Oberlin Versus the Townies

I was relieved but also a little disappointed when it turned out I’d be visiting Oberlin College in the Ohio town of the same name two days after the Obama victory. Planning the trip weeks prior, I got a perverse thrill out of the thought of visiting my friend Jack when 99 percent of his campus would be sunk in an abyssal depression and contemplating suicide over the national regression that was months away. But it wasn’t to be. Oberlin is a microcosm (like, super micro—2500 students ensconced in a campus surrounded by suburbs, water towers, and lots of corn) of the emerging super-progressive values of the Millennial generation. Obies are turned in, tweaked on Adderall, and eager to move on from the comfortable but restrictive values of their bougie, Boomer parents (a very common insult—“that’s so bourgeois”).