Well — it looks as though we’re finally getting our comeuppance. The details of Reimagining Cornell, the administration’s new plan for dealing with the budget crisis, are finally coming to light, and they’re not pretty: Promised changes include slashed budgets, smaller departments, fewer instructors and poorer facilities. But while we may pound the ground in fury and tear our clothes in angst, we must remember one thing: such is the price of gambling on an ever-more-profitable future.

Our fair University is not alone, of course, in facing the consequences of the recent financial crisis (and of overweening self-confidence). But for those of us who have grown accustomed to a Cornell whose only logic, like that of a black hole or a computer virus, is to get always bigger, this sure is a shock to the system. It appears, my fellow chagrined, that we’re going to have to get used to a new, Spartan way of life.

Departments will be cut; staff will be laid off; extracurricular programs will suffer: All in all, things will get gloomier. We’ll still attend to essentials, of course, like the remodeling of the Ivy Room (the new wooden tables are a vast improvement over the old wooden benches) or the mass mailing of high-cost, glossy brochures (we don’t want to go out of style), but those superfluous things that add bloat to an academic institution — professors, cross-disciplinary research or working wages for staff — will have to go.

We’re going to need some good, old-fashioned bureaucratic brainstorming for this one; thank God we had the foresight to increase the budget of the Office of the Provost threefold in recent years. Alas, even those poor souls in Day Hall will have to suffer a few cuts. Luckily, their agony will be somewhat alleviated by the ministrations of the newly hired (and not cheap) consulting firm Bain & Co.

What am I driving at, you might ask? Why the sarcasm? I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s a certain justice in all this — the poorly-paid janitor and the innocently martyred Comparative Literature professor have no crimes to confess. It does seem rather fitting, however, that an institution that has subscribed so faithfully to the doctrine of “expansion at all costs” should see its hubris rewarded. (We may have marginally improved our financial aid offerings in recent years, but, overall, we were woefully irresponsible in the allocation of our newfound wealth.) There is no schadenfreude to be had at the current financial misery of the University; nonetheless, we can perhaps glean a certain bittersweet consolation from the fact that, at long last, the cancer of “bigger is better” may be finally removed from the institutional psyche.

It’s a phenomenon that deserves to be felt throughout this suddenly belt-tightening nation of ours. After years of lavish spending (and post-dating the checks for future generations), we’re starting to realize that money and crap — i.e. McMansions, Sharper Image nose-hair trimmers, Sony LCD TVs and cheap gas — are not inexhaustible resources (the promises of Wall Street and slick-haired Prosperity Gospel preachers notwithstanding). There’s nothing particularly new about America’s obsession with expansion, and it’s unlikely that the recent cataclysms will cause us to suddenly recognize the merits of thriftiness and modesty. But, in the interests of optimism and community self-improvement, one can hope.

I call this new era of abstemiousness, whose arrival we all must work to hasten, the Age of the Motion of the Ocean (it’s not the size of the boat … ). Imagine what the future could hold: a few good friends, rather than a motley assemblage of “contacts”; some well-worn and -loved pieces of furniture, instead of the annually renewed Ikea items; a modest, well-run State, in place of a global, war-addicted (and debt-riddled) empire (a somewhat more vain and controversial hope, I know). We could have our very own golden years of contented lack, a respite after a mid-life crisis of over-consumption and materially-compensating paranoia.

And there’s no better place to start than here on the Hill. The job losses, the cut classes, the axed programs — they all deserve our laments and regrets. But if there’s one thing that we should learn from this period of “Reimagining” (which, in a pretty turn of phrase, is merely euphemism for “reducing”), it’s that bigger is not always better, that more is oftentimes less. Our institution could focus for once — gasp! — on knowledge rather than profit margin, on attention to detail rather than concern for growth. If we can take that point to heart — and it won’t be easy — perhaps this calamitous time will, in fine academic fashion, prove educationally valuable.

Don’t hold your breath.

Ted Hamilton, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is one of the Sun’s Arts and Entertainment Editors. He may be reached at thamilton@cornellsun.com. Brain in a Vat appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.