| << Front page | Commentary | September 23, 2005 |
Gardner addresses Wal-Mart, other letters
To the Editors:
Kudos to the News and Editorial staff at the Review for their thoughtful, nuanced treatment of the Wal-Mart issue in Oberlin. The story of Wal-Mart’s entry into Oberlin is indeed a complicated one where principles of social justice, realities of local politics and the law have mixed in unusual and often vexing ways.
At the risk of shooting my re-election candidacy in the foot, my sense of duty as president of city council compels me to quarrel a bit with the treatment of past City Councils in last week’s editorial. In Oberlin, it is more like two rather than six degrees that separate us from one another. The implication that previous City Councils were rife with cronyism is not fair to those who served (and continue to serve). Charles Peterson, Eve Sandberg and I did indeed bring a commitment to getting yet more people involved in the hard work of self-governance, and in this I believe we have achieved some success. Whatever success we have achieved, however, is also attributable to the counsel, correction, and consent of fellow city council members Bill Jindra, Ron Rimbert, Sharon Soucy and Everett Tyree.
Lastly, a campaign pledge: If re-elected, I will do everything in my power to ensure that high level executives of Wal-Mart visit their new store on the very day that Obies go shopping for Drag Ball attire!
–Daniel Gardner
OC’ 89
City Council President
To the Editors:
I was disappointed and distressed to encounter a certain poster produced by Student Health Services advertising emergency contraception. The poster bears the tagline in bold, capital letters: “EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION: BECAUSE S#*! HAPPENS.” Below this headline are two photos, each depicting a troubled young woman looking away from the camera, with a man, out-of-focus, in the background. The bottom of the poster explains how to obtain emergency contraception from Student Health.
First, the tagline. Fearing an unwanted pregnancy is not an example of “shit happens.” The use of such a flippant expression in this context is offensive, and it demeans the difficulty of making the decision to terminate a pregnancy, even if that pregnancy is only a few hours old, or is still only a potential pregnancy. Unprotected sex can be the result of making poor choices about the use of contraception, the failure of certain methods of contraception or sexual violence —including date rape. None of these things should be treated so casually. “Emergency Contraception: Because Date Rape Happens,” we could infer.
Secondly, the images. Why are the women depicted alone in the foreground, as if they are solely responsible for dealing with the consequences of unprotected sex? Why are the women depicted alone in the foreground, as if they are solely responsible for dealing with the consequences of unprotected sex? The composition of the photos and the rueful expressions on the women’s faces present them as victims who are being forced to make a decision on their own. These images carelessly encourage harmful stereotypes.
As the poster aptly states, “Emergency contraception is a safe and effective method of preventing unwanted.” This is important information to circulate, however, the catchy phrase and subtly sexist image undermines the poster’s message; it encouraged an irresponsible attitude towards both sex and pregnancy, rather than treating these issues with the seriousness they deserve.
–Liz Johnson
College junior
To the Editors:
Last week in Finney Chapel Frank Rich told us that we are living in a fictionalized version of reality. This Disney-like wonderland, he said, is the creation of the electronic media for the short-term advantages of market shares. Its long-term purpose is to further the economic and political goals of the world-view that guides the nation’s present administration. Although Rich’s analysis was saddening, I must say that to my mind it was also accurate.
Rich bracketed his remarks between the periods just prior to 9/11 and just prior to Hurricane Katrina’s strike on the Gulf Coast. However, what Rich so nicely sketched is by no means a new strategy for the GOP. It was first crafted by the entertainer-cum-politician Ronald Reagan. His fans, if I may use that word to describe political allies, called Reagan “the Great Communicator.” Gore Vidal, on the other hand, spoke for more opponents than himself when he described the Gipper as “that ancient actor whom our masters have hired to impersonate a president.” It’s not for nothing that one of President Reagan’s major financial backers was Walter Annenberg, the media mogul whom President Nixon had appointed ambassador to Great Britain in 1969. Long before Al Gore thought he had invented in the internet, in other words, Republicans had appropriated the Renaissance discovery that the more lifelike an image appears to be, the more effective its ability to deceive.
It’s the business of journalists who write social criticism to keep their cultural stethoscopes fixed to the nation’s heartbeat and to report what they hear. In that sense people like Frank Rich are diagnosticians, not clinicians. They are better at identifying society’s ills than at prescribing treatment for them.
What Rich did not do — and it’s to the credit of Oberlin students that they mentioned this oversight in the question-and-answer period — was to tell his audience how they might change things. I’m certainly no New York Times columnist, but I do have some ideas that may not have occurred to him.
I’d suggest, before anything else, that students follow the example voiced last evening by Professor Sandra Zagarell: become print-junkies. Learn to read! Also, students might:
1. Take humanities courses that challenge them to recognize how easy it is to confuse ideas and opinions. We are all eager to make sure that our rights to our opinions are respected. But isn’t it more important to learn how to persuade others to share your opinion than simply to insist that they allow you to have it?
2. Study the rhetorical rules governing debate. Learn that the word “argument” is not a synonym for “disagreement.” Instead, an argument is the reasoned exposition of a viewpoint derived from considering empirical evidence as dispassionately as possible. Developing an argument takes time, craft and an open mind. By contrast, forming an opinion is instantaneous, relies on gut reaction and entertains no alternatives. Beware of opinions masquerading as arguments. Courses that treat political and economic theory, philosophy or history are some ideal academic environments for acquiring and honing these intellectual skills.
3. Similarly, learn that “criticism” is not a synonym for “destruction.” Rather, criticism is the interpretation of the data produced by analysis. Actually, criticism — even art criticism — need not stress issues of “good” and “bad,” or even of taste or preference. Frank Rich provided an excellent example of social criticism and students can learn to do the same in any social science course.
4. Learn to question authority. That suggestion is not intended to encourage disrespect or to urge confronting anyone who seems to be in a position of power. On the contrary. Questioning authority means requiring that people who speak (“authors”) be responsible for what they say. Where would the natural sciences be without questioning minds who keep pecking away at the assumptions that underpinned the work of previous scientists? Without questioning authority, we wouldn’t have even Newtonian physics, let alone the knowledge that is there for any student at Oberlin who studies in the Science Center.
5. Finally, and most urgently, I would encourage students who want to leave the world a better place than they found it to adopt the moral discipline of questioning their own authority. Assume that everyone has something to teach; assume that people are good-hearted and well-intentioned, especially when their views seem the opposite of yours. Remember that people are not blind just because they don’t see the world through our eyes.
What Frank Rich neglected to say, in other words, is that the best way to change the world is to develop the serious-minded, open-minded, broad-minded and tough-minded intellect that, at its best, Oberlin College offers those who study and teach here.
–William Hood
Mildred C. Jay Professor of Art
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