First Impressions

Diary Entry: November 11, 2016

When one interrogates the idea of America, what is the central thesis, the incandescent myth that immediately springs to mind? I cannot speak for the masses, but for me, the brand has always been built on democracy, the fetishized “freedom of speech,” and a supposed, reflexive openness to the new.

Hollywood, naturally, offers a grotesque caricature; the America of the silver screen is a flimsy celluloid phantom. This, I understand. But one still arrives armed with perceptions, with a curated set of expectations for how the reality should perform.

My projection of American academia, in particular, was a theater of vigorous debate. I pictured lecture halls humming with engagement, a genuine collision of a billion ideas, individuals not just speaking up but competing in their expressiveness — a sort of intellectual Olympics of who could be freer than the next.

Perhaps this vision was naive, a poor fit for the actual mechanics of the academic learning process. But I at least expected the people to be cast from that mold, to possess that internal fire, regardless of how much the institution permitted its expression.

What I am observing, however, is... peculiar. This is not the America of the prospectus.

Then again, I remain cognizant that it may simply take time to decipher the local customs. First impressions are notoriously unreliable narrators.