I’ve been thinking about the supposed ‘tradition’ of ‘trashing’ finalists at Oxford, and i’ve come to the conclusion that it really is a thoroughly obnoxious and unpleasant practice.
For those not contained within the bizarre bubble that is Oxford University, ‘trashing’ is the practice of meeting people after their last exam and covering them with unpleasant things, usually food and drink, but in more extreme cases things like dead fish, vomit and human excrement.
Usually ‘trashing’ is presented as a harmless ‘tradition’, and just a bit of post-finals fun. On reflection I think that both claims need to be challenged and can be found wanting.
Firstly ‘trashing’ is not a tradition. People did not trash each other 15 years ago; it is an extremely recent phenomenon, and any status as a ‘tradition’ is purely invented. Furthermore, I see no worthwhile appeal in the claim that it is a tradition – which it is not – anyway: lots of things are traditional, like paying women less than men for work of equal skill and intensity (here we have an illicitly institutionalised tradition, at least in my opinion), but few people would be game to defend that on the grounds that it is ‘traditional’. For a less controversial example, Morris Dancing is traditional, but nothing follows – if you Morris Dance outside my window at 5am and wake me up, your appeal that it is ‘tradition’ won’t cut any mustard, nor would you expect it to.
Secondly, i don’t think that ‘trashing’ is harmless fun, on many counts.
To begin with, it is insulting. Why? Because Oxford has a disproportionately high number of homeless people, and there is something particularly repugnant about privileged Oxford undergraduates, all of whom are bankrolled either by parents, the state or the University, buying food and drink simply to waste it, leaving most of it to spoil on the floor after the ‘trashing’ is over. When you recall that there are people in this city who struggle to eat on a daily basis, you realise that trashing is perhaps not so harmless at all.
As a connected point, there is something thoroughly obnoxious about trashing insofar as no trashers ever clean up after themselves. Instead food, drink and vomit etc are left all over the floor of a public street. Other people are expected simply to endure this, while still others are expected to come along and clean it all up – those others being some of the poorest people in society, namely those who work as street cleaners, an already difficult and let’s be honest less-than-pleasant job, done for extremely poor pay.
So trashing insults more people than just the homeless – further it is positively dangerous: two people last year suffered broken limbs after slipping on mess left by trashers. That’s simply not fair, and it shouldn’t happen when it can so easily be avoided.
Finally, i object to trashing strongly on the grounds that it reinforces the message that Oxford undergraduates are both the beneficiaries and the manifestations of extreme privilege, who hold a contemptuous disregard for others. Partly this is for reasons already noted: wasting food in front of the homeless, expecting others to clean up for you, etc. But trashing generally express an attitude of privilege: that Oxford undergraduates are so wealthy that they can afford to have their suits trashed (all students do exams in suits – ’sub-fusc’ – for those note familiar with the system) - after all they can just buy new ones, can’t they? (Those students who are in fact not so financially privileged may themselves hold some prudential objections to trashing).
Oxford students can afford to waste food, and expect others to clean up after them. The message is clear: we are the privileged elite, we can do whatever we want, and you must not only live with it, you must pay for it too. In other words, trashing is an expression of superior class status.
Personally that is not the message I want to send to residents of Oxford, to wider society as a whole, or to prospective students already wary of Oxford’s reputation as a bastion of privilege and elitism cut-off from the modern world.
So in summary, don’t trash me, and don’t expect me to trash you.
