To Friends up in Chicago

Background

Illinois is a fun state to be in — that is, if your definition of the state is limited to Chicago. That was certainly mine. It wasn’t until I had already survived half of freshman year at UIUC that I realized Illinois is, in fact, a place with corners and plains and towns that exist outside the Chicago city limits. That realization brought with it a handful of unexpected revelations.

The Champaign-Urbana settlement, sometimes affectionately abbreviated as “Chambana,” is a small collegetown in central Illinois. It takes up maybe 14% of the area and holds about 2.3% of the population of Chicago. But proportions aside, this is where I landed for college, and it really is its own world, a world has a way of exposing people’s conflicted struggles for both security and value.

We often host talks that emphasize our bond with our sister school UI Chicago (UIC), presentations about how you can intern in Chicago while taking classes in UIC, library brochures that teach you how to request a book to be checked out of a library in Chicago and placed into your hands, and so on. This kind of makes up for the “boring” rural life that a campus in the middle of nowhere offers these students, and creates an illusion that we are one with the bustling city up north. I like this feeling. It makes me feel as if I’m still in Chicago, and that the warmth of the city I know and love is extending from the Loop all the way down I-57 to Urbana.

The UIC Law School, located on Jackson Blvd, inside The Chicago Loop

Even describing the location of our school needs to borrow Chicago as a waypoint, as the common way of answering the question “where is UIUC” is “two and a half hours south of Chicago.” It’s not only that we need this way of phrasing to emphasize that we are somewhat close to excitement and prosperity, but also it’s objectively the only way to have other people understand where I go to school.

Well, its nice that we are cuddling up to big cities, but where’s the catch?

The interestingly paradoxical part is, UI Chicago is somehow also a school to be looked down upon in my university. People say that they lag behind in USNews rankings, offer less courses, and don’t teach as good. Some even say “Thank God I came here instead of UIC.” It seems that we both rely on Chicago for identity and repel it for prestige. This seeming contradiction is the manifestation of the conflict I want to discuss.

Phycological Side

The sense of security, widely regarded as one of the supporting pillars of mental vitality, relies on community and belonging. The confidence to say “we are indestructible” often springs from a broadened definition of “we.” This requires the person to extend the boundaries of oneself or the group of “innies” (people they regard as one of their own). People often feel vulnerable when they are feeling lonely, as they have excluded those around them from their definition of self, and hence feel swayed around in the midst of a sea of “not self”. On the other hand, people who bond closely with their community are less susceptible to these negative emotions, as they see the entire group as one family, who could potentially face future challenges together. The bigger the family, the greater the sense of security feels. If I see the entire Illinois system as one family (UIUC, UI Chicago, and UI Springfield), of course I would feel secure because this trinity encompasses the meticulous research of a rural lab, the economic prosperity of a thriving metropolis, and the political influence of the state capital.

Another as important pillar happens to be the sense of value, which is related to pride, in other words, whether the person can in truth say “I’m glad I’m not you.” Ironically, this relies on constricting the boundaries of oneself and finding a point of reference to beat. This is in somewhat of a “mutually exclusive” relationship with the sense of security, and enhancing one by altering your sense of boundary can sometimes silently undermine the other. For example, asserting uniqueness and prominence of UIUC would require me to temporally “withdraw” from the Illinois family and stand rival against the bothers and sisters in Chicago and Springfield. We say things like “Chicago students can’t learn a thing between the bad professors and gunshots outside” and “Springfield is a scam just like DC.” By distancing ourselves from these sister schools we assert how we are special, but we are also ditching the coherence of the family. Realizing value by asserting uniqueness by necessity highlights differences, weakening the in state bonding and the sense of security it brings us.

Implications/Remedy

To say that he pillars of life are sometimes in conflict with one another might be a bit pessimistic, another way of observing this phenomenon is that they exert checks and balances on each other.