"So you're a professor! A professor of myths and legends?!" As soon as Tanya Reinhart concluded her presentation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a man started bellowing from the back of the small, crowded lecture hall. The room exploded into condemnations -- aimed mostly at the screaming man -- but it all bounced off the walls, fusing to the moment a sense of universal disarray, frustration, rage.
The feisty professor in charge of the event stood his ground next to the podium, demanding silence. Teeth clenched, but ready to bite, the audience twitched itself into a provisional calm, and the professor made the large screaming man promise to pose his question respectfully.
The room was a packed and somewhat frazzled mix of people -- the majority probably middle-aged, with many senior citizens, and a minority of actual Penn students. But, as the question-and-answer session began, it became clear that the group could be parsed another way -- people who came to hear a like-minded voice, and people who came to check up on the enemy, complete with notes, statistics and pre-arranged counter-arguments. The latter group was rather willing to contort Reinhart's statements into vile, pro-terrorism propaganda. The former group was rather willing to try to huff and puff their counterparts out the door.
The more the professor begged for everyone to be respectful and ask brief questions, the more the audience began vocalizing their reactions with garish sighs and exasperated groans, prefacing their inquiries with full-blown speeches -- or, worse yet, not asking questions at all, but just standing up and ranting on, leaving the rest of the room impatient and flustered.
Except for the students.
The students asked calm questions -- generally, but not always, to the point. They did not make noisy displays of resentment towards anyone's foolishness or lack of manners. The most visibly irritated anyone got was when a middle-aged man rudely interrupted and interrogated a student in mid-question, repeating his interruption over and over, even after it was answered, until the student burst out, "Yes, yes, I've already answered your question! Yes! Yes!" It was a remarkably restrained response to an infantile gesture.
I looked around at these people, all old enough to be our parents and grandparents. They crackled with the static energy of impatience and bitterness. These people -- wielding more knowledge and experience than any of us, yet the least equipped to have a productive discussion.
These faces had endured so much grief, so many setbacks, so few reasons left to keep fighting. No matter who it was in that room, we were all losing our battles. Those of us who are fiercely critical of Israeli policy move one step closer to the edge whenever Sharon endangers the lives of more innocent civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian. Those of us who support the Israeli government move equally close to the brink of madness whenever lunatic murderers blow themselves up, pulling innocent people with them into the grave.
No one is winning. Everyone is losing. And too many people over 40 are worn out, tired of mannerly engagement.
"Will it come to this?" I thought. Is this what age will do to us? How are we to keep fighting for our beliefs if our inevitable failures will beat us down until we are vulgar, arrogant, and virtually deaf?
I can only hope that the other young people in that room will remember those faces of accumulated frustration and somehow skirt the indelible effects of horrific headlines. Perhaps we can find some way to be responsible, informed, and active, but still, if not optimistic, then at least mindful that a sour disposition and a scornful presentation will get you nothing but responsive screaming.
For all of the sad cases in our midst, we were still facing our speaker, who, from behind her podium, deflected ad hominum attack with relaxed ease, and still managed a calming smile here and there. It is possible, it seems, to engage the world without becoming a complete kvetch. And, in that possibility, there seems more than ever room for success.
Dan Fishback is a senior American Identities major from Olney, Md.
