Should every awkward statement made by professors be posted on the Internet? Is everything that’s said out loud around campus fair game to be quoted and posted online? The Facebook group “Overheard at Hillsdale College” might make one think so. There are a number of hazards with the group, but if students are good stewards of it, it can be a positive and fun contribution to our culture.
Overheard at Hillsdale College, for those of you who are not one of it’s 980 members, is a Facebook group where members can post quirky, funny, or awkward statements they’ve heard around campus and in classrooms. It’s impossible not to share a professor’s description of Britain as “the ugly girl Thomas Jefferson could never have seen himself with” or an explanation for their lateness by telling their students they’d “give them an A if they can find two clocks that tell the same time on campus.”
Although this is a great idea in theory — because what’s better than publicizing someone’s candid reaction to reading William Byrd’s “Secret Diary?” There is absolutely no moderation or limitation on what someone can post.
Newspaper reporters are required to ask you if it’s all right to “quote you on that,” but on Overheard, the expectation is that everyone can quote everything all the time. Obviously, a Facebook group isn’t as official as a newspaper, but people’s opinions are still being made available to the public, sometimes without the person’s knowledge. A private conversation that a stranger “overhears” can be instantly broadcast to two-thirds of the student body, as one freshman discovered when their disparaging remarks about Adam Smith showed up online after they being expressed aloud in the library.
Usually people will quote particularly damaging or embarrassing tidbits anonymously, but there is no guarantee that this will always be the case.
Additionally, as with any mass media platform that is unregulated, there is a certain amount of “spam” that manages to get itself posted. These include inane comments and obscene or vulgar remarks only restricted by the whim of the poster.
Despite these concerns, however, I think the benefits of Overheard far outweigh the drawbacks. For one, it does allow students to capture those truly Hillsdalian moments: sublime discussion of the good, true, and beautiful, or complaints about the problems inherent in the existence of Hillsdating and mega churches. There is a certain philosophical quirkiness to Hillsdale College that these conversational snapshots promote and the use of Overheard to share them can contribute to the growth and spread of that culture.
When posting on Overheard at Hillsdale College, try to contribute with a sense of common decency and an eye to making it entertaining and good fun. Good, true, and beautiful may be too much to ask for, but at least keep it decent, vaguely true, and attractive.
With my hands getting tired from typing, I will conclude. I suppose it’s time to pray that the hand cramp goes away. As a matter of fact, the other day I overheard that “If there’s a patron saint of writer’s cramp, it has to be Thomas Aquinas.” So maybe he can help.
