Kenneth A. Bruffee’s “binge Drinking as a Substitute for a Community of Learning

Damecka Nash

Professor Johnson

ENGLISH – 1301

25 February 2016

Kenneth A. Bruffee’s “Binge Drinking as a Substitute for a Community of Learning”

On my first day of English – 1301, I received instructions to complete a diagnostic essay on one of the three topics. I elected to express my views about the advancements in technology and its effects on human relationships. The opportunity to expand my view of Bruffee’s, “Binge Drinking as a Substitute for a Community of Learning”, will allow me the chance to address the disengagement present in our world. Both topics directly connect to human interaction and its societal detachment. Social media does little to inspire constructive communication; instead, this 21st century innovation to communicate has reversed our development to do so effectively with purpose amongst each other. Furthermore advancements in technology, such as Facebook and Twitter that outwardly encourage, alienation accompanied with unconstructive over critical opinions towards one another contentiously results in low self-esteem for large communities of adolescents and adults. Studies show alcohol is a common substitute for lack of self-esteem.

Technology has had a beneficial impact on this world, for example, advances in science and medicine. However, it appears that the more proficient and effective our technology becomes the more indifferent we have become inside as individuals. We lack sensibility, empathy for others, sensitivity, and authentic human interaction. These descriptions and phrases are associated with the word numb or numbness.

This is why binge drinking has become a desirable way to socialize on college campuses. Constantly expressing oneself comfortably in conversations of depth can be difficult when basic, genuine, human interaction skills are under developed or absent. Drinking removes inhabitations and allows individuals to speak unfiltered without concern for others feelings or judgments. Communicating in efforts to take interest in, understand and relate to each other has become increasingly difficult. Binge drinking becomes a substitute for a community of learning when trying to interact with each other only to realize we are substandard at doing so. Bruffee reflects on wanting to belong, feeling alone and joining an organization that capitalizes off these vulnerabilities. “They were trying as hard as I was to conceal from everyone, including themselves, that they too, were green, scared, lonely, and small town. I joined a fraternity because I desperately wanted to belong.” “They knew how to marshal and exploit that need because they’d been there themselves not long before. (Bruffee 343).

Bruffee has a sense for a young adults’: inability to have a voice, comfort zone to express opinions, lack or feeling unequipped to bond with others through communication and basic interaction, insecurity, naivety, becoming a follower by default, lack of confidence and decision-making skills at the age of eighteen and on a college campus. This is true for the majority of us at this age, not to exclude myself. It results in befriending people; unbeknownst to him that took pride in taking advantage of his weaknesses for some sort of imitation, I gather. This is prevalent more than ever in today’s society and plays a key factor in binge drinking. He would like to deviate young adults from drinking as a channel toward communicating and socializing to feel comfortable in unfamiliar social situations. He promotes social environments within colleges that encourage self-confidence and obtain reassurance with one’s individuality instead of a bottle of alcohol.

Bruffee is very efficient in accomplishing his point of view. Drinking in excess does not have to be the standard in breaking the ice with strangers that primarily have the same interest and aspiration to obtain a higher education that you do. Drinking to a point of intoxication is not the solution to adapt and feel comfortable when entering into a community of learning. I do agree with his solution that taking a shared learning approach and comparative way to organize comprehensive itineraries structured around the required academic specific to degree program