While I appreciate the seeming earnestness of David Ader’s editorial regarding the recently invoked “rivalry” between Emory and Wash U, I can’t help but notice that while he might think it a “paradox” that a rivalry should be so deliberate and contrived (and unilateral), his response to the issue was equally paradoxical.

Even addressing the issue, which is utterly absurd, is not to “take the high road.” While he promulgates a non-retaliatory stance, he states we should not “stoop to (Emory’s) level.” He also describes the perpetrators as “demeaning and classless.”

By writing this piece and placing our school on a moral pedestal, was Ader not also a participant in this ridiculousness? It read to me like (almost) veiled name-calling.

The problem I see is he played more on morality (ironic, all things considered) and less on absurdity. I mean – a rivalry? Here? Seriously?

Let’s consider the typical conditions of a rivalry:

1. Sports
2. Spor – oh, wait… that was it. Just sports.

OK, well, sports – that’s something. In fact, when I applied here, the first thing I asked the tour guide was, “how is our football team?” Of course the tour guide said, “Stellar. We win the Big 12 every year, and we pack our 85,000-seat stadium every home game.”

Awesome, I thought, and then I went to the campus store, bought a red and green t-shirt and a foam bear claw, chugged a beer, painted my face, and hooted at some cheerleaders.

No, that was definitely a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation from an all-nighter for an exam the third week into school.

I attend a university where the library is more populated than the football stadium, where more than 40 percent of our athletes actually graduate, and where afterwards, said athletes begin careers which do not involve the use of helmets. That’s the school I signed up for. That’s also the school Chancellor Danforth planned for in the ’70s when we opted for DIII athletics, in order to emphasize academics.

In this way, the school advertises itself justly. For instance, the difference in atmosphere between, say, Mizzou and Wash U is apparent both on campus and in pamphlets. Obviously, both schools have distinctively different personalities, and we were all aware of our respective personalities upon matriculation.

That said, a “rivalry” would betray our campus identity. Such inane antics as the ones illustrated on the front of Monday’s Student Life are ill-befitting of our pretention. I mean intellect. Intellect is the word I was going for. Ader knows what I’m talking about.

I don’t think the absence of “school spirit” is a detriment to our campus. I think that sort of prescribed nonsense is missing from our campus, because it does not fit within our sense of a university.

Vain attempts at retro-fitting rivalries and school spirit in here are just hilarious – especially considering I didn’t even notice the painting on the overpass, since I’ve been in the library most of the week. Also funny: when I overheard people’s outrage at Emory, their expressed contempt stemmed not from the athletic challenge, but the fact that the perpetrators impugned our academic reputation.

That’s so funny I’m going to laugh quietly to myself behind my classics textbook.

Then I’m going to law school.

Micah is a junior in Arts & Sciences.

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