Fish Out of Water
by Abby Nye
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Book Summary Information
Author: Abby NyeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-06-10
ISBN: 0892216212
Number of pages: 229
Publisher: New Leaf Press
Book Reviews of Fish Out of Water
Book Review: 2.5 stars
Summary: 2 Stars
To start, I want to vigorously applaud Abby Nye for the hard work and dedication a project such as writing "Fish out of Water" demanded. I am most impressed with her tenacity and with her passion regarding the subject at hand. If I did not respect the book, I would not bother to write an in-depth review. Very impressive!
That being said, I must agree with a previous reviewer, who stated: "As a graduate of Butler University myself, I can't help but feel deeply unsettled by many of the claims made by Nye in regards to her education experiences. Perhaps she was well-intentioned, but many of the incidents she recounts strike me as misrepresentations at best, gross exaggerations at worst." I, too, am a Butler student (I, however, am a current student and not a graduate of Butler like the quoted reviewer) and though Nye and I never met, we shared two years on campus together.
While reading, I often found myself wondering about Nye's claim that Butler is a secular campus. In a sense it is: there is no one "official" religion of the campus. Rather, what I question is her use of the term "secular." It seems that Nye's definition of the term would be more like "anti-Christian" than "lack of an official campus religion." Perhaps when Nye realized that Butler is not a solely Christian university, when she realized Butler _is_ accepting of many, many religions other than her own, she concluded it was a secular university. That doesn't quite add up logically, but I can see how one could draw such a faulty inference if they had been raised in a good Christian household by good Christian parents and educated by a good Christian school. In reality, Butler is home to many different religious factions - Christianity and atheism included.
I guarantee many of the stories she recalls did not happen as she rather convincingly portrays. I am sure she thinks she accurately described the situations, but I cannot believe many of her claims. I find it much more likely that Nye, being a naïve freshman like we all once were, perceived these events differently from how they really happened. To quote that previous reviewer again: "Perhaps Nye took Christ's Sermon on the Mount a little too much to heart, and in her desire to feel hers was the Kingdom of Heaven, needed first to believe herself persecuted for righteousness' sake." This sounds very accurate. Like so many other authors, Christian and non-theist alike, Nye has an unfortunate propensity to tell only her side of the story. This is probably not conscious, again due to her naiveté as a freshman. Furthermore, she wrote the book her junior year, two years after many of the horror stories she tells from her freshman year. I would not be surprised at all to find out that the two years gap served to exaggerate the injustices. Once again, I doubt this is conscious. Nye writes very passionately and I do not believe she could have consciously told her tale insincerely.
I found myself having the same problems with "Fish out of Water" as I did with other supposed Christian classics: if the world really was the way Nye (or other Christian authors) perceived it, then they would have fantastic points and their books would be revolutionary. Unfortunately, the world is not as simple and straightforward as the authors make it out to be, and thus the holes in their arguments become quite apparent. Ironically, I have the same problem with many atheist authors: they set up a version of reality that isn't accurate and then conclude their views based on that false reality. It drives me nuts on both sides of the argument.
Having gone through very similar experiences on the same campus, I can definitely understand where she is coming from, but I cannot agree with her conclusions at all. In fact, I think someone could write a very similar book based off of very similar experiences, keeping the same title, but changing the subtitle to "Surviving and thriving as a non-theist on a religious campus."
My first and probably biggest problem with "Fish out of Water" came in the first chapter, where Nye discusses how Welcome Week should really be called Indoctrination Week. In her own words, this is how she perceived her first days on campus: "The message of Welcome Week was unmistakably simple and straightforward: You will be part of the group. You will think like the group, act like the group, approve of the group, and agree with the group. No discussion. No disagreement." Having endured Butler's Welcome Week festivities, I cannot fathom how she perceived such a meaning from the activities. Personally, I found them boring and a waste of my time, but I never felt insulted or threatened by any of it. Moreover, if such a message truly was "unmistakable," then how come not everybody perceived the activities in the same manner?
Nye continues: "Under the mask of fun and games, it is really indoctrination to tolerance and diversity. The message to students is to appreciate all people, but it doesn't take long to see that there is an important clause attached to that phrase: appreciate all people as long as they agree with us. Dissenters will not be tolerated." Again, my personal experiences at the same campus and from the same activities have led me to the exact opposite conclusion. I have never experienced or witnessed any religious discrimination. I would not doubt that it's out there, but it certainly does not dominate the campus like Nye implies. Once again, I believe Nye genuinely _thinks_ she is right. Unfortunately for her, that's just simply not the case: Butler is not as anti-Christian and suppressive as she wants it to be.
One thing I really did like about Nye's book was how she very maturely handled situations in which her beliefs were under attack, and further how she encouraged others who found themselves in similar situations to deal with the problems responsibly. If all religious debate followed her suggestions, there would be much less hostility on both sides. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with her religious sentiments, her concluding thoughts on each chapter frequently are very helpful and would only help if implemented in our own daily lives.
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