A bonfire meditation

Rose’s Homecoming bonfire is definitely a very special thing. Not only has it been a time-honored tradition for over 80 years that brings students and alumni together to reminisce about old times and think about the future, but it is a symbol for the social responsibility each and every one of us has agreed to take on as future engineers and citizens.

When we light the bonfire each year, we all know that it is a large wooden structure that is on fire, which, by definition, is inherently dangerous. We know that people have been seriously injured in similar bonfires at other universities, and that, under the same conditions, it could happen here.

However, we are not verbally warned about the dangers of the bonfire, nor are there waivers to sign or legal statements made. All of us are intelligent enough to know the dangers of what we are about to witness and accept the risk of what we are participating in.

This is important in an age when frivolous lawsuits run rampant through our court systems like a herd of bison stampeding off a cliff, each one blindly following the apparent success of the one in front of it. We are all familiar with the most famous cases: the woman who got burnt by a cup of coffee because she didn’t know it was hot, the man who didn’t know eating fast food multiple times a week would make him obese, and the man who got hit by lightning in a parking lot when the amusement park the lot belonged to “could have told people not to go to their cars.”

We can easily laugh at the ridiculous nature of these cases, but they are a serious indicator of a serious social ill growing in America: the loss of responsibility for one’s own actions. How terrible is it that at age 20, I’ve signed more waivers than personal checks? I have signed them for activities as dangerous as skydiving and white water rafting to ones as inane as Frisbee golf and mud volleyball.

I don’t blame the businesses and organizations that required me to sign these documents: they are merely doing what is necessary to continue existing in a society that believes that personal responsibility can be legislated. I don’t need a signed piece of paper to tell me that jumping out of an airplane is a health hazard; I am intelligent and responsible enough to know the dangers and accept the risks involved.

That’s why the Homecoming bonfire is such a beautiful thing. During construction, it teaches the freshmen about how an engineer’s number one concern when designing is safety, because when engineers screw up, people get hurt. We set up precautions like setting up a safety perimeter and keeping firemen on hand to make sure everyone has the best chance of staying safe.

Even so, after it is lit, we each assume the unspoken risk of viewing such a massive pyre because from youngest freshman to most elderly alumni, we are all mature enough to know that whatever happens, we chose to be there and that choice was ours and ours alone.

Traditions are perpetuated because they are easy to keep and provide a level of comfort to those that celebrate them. In the bonfire’s case, it has also allowed us to resist society’s move toward goverment removal of personal responsibility. This Homecoming, I encourage you to not only enjoy the light, sound, and camaraderie the bonfire brings, but to meditate on the significance of its continued existence.