Another Perspective

I Hate Narcissism

If Cervantes wrote about the Oregon Commentator and the UO campus, it might look something like this.

Don Quixote awoke to the smell of shit on a morning that could not decide whether it was going to be rainy or sunny. Don Quixote awoke and realized that his world would not smell like shit and that he would be happy were it not for all the inanity surrounding him. Don Quixote would don his armor, he would mount his steed, and he would engage a war of ideas upon the land. He would make the countryside free for the peasants to be intelligent and conservative once again.

Don Quixote strode about his peasant village, which was a college campus, and he marveled at its declining spirit. Don Quixote knew that Liberty was the most beautiful of maidens, but that her virtue was incessantly disregarded and besmirched by those who no longer spoke the chivalric language of conservatism. "Dulcinea," he said to Liberty, "I will make this land into a place fit for your name to be spoken, for your virtue to be trumpeted. I will make it known that you are the most fair of all."

"I don't know if anyone will know to whom you're referring, Sir," said Don Quixote's friend Sancho Panza. "People seem to be very aware that Liberty is not really omnipresent. She may hang around with dons, but she's not known to associate with other groups, as she's a lady of high society, cultivated to be gracious and delicate in the presence of gentlemen. People might find you unrealistic if you insist that they praise the beauty of Liberty, whom they've never seen and whom they do not think of as gracious anyway, when they're only trying to make sure people can eat and live and not be menaced by foul beasts."

"So you agree that the foul beasts are menacing the countryside and that this is a problem? And you agree that Liberty is the fairest of the maidens?" Don Quixote asked enthusiastically. "I suppose so, sir," Sancho Panza replied. "Excellent, my friend," Don Quixote concluded. "I will be a knight and I will make you my squire, and together we will drive the foul beasts from the countryside so that the people may attest to the graciousness of Liberty, my fair lady Dulcinea, and you Sancho Panza, a mere peasant, will gain importance."

And so Don Quixote mounted his Macintosh G4, which he called Rocinante, and he dressed himself in a suit of magazine book stock, and he set out to right all wrongs for the name of his fair Liberty, as Sancho Panza rode (wrote) beside him.

Don Quixote came upon a building of fabulous contrivance. It was asymmetrical and unlike anything he had ever seen. "This castle will be a fortress from which I will repel the commies and other such fools," said Don Quixote to Sancho Panza. "Welcome to the Student Union," said the people inside. "These people are obviously enchanted," Don Quixote commented to Sancho Panza. "They do not know that this is a fortress from which to repel commies and other such fools. Since they are enchanted, they are commies and fools, themselves. Nonetheless I will be commissioned here as a knight." Sancho Panza nodded. The innkeeper at the Student Union shared a smile with his daughters and with Sancho Panza as he dubbed Don Quixote a knight in the service of Liberty.

While performing his duties as a knight Don Quixote happened upon a peasant, who was a college student, being flogged by an angry farmer, who was a course instructor. These blows rained down upon the peasant: "The race of which you are a member has committed acts of malice against members of other races, for the entirety of what you call history, which is an invention your race has used as a weapon against the other races. Your race wishes that it were superior to the other races, which, to your race's mind, would justify its villainy, and so it attempts to prove that it is, by acting alternately cruel or paternalistic toward them. This it does at the expense of its own soul." The peasant sobbed and convulsed as Don Quixote prepared to intervene by calling the instructor a racist. "I'm not finished," insisted the instructor. "The nation of which you are a citizen is implicated in the crime of molestation and/or repression of peoples all over the world, not to mention the land it calls home. Where its armies do not conquer for their own selfish gain, its government is complicit in the twisting of all known law to serve the flow of capital toward itself, capital being another invention of the race of which you are a member, another weapon used against others. This weapon it wields at the risk of its own soul."

When the peasant began to bleed Don Quixote declared, "Unhand that innocent, you knave." The peasant looked up at Don Quixote in sheer terror. Don Quixote continued to address the instructor, "You are a commie, and therefore you must swear allegiance to Liberty to save yourself." The indignant instructor replied that Liberty was a fiction and that Don Quixote was a racist. "You are a moron," Don Quixote countered. "And you," concluded the instructor, "are a sexist."

Since the instructor was not a knight, Don Quixote instructed Sancho Panza to unleash justice upon her, as the peasant fled the scene. "I don't know that I have the wherewithal to intrude here, Sir," Sancho Panza protested. "Nonsense, my servant," coaxed Don Quixote. "You have been enchanted by the spell which covers these lands. Think of the graciousness of Liberty, our lady Dulcinea, then think of how mercilessly this foul beast molested the poor youth, who may never be the same. To become important, you must get this commie to confess the fairness of Liberty. I will see you back at the castle."

