty badass (except for some kid leaking a trail of vomit through his futilely cupped hands all the way to Huntley book store). So basically, there are a number of methods, both creative and destructive, to maintain that youthful spirit which may or may not result out of some need to retreat to the womb. Either way, the five colleges most certainly have their finger to the pulse of the baby in all of us.