Is it necessary, moreover is it just, to dictate to the students of BYU such minor details to their lives such as where to go to the bathroom, or what time to go to bed?
Apparently so, according to my fellow journalist Jeremy Bennett. 'There are a lot of students here on the campus that need the rules to be specific and super structured.'
I disagree.
I will be labeled a heretic, I'm sure. I can hear those that would scorn me now with a mindless 'you signed it' with regard to the Honor Code, ready to dispense their storage of indoctrination and circular arguments. But before you jump on the bandwagon to chasten me, hear me out.
I'm frustrated. I feel a certain '1984' big brotheresque mindset building here. Are we seriously in need of someone to dictate to us, on such a specific level, how to conduct ourselves in our private lives? 'If you don't like it then go somewhere else!' Oooh there we go, try another. I had more freedom to cultivate my own values living as a child under my parents' roof than now as an adult attending a university.
I don't aim my attacks at the Honor Code office, though it was my original intent. They are doing the best they know how and with good intentions. Their hearts are good. But I do feel some revision is in order once the student population can handle it.
Currently the Honor Code acts as a blanket cover-all clause so that if anyone finds fault in your actions they eventually can link it somehow to a violation of the Code. This is a safety net for the administration in case of legal retaliation due to the expulsion of those who would abuse the system.
To quote from the Honor Code Web site, ''He who must be commanded in all things,' the Lord said, 'is a slothful and not a wise servant,' (D&C 58:26).'
I feel the blame should be put back on those who are shrugging responsibility. Those students who look for the loopholes in the system so as to ease their repentance, which in fact I feel, is not true repentance to begin with.
I feel that with every specification amended to the Honor Code it only opens the door exponentially to more loopholes. 'Oh, well it says that we couldn't go into each other's bedrooms, so we went into the bathroom to make-out instead, and that's how we got into trouble...' It is manipulative situations like these that force the Honor Code officers to feel the need to be more specific in their guidelines. Are we really back to Clinton's what the meaning of 'is' is?
What is so difficult about living a clean and virtuous life? Need more help? It's plainly written in the Ten Commandments and in the 'For the Strength of Youth' pamphlet.
If you can't decipher what that means then YOU are the one who should not be here at this university. Moreover if you can't make heads or tails of 'plain and simple truths,' maybe you shouldn't go to any university period, since higher thought dosen't seem to be your bag.
It is true that there is an element of subjectivity to the standards of the church i.e. to drink or not to drink Coke, swim or no swim on Sunday, etc. But isn't in this subjectivity where we learn 'line upon line, and precept upon precept?'
If someone is not in accord with how they are living, then we as a university should have the faith that they will receive the promptings to change their ways and remedy their faults.
If they do not, they will most likely move on to places where there is no spirit to offend. Either way, he who changes his ways due to a spiritual awakening will retain that much longer than he who is just fulfilling a contract.
I only offer that students wanting to attend this university live righteously, living the true spirit of the law. If you mess up, fine, do what you need to, without hiding under weak excuses.
Then maybe next time I have to use the restroom at a female friend's house I won't have to go outside.