As hot as the culture war can burn, things rarely threaten to get physical. But this past Saturday, South Carolina experienced a brief but violent tremor along a national fault-line when cadets at the Citadel (a military academy in South Carolina) attacked the Princeton University Band before a football game .
Fanatics in each camp of the culture war are likely to interpret these events according to their preconceptions about the other side.
Some will look at the Citadel and see only an institution founded to quell slave revolts and that proudly flies the Confederate flag. On Saturday, this pack of humorless, violent bigots, all hopped-up on homophobia , territorialism, and envy, irrationally attacked innocent entertainers.
Others will look at the PUB and see privileged softies, living in a cocoon of excess and irony, who lack all understanding and respect for the commitments of the Citadel’s honorable cadets. On Saturday, these chronic mockers, who “sashay” and “hump” in public, these radicals and flag-burners , pushed too far and got what they had coming to them. The cadets should be given a medal .
Of course, either judgment would be very unfair. By this I do not at all mean to say that “nobody is guilty” for what happened. As a proud Princeton alumnus I can’t claim total neutrality, but I think most of us will agree that the cadets acted shamefully even by civilian (let alone military) standards; on their end there should only be an apology followed by silence. Furthermore, there is no evidence that PUB intended provocation or disrespect. They simply came to do what they usually do—in fact, they apparently censored their halftime show to suit their conservative audience.
Still, it doesn’t take much imaginative sympathy to see why serious and proud young men might misinterpret the sight of elite jokesters traipsing across virtually sacred ground. Most of the blame probably rests with the Citadel’s administrators. Anyone remotely familiar with PUB’s rollicking, irreverent style should have recognized that the interaction was unlikely to be pleasant.
Oh, and the Princeton Tigers lost, 37-24.
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