Allow me this column. It’s stereotypical upperclassmen bemoaning changes he’s uncomfortable with. It’s about Duke basketball, although I really don’t talk about basketball as anything but a symptom. I know these complaints may not seem fresh at first, but read on. I hope I have a point.

25.... The number that is turning over in my head again and again. As of my writing of this column, it indicates the number of tents registered by line monitors in K-ville. The departure of residents from this Village of Krzyzewski is not something that should be viewed favorably. Although the flu crew may be happy about the news, this is (or at least represents something that is) materially harmful to our University. Actually.

And let me also stress that, if Duke were losing attendance at basketball games because people were either sitting in common rooms discussing literature or just becoming more politically active in an election year, this would not be the issue that I believe it is. However, my intuition is that this is not the case.

For the first time in my life, Cameron feels empty. Not just in its seating arrangements, but in my head. The word has lost its power. I understand that sacrificing over 40 days for a basketball game may seem absurd, but surely it is no harder to do it this year than it was two years ago.

And let me just now get to my reasoning as to why I think this is happening, and what it is symptomatic of. The University is, largely, fracturing itself and its identity in order to solve the issues of “campus culture,” perceived and actual. I think this is a problem: Instead of truly confronting our own unique identity in the world of colleges, we’ve resorted to platitudes about Duke being special in ways in which it simply isn’t.

Campus unity is what, to me truly setS Duke apart. It was a unity that many disliked: Some called the “work hard, play hard” attitude destructive. What most people arguing about this missed was that in that attitude there was unity. Yes, Tailgate was trivial in the grand scheme of things, absolutely. But it was an event that brought people together, that was fundamentally “Duke” in character. I know there is an audible groan somewhere for another article defending Tailgate, but it got people motivated to do one thing people at prestigious universities are especially bad at: forget about their future for just a moment and come together in pursuit of nothing else but a good time.

The more important word usage there is “together,” not “good time.” As I previously said, if Duke wished to reshape its community, I wouldn’t be writing. But it seems to me that we replaced the party atmosphere our school once had with no atmosphere at all. O-Week parties were, by and by, not allowed. Yes, in an ideal world people would be spending their time here making the deepest connections possible. Yet instead what the cancellation of these opening year parties has meant is simply poorer community.

We are, as a collective, making the easier choice. We forfeited social experiences because the easiest opportunities were taken away from us, and nothing was put in its place. We took away the ridiculous, foolish open parties that defined our opening semester here, and as a result we are more ... well, boring.

I’m not delusional: We all still have friends here. There is a community. But the essentially Duke community, the one that would curse the administration for strangling Tailgate in one breath and then discuss the significance of gender norms on campus in the other, is at the very least receding. The cultivation of sub-communities within a school like Duke is vital. We hated the idea of a monolithic and thereby oppressive “Duke experience” so much that we forgot what we’d lose if we tried to get rid of.

I liked it when Duke was a school with some sense of unified culture. I liked the backlash to that culture as well. I liked its myriad contradictions. I liked it when people got mad, I liked it when people had fun. I liked it when people cared.

What I hoped to say here was that we shouldn’t forget that the impact of our more pragmatic decisions have social impacts that go beyond the obvious. Duke had a thing that was truly rare amongst upper-echelon universities: an athletic team (or indeed, anything) it chose to unite behind.

In Cameron, I found Duke University. In Tailgate, I found Duke University. In the cramped section parties where freshmen travelled like sheep during our first few days at college, I found Duke University. And if we have chosen to downplay these aspects of the school, I only hope that we fully consider the consequences. It’s about having fun, but it’s certainly not about having fun.

Harry Liberman is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Friday.