Authentic Orange

Drew Bankston

Stephanie Jenkins, T/R

6/12/2015

Being Orange or Being Yourself?

Founded in 1868, Oregon State University has a motto that is to inspire and encourage students, “Be Beaver Bold”. With the alliteration of the “B” and the positive connotation coming from the diction, “Bold”, a daring tone is created. By doing so Oregon State University is challenging students to do their best in their studies. However, they also have another motto, “Be Orange”. What does it mean to, “Be Orange”? Does it mean to wear the color orange, to physically represent the school, or to uphold its values; as the school colors are orange and black? Naturally the first two are encouraged but the most common interpretation is the latter, leading to the question, how do I do that? With over 30,000 students attending Oregon State, there is a diverse and unique community that everyone will find their place in. In order to discover how one can find their place, they must live in an authentic fashion, as well as discover that one cannot just “Be Orange” by attending Oregon State.

First one must define what it means to be authentic. Discussed by many philosophers, authenticity is the act of being oneself and nothing other than oneself. Because we often try to be things that we are not, we are acting in bad faith (Satire, 5/26). For example, a waiter who tries to be the best waiter and only the best waiter is living in bad faith. He is trying to do his job well but is forcing his other aspects of life out. In doing so he is denying his transcendence as a human being and because of this, is living in bad faith. People are more than just one thing, we have both transcendence and facticity referring back to Ortega and the ontological centaur (Man has no Nature, 155). An example of denying facticity is a woman not knowing what she thinks of a man who is flirting with her. She neither addresses nor stops his advances due to her indecisiveness of her feelings. One can deny many of their feelings and can even convince themselves that they are doing the right thing in questionable situations; all of these situations mean that they are living in bad faith. In order to be authentic one must fully embrace one’s own life and ideals, only then will they be truly happy because they are living in and of themselves, free of many of the societal and other pressured constraints that lead to bad faith.

At Oregon State University, one must find their own place, because if they don’t, they can live in bad faith. Some join groups that are too consuming, like Greek life, which can lead to them being unhappy with the denial of transcendence. This is because they are putting almost all of their time into something that they are not fully committed to, rejecting the other aspects of their life, much like the waiter. In doing so, their project of existence (Satire, 4/9) is altered with bad faith, however, one cannot say that they are being molded into something negative because we are Causa Sui to the second power, we make decisions that will change us. But, is this done with the mindset of “presence-at-hand” (Heidegger, 4/16) meaning that they are actively observing the task of our life, or is this done with “readiness-at-hand”, are they just walking through the tasks of becoming a member in their organization, a part of the they, or the herd.

Many things must be observed before one can “Be Orange” and even once they have demonstrated the qualities of that, must constantly make decisions that are consistent with their own ideals and values in order to be happy. In order to “Be Orange”, one must find their own place in the unique community at Oregon State, and, in doing so, represent Oregon State as a whole by adhering to the qualities that are unique to one’s own true self.