One of the first and most vivid pieces of advice we receive on entering college is to keep our head down, avoid eye contact with absolutely anyone, and make ourselves as small and inconspicuous as possible.
it is to contain and minimize the attacks on oneself by pretending as though we’re not there. If this is liberation, a strange form of liberty, does it bring in its wake?
Where does ragging come from and why do we propagate it? After all, what separates a final year student from a first-year student in an environment that is, after all, transient and in perennial flux?
The answer, in part, may be primogeniture. It is transient authority conferred upon those who have reached the hallowed halls of learning before you have.
For the years that this transient primogeniture lasts, the college senior is a spectre even more terrifying that the college dean. The latter is a 9 to 5 presence; the former is all around the clock.
This is not to say that college isn’t wonderful, too, or that deep and lasting friendships haven’t been formed across hierarchies. Not all interaction between college students is cruel.