Wow! What a great writer! someone should definitely give this girl more credit! Her message is so relevant, Hey! Why isn't she in charge?

Our greatest scientific accomplishments is based on the notion that experience (and experiments) is far better than reading books. Indeed, the "facts" aren't always as they seem, and to continually challenge them is part of what makes good theories stick.

Science also tells us that alcohol impairs our judgment and various other faculties. And yet people can't seem to trust science.

Your premise for the story is somewhat inaccurate: "Tiffany" did not necessarily make her own rules - since she was intoxicated for most of the night, her drinking in excess and her subsequent "escape" from the hospital was the "seems like a good idea at the time" of a drunk person.

Five years ago in my hometown, three drunk teens learned their limits by experience. It's a shame they won't live to use their newfound knowledge courtesy of "the best kind of education" - they crashed head-on into another car, sparking a fire. They died on the scene, along with an innocent man who happened to be in the other car. I tend to doubt that education is supposed to kill people, especially when book learning pointing out the danger of alcohol exists.

It's also interesting that you didn't define "morality" and what a "'correct'" decision is. Apparently, based on your writing, it is being able to do stupid and morally questionable things only to the point where gossip won't tarnish you forever. (I'm gleaning that from the lines: "From external pressures like gossip and the honor code to insecurities propagated by the unsure superego, how does the typical Tufts student, or anyone for that matter, make the "correct" decisions? It's tricky trying to calculate this moral tightrope and still live to tell stories of debauchery over weekend brunch.") But I can't tell. If the piece is going to revolve around the idea of "moral correctness," it needs to be defined.

For this piece to be effective, it needs to crystallize what its thesis is (I'm assuming that experience is better than education), and use an example that doesn't encourage known-to-be-harmful acts. Just saying " I'm by no means condoning massive amounts of alcohol consumption" doesn't absolve you, because you're basing your entire argument on her case being somehow desirable. Book learning may not always be the best, but part of the reason we have it is so we learn from previous mistakes, rather than making our own identical mistakes. (This is where the phrase comes from: "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.")

Your title doesn't help the piece, because it's based on the notion that Tiffany shouldn't be viewed poorly in eternity because she made this stupid decision. That I agree with, but that's not what your opinion piece is about.

I would encourage you to try rewriting this piece with a different example. One that comes to mind is the Tufts Mountain Club's annual secret placing of pumpkins atop various buildings on campus. They take substantial risk in surreptitiously placing their pumpkins, scaling buildings before anyone catches them. True experience-based learning is pushing the boundaries to see if things are possible - but not "Yep, my experience confirmed volumes of books and other experiences saying that drinking in excess can kill or injure you. Who knew?"

To Whom it may concern (Michael and other dissenters):

The classic idiom in Michael's comment, "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it," is meant to be used for decisions made on a mass scale. But for personal decisions like whether you can handle another drink, textbooks are insufficient. Michael even acknowledges in his first lines that "facts" are not always as they seem, yet he later contradicts himself to further critique my article.

Another tidbit why books don't work: all people think they're special. How many times have your parents told you not to do something, just for you to think, "Well that can't happen to me. I'm different." Alas, the infallibility complex that is the human condition. Another example is sex ed. The abortion rate is no longer rising, probably due to education of protection methods other than abstinence. My point is that most people won't avoid something just because books say it's bad (and shouldn't!). They need to figure it out by themselves. Those who avoid something because authority figures tell them to (like the other extreme of "do-gooders") develop psychoses later in life. They may also lack autonomy (see my previous article, "Read This and I'll Like You"). When we stigmatize an entire area of recreation it can become a obsession - better to get that out of your system.

The Tiffany example is extreme, and possibly not the best example. But it's funny and entertaining, and will stick in people's heads much better than a pumpkin tradition where hardly any risk is involved. The Mountain Club hardly "scales" the buildings, and who is this team of people trying to catch them? Their shadows? Displaced paranoia? No one would read such a banal article.

I'm not saying the Tiffany debacle confirms "volumes of books." I'm just adding my two cents to what seems to be a relevant issue on campus. I also purposely avoid defining morality, which is merely a social construct. Everyone should have his or her own "morality."

Hopefully people will learn their drinking limits so they don't get TEMSd, or at least have a friend around to help them keep track, but I myself said Tiff was at one end of the danger spectrum - and stressed that it's better to be at this extreme than the "do-gooder" one. That was my thesis and I stuck pretty well to it. Most people will be in-between, but those who shield themselves from any vestige of danger are repressing normal drives that will come back later to haunt them. Why do you think the kids who never drink in high school overdo it/don't know their limits when they get to college? You know what they say, everything in moderation. But like I say, don't take it from "them" until you test it out yourself.

PS This isn't my title. Mine was originally "Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Man." Mindless game-playing is worthless; rules are meant to be questioned and tested. After all, their creators are only human.