Attitude problem

On the uptown 1 train a stranger with “Columbia” on her sweatshirt enters the car and sits across from me: worlds collide. As New Yorkers, we are chained by legends of the subway, which forbid talking to anyone you don’t know—unless you would like to be considered crazy. But as Columbia students, are we supposed to do anything? I think so, and I introduce myself. It turns out this person is also a Columbia student and that we are even the same year. But the weight of transgressing our subway vows is heavy. It follows us to 116th Street.

Where does Columbia begin and end? My exchange on the subway shows how real this question is for people who live and study here. Are we Columbia students out in the city and the world or just inside the gates? This story isn’t anything exceptional—many Columbia students ride the 1 train, wear Columbia sweatshirts, and don’t know each other. Put the three together and it might be you that I meet on the subway.

Since we see upwards of a thousand unnamed Columbia faces every day on campus, why should one more be such a big deal? Indeed, the one from the subway could be as crazy as any other subway rider. This is a “New York State of Mind,” and it travels too freely on campus. It is another example of how Columbia replicates its host city, in all of its flaws and glory: How the bustle between class resembles Grand Central Station, how the crowded Hamilton elevator feels like the M60, how the food prices are worse(!) than city averages, how so many different things happen so close together, how so little passes by non-controversially, how we are always short on space, and, at last, how we see classmates as just some other New Yorkers.

Some of those things have their charm, but once in a while, we may want to take exception to the city. The innocent question, “where does Columbia begin and end?” points to one such exception, because of the question that is then implied: How much are the Columbia students that you don’t know just some other New Yorkers, to be regarded with the usual circumspect distance and fear? Are they all that subway rider we slide away from when an extra seat opens? Does our residence in the city incur a general proscription on friendship and trust after orientation ends? What does the Columbia affiliation mean on its own terms, before all the classes, clubs, and JJ’s meals? This is a loaded question with many answers. But for what it’s worth, try this one: Tonight, that stranger from the subway might brush and floss in your sink.

There is a relevant parable at the end of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” To complete the famed “Triwizard Tournament,” Harry must race his schoolmate, Cedric Diggory, through a demonized and bewitched maze. They are only schoolmates—different years, different “houses,” different classes, and more rivals than friends (Cedric dated Harry’s first crush). But even a least-common-denominator tie to the same school is enough for Harry to turn and rescue Cedric from the mercy of a deadly plant-monster. The city can seem demonized and maze-like, and the dilemma it presents about our relationships with other students is a lot like this one, even if the settings could not be more different.

Perhaps some circumspect fear is the cost of attending school in one of the world’s most crowded and mythologized cities, where “Taxi Driver” and “Gangs of New York” resonate more than “Harry Potter”-where hardly a week goes by without another security alert, crime report, or public safety announcement. There are too many people and too many threats to be so eager to meet everyone. Sometimes these are fair concerns, but they are not good reasons to prejudge classmates as threatening strangers. Amid all of the threatening reports, there is one “alert” we have not received. We should also be warned that some of the nice feelings that come with membership in this school are at odds with some of the harsh feelings that are attached to urban life. We should be just as vigilant against these threats. This is no manifesto for rah-rah spirit and face painting, but simply a point about attitudes. In the end, it’s not about whether you meet every classmate, but whether you would even want to.

The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in history.