Save Water: Shower Together - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Save Water: Shower Together

Of all the dogmas preached in the modern world, the dogma of efficiency is, perhaps, the most absurd.

I read about a competition where students proposed different programs to “reduce their university’s … energy.” The winner suggested that college students urinate in the shower to save water. Far from being a bold idea, as the student visionary thought, this idea is remarkably timid and even tame. No doubt water would be saved if each student went about wetting themselves in between washing and rinsing—but the truly efficient visionary would not stop there.

If college students can save water individually, why not see if they can save water as a group? Axe Bodywash, in a campaign to permanently break the ties between cleanliness and godliness, once suggested that water would be saved if men and women would shower together. If his criterion is efficiency, then surely our visionary must take up this suggestion with glee. Perhaps, even, the students can shower in large groups; saving even more water! But what is next? Perhaps he ought to turn his eyes to the thirsty cauldrons in the laundry room, gulping away water by the tens of gallons. Surely there would no longer be a need for separate loads if everyone wore the same color. While he’s at it, why not make everyone where the same clothes? They can, like the students who wear them, all be washed at once!

The eyes of our efficient visionary must then fall on the kitchens. Too many pots from too many dishes would be cast away by uniform meals for all. Too much water used on too many plates would end with the introduction of metal trays. Our visionary would carry on in such a manner until the fateful day he stopped to survey where his love of efficiency had brought him. To what conclusion did his innocent premise lead?

As he surveys the students showering together, eating together; garbed in identical clothing and fed with identical food, he will notice what is the unavoidable conclusion of efficiency for its own sake. The most efficient of all the public institutions is a prison.

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