"Liberty really is quite beautiful, you know..." Sancho Panza maneuvered toward the instructor for his first charge. When he next saw Don Quixote back at the Student Union Sancho Panza had many bruises, and Don Quixote had made Sociology his sworn enemy. When Don Quixote next rode (wrote) across the countryside, he encountered some wayfarers. "Halt, my friends, and pledge allegiance to Dulcinea, our lady Liberty, as the fairest maiden in the land."

"How do we know that this Dulcinea is so fair," they inquired, "having never seen her? We love our Mother Earth; she is the lady we pledge allegiance to, and our cause is to expel Ugly Corporations from the countryside, to prevent them from tarnishing her beauty." "You are environmentalist wackos," charged Don Quixote. "You must acknowledge Liberty as the truest of the true in order to save yourselves." But the wayfarers simply laughed at this, and murmured amongst themselves that Don Quixote was insane, and that furthermore he was a corporate tool, and that Liberty was a whore who sullied the pristine name of Mother Earth, and moved to continue on their way, and so a tussle ensued, whereby Don Quixote was thrown from Rocinante and much injured. "Sancho Panza," he laughed as he regained his steed, "these lunatics are also enchanted, so we must mock them. We must ride (write) onward, and make wittier jokes than they can grasp, and lampoon their every cherished value, and proclaim their silly endeavors to be debacles, so that Liberty may be seen as the only virtuous maiden in the land."

"Sir," wondered Sancho Panza, "if our jokes are wittier than they can grasp, and we proclaim their endeavors to be debacles, will we not come to effectively speak a different language than they, and will our remarks not fall on deaf ears? Will not our own endeavors be for naught?"

"I see that you are still enchanted, Sancho Panza, for you see, Liberty has no other name than Dulcinea, and we have seen her glory shine forth in this land as a beacon to all other lands, and she has made this land a great one, but there is now an enchantment placed upon us by an evil entity from without, which wishes to destroy our fair Dulcinea. We must not let this happen. Come, let us make charges against the feeble institutions of this enchantment, which have grown into giant monsters. Let us spotlight their idiosyncrasies, their many failures in logic, in order to steal their flame and to rekindle the light of our lady Liberty." So Don Quixote rode (wrote) forth with many pokes and jabs which were often puns and witticisms, and for as often as his lance was snapped by the giant monster, it was shown to be a political machine; and as the monster's arms arced for another swoop across the horizon he got back upon Rocinante for another run. Thus Don Quixote made the Public Interest Research Group his sworn enemy.

Don Quixote's puns and witticisms did fall on sensitive, but never deaf, ears. "You are obviously ignorant," complained the daughters of the innkeeper of the Student Union, which was Don Quixote's castle. "You are not merely indifferent to our pain, you perpetuate it. You have no idea what it means to belong to a group that has been maligned by your weapon of history."

"My weapon of history?!" Don Quixote scoffed. "It is all our history. I am one of you. Many of my Sancho Panzas are minorities as well, but they recognize the fairness of Liberty, and they choose not to be victims. It is you who are ignorant. I do not believe that your petty interests may further Liberty, but may only discourage her." So Don Quixote traded barbs with the many student unions within the one Student Union, and he deemed and re-deemed them all debacles, and he made them his sworn enemy.

Don Quixote rode (wrote) forth across the land and in his travels re-encountered the peasant he had saved from the onslaught of the angry farmer. "Now, my good peasant," Don Quixote proposed, "is the time to thank your fair lady Liberty for saving you from that nasty farmer." "Please!" shrieked the peasant. "Do me the kindness of never doing me another service. Do you think I was not subjected to more horrific blows of history from that instructor after your untimely rescue? She now thinks that I am one of you! I cannot bear another headache." "The rube!" exclaimed Don Quixote askance to Sancho Panza. "Did you ever see such ingratitude? Surely the enchantment has fallen upon him and he has become a foul beast, a commie, a fool."

"Don Quixote, my friend," said Sancho Panza, no longer employing the formality of Sir, "I believe you may have yourself become enchanted. It may be that you have refused to pledge allegiance to Liberty, to whom our sworn enemies are unquestionably devoted, but who express this love in a different language."

"If that is so, my dear friend Sancho Panza, then the time for love has passed," Don Quixote pronounced with resolve. "Come, let us dismount our steeds, let us retreat to the tavern, and let us mock these foul beasts all the more. Let us escape the stench of shit in the aroma of our draughty pints, as we resolve our hatred for these commies and such fools."

So Don Quixote did retreat to the tavern, to the comfortable recesses of his own mind, wherein the chivalric language of conservatism would be confined, wherein he instructed his Sancho Panzas to raise their pints for a toast. "Look at that," he declared as he glimpsed a reflection of his visage in the glass. "Is not Liberty as beautiful as ever?"

Bryan Roberts, a senior majoring in English, is a featured columnist for the Oregon Commentator