Students can excel without

supporting inequality
In response to Robert Kelso’s letter (“Graduation pledge shows bigotry,” ODE, May 2):
* “Survival of the fittest” does not mean that only the strongest, most ruthless and least caring of others survive. The true Darwinian definition is “species with the most successful reproductive strategies flourish.” Humans, like other primates and most mammals, use complicated methods of nurturing, kinship ties and concern for the well-being of those close to us to achieve success. The “legitimate philosophy” Kelso refers to is nothing more than the modern incarnation of Social Darwinism — a 19th-century ideological distortion of evolution used by the powerful to justify the gross inequality and injustice of the economic system they control.
* Is it “bigotry,” “big brother”-ish, or “prejudicial” to assert that your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins? What’s so terrible about asking students to think about the far-reaching social and environmental consequences of the careers they pursue, to at least look at those companies that swing their fists without regard to the noses they’re hitting and ask, “Do I really want to be a part of that?”
* Nobody forces students to sign.

Jeremy Jacobs

Eugene