In the most recent issue of The Phoenix, Fred Bush expressed his dislike of the construction on campus. I understand his yearning to have a campus clear of ugly orange fencing, the noise, and the holes in the ground. Yet, I think Fred wants to have his cake and eat it, too.
Fred writes that "Swarthmore's chief attraction is its natural beauty. People come here because it's a pretty place." He related how he arrived at Swarthmore, "walked down Magill walk, sat out on the Adirondack chairs on Parrish Beach, sat in the Amphitheater, smelled the flowers blooming, and fell in love."
"Construction makes the campus ugly,...[it] sucks," Fred says. Consider: what do Magill walk, Adirondack chairs, Parrish Beach, the Amphitheater, and the blooming flowers have in common? None of them are "natural." They are all the product of human effort. At one time, there were construction crews building Magill walk and the Amphitheater. The trees lining the walk did not conveniently grow along the sides of Magill walk, and those people at Scott Arboretum put much effort into their flower gardens. The beauty Fred speaks of would not exist without human action.
All of the above, like Trotter, will at one time or another need renovation. Should we complain that values not only need be created, but also sustained? By the nature of reality, we cannot have the results of human effort without the process. We cannot expect to live by exerting effort once, and survive on inertia. As Ayn Rand wrote, life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. I more than agree with Joe Tucker, that the process of construction is beautiful. I love watching it-because it represents the humans, by their nature, must live: by changing their environment to suit their needs and desires.
If it is repulsive that work must be put into Trotter to use it, then what of the notion that work must be put one's own life in order to live? Gosh, what a horrid concept -- that we are responsible for our own lives! People who reject this fact believe that we have rights to the product of other people's efforts: that "society" owes us what we need to live, that we are our brother's keeper.