Authentic Orange

By Andrea Campbell

When asked “what does it mean to be Orange?” someone may respond with the Oregon State fight song or reasons why going to the school make them a fan, but to an existentialist it poses a much more in depth thought. As a senior who has spent many years here it is important to me to fully understand its meaning. Authenticity is defined in class as being true to yourself and not as others would want you to be, Sartre defines it as, “isn’t just being honest to others about your feelings. It is being honest to yourself about your own desires and the reasons behind your actions” (Lecture, 5-26-15). So to be a fan of something and not have anyone’s actions influencing your decision can be more challenging, to be “Orange” you would have to feel it and know it without anyone being able to shake you of it.
It is easy to deceive yourself when surrounded by thousands of people who go for a certain team, or have grown up in a household that has been Beaver fans for their whole life, but because you have grown up around it does not mean you are “it”. Sartre explains “That in certain cases choice is founded upon an error, and in others upon the truth. One can judge a man by saying that he deceives himself (Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism 5/12). This crowd thinking can cause you to be inauthentic and become part of the heard. Leaders of the crowds at OSU want you to be authentically Orange and be a beaver fan and love your new “home”. It is not their fault if you are being untrue to yourself, Kierkegaard puts it simply, “There is therefore no one who has more contempt for what it is to be human being than those who make it their profession to lead the crowd” (Kierkegaard, The Crowd is Untruth). Meaning that they want you to follow, but do not make you, and do not like when there are too many true individuals which might disrupt their leading. People like to be in the in what Nietzsche calls the “herd” (lecture, 5/5). It is easier to follow and can be easier for a time to lie to yourself in order to fit in a crowd or allow someone to lead you. We have be taught that there are leaders and followers thought our lives and have not always studied the importance of the individual. Thus being somewhat conditioned to believe that we fall into one of those categories. Nietzsche states, “he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries’ old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth” (Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense 5/21).
To be “authentically Orange” you must believe and know that you want to be here and that you belong here. You cannot act in bad faith when deciding to go to class, do assignments, or go to events (Lecture, 6/2/15). When deciding to even apply for the school you must want it for your own reasons and not because you were influenced or forced. I feel like I have been authentic in my time here at OSU, I have has many choices and not felt obligated or stressed to follow any certain path other than the one I have chosen. There is something at this school for everyone to be able to express themselves authentically and a lot of opportunities for followers to become leaders and leaders to become teachers.