Читать книгу The Nature of College - James J. Farrell - Страница 22

At some point in the day, most college students take part in a purification ritual called a shower. They walk down the hall to the bathroom carrying a plastic caddy holding soap, shampoo, conditioner, and other lotions and potions. Towel on shoulder, washcloth or loofah in hand, students look for an open shower, set their supplies on a bench, draw a plastic curtain, undress, hang up their clothes, step under the showerhead, and then open the valve to a torrent of cultural assumptions and expectations. Though turning the tap seems mechanical, it’s also organic and very complex. In Northfield, Minnesota, for example, the water flowing in the shower is drawn from the Jordan Aquifer. It’s pumped through a purification plant for chlorination and fluoridation, and then to water towers that provide the pressure for the whole municipal system. In a hydraulic civilization, water goes not just where it falls or flows, but where we want it.¹⁵

The shower gets us clean, but it also performs cultural work. Dirt is evil in our culture, and so we ritually cleanse ourselves in a sort of daily baptism, initiating us into a sect of sanitation. Early in the morning, as we’re trying to wake up, a shower is cleansing and stimulating. Later in the day, after a run or a game of basketball, it’s cleansing but also relaxing. In either case, a shower is a way of washing the body, but it’s often also a luxury, too. The water streaming over the skin, massaging the muscles, is a sheer delight. The sound of constant flow is soothing, like a cascading creek. And the steamy heat penetrates our pores, comforting us with wondrous warmth. We bathe not just physically, but also psychologically. When we’re dirty, we tell ourselves we need a shower. When we’re tired or stressed, we tell ourselves we deserve a shower. A long shower, too, is a counterpoint to the culture of speed and efficiency so recently reinforced by our alarm clock. In a small way, a slow shower is a protest movement against a world of enforced time poverty: As we linger in the liquid tranquilizer, we’re not quick and we’re not efficient. This ultimately is a problem. Resisting the time pressures of our society might be a good instinct, but using fifty gallons of fresh water in the process is not so good.¹⁶