EDITORIAL
Right-wing cronies
deny ‘S’ word exists
in u bold victory for ignorance, conservative groups
throughout the country have applied enough pressure
to force Health and Human Services Secretary Louis
Sullivan to teinporarily block a survey of teenage sexu
al behavior.
After successfully blocking an adult sex survey for
the past two years. Hep. William Dunnemeycr. R-Calif.,
and other conservative lawmakers, have now turned
their puritanical efforts toward blocking a scientific
survey intended to learn about teenagers.
In a time when the; debate over abortion has again
become an important national question, parties from
ali sides of the political spectrum should be welcoming
any information pertaining to teen sexuality
However, in the true spirit of repression and igno
rance. the members of the righteous right would rather
deny the fact that teenagers have sex. In fact, they
would like to pretend that teenagers know absolutely
nothing about sex until "evil" leftist educators start
telling them about it. or. even worse, ask the teenagers
themselves what they already know about it.
The five-year. S1H million survey, which was
scheduled to be conducted .it the University of North
Carolina, would question about 2-4.00(1 junior and sc
nior high school students on teen sexual practices. The
questions would be asked with full knowledge of all
the participant's parents. The program was initiated to
help the Public Health Service develop programs to
combat teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted dis
eases, among otfier issues.
Critics of the survey say the program is a waste of
government money and that the nature of the questions
would promote an invasion of privacy. Gary L. Hauer,
president of the Family Research Council, a right wing
political lobbying group, told the Washington Post,
" The questions are so explicit that it will be extremely
offensive to the moral values of many young people."
()t course, because a survey like the one Hauer is
Irving to block has never been conducted, no one can
really be sure what the "moral values" of many young
people are More likely, the people w hose moral values
will be offended b\ the survey are sexually repressed
parents of children who probably already know more
about sex than their parents ever will.
The survey would be a good scientific tool in help
ing fight teen pregnancy and S I Ds a problem most
conservatives want fought However, it it means actual
ly looking the problem in the eye to see what they are
up against, lobbyists on the far right would rather bury
their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
Oregon Daily
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19t>7 QlXJli:
1991 Q,U T1A'
COMMENTARY
Language used to justify research
Ry Liam Kellen
Recently a University official philoso
phi/mi (in response lo political protest),
"Only humans use true language " Stale
merits of this Dntnd, miles of them presumably,
lie sedimented in hi ademii stratas of discourse
l inked to such fossil ancestors, the above state
un lit emotes tradition and heritage (lartesianisin,
the gte.it i bail! of being, the institution of reason
with the lug R, all may be traced in an enlight
ened anthropocentrism which claims to honor
language with the m.iviiii " Truly humane
When we learn this message from the fossils,
when we get our minds right, we know that the
true or tit least the higher language is scientizable
logu from the pen of humans True human lan
guage is in turn analytically digestible by humans
in ail its significations
In March our family adopted a i year-old pup
pi which we liegan learning to live with in a
manner very much like communication We are
lui kv enough lo live near Wayne Morse I ’.irk and
e.u h morning puppy and one or more of our fam
ily members walk, to the rant h where from five to
20 other dogs and sapiens i ongregate (>nne in the
large meadow (and out of view of the ( 11\ dog
call her), the dogs tire customarily uni lipped from
their leashes Then they i base each other through
the mud and bark, wag their lads, present sticks
to each other, and show aggressions or submis
sions in the selloutu exchange familiar lo any dog
or human who has lived in the proximity of dogs
without keeping their eyes lightly shut
Mvrdene Anderson, an anthropologist/linguist
at I’urdue University, has completed more than
I t years of fieldw ork among herders and dogs in
Lapland Anderson Inis concluded tfi.it their is no
categorical separation In-tween the language of a
fierd of dogs and the language of the Lapland na
tives In short, the herders' language is full of ex
pressions. whistle ( .ills, that have evolved in the
common work of hording sheep in the company
ot dogs
f rom the other side of the relationship, the
dugs' semiotic patterns (language) have been
( hanged hv the cultural influence of the humans
This is demonstrated by the herders' custom of an
older lead dog being put in charge of teaching the
voting puppies The dog community has learned
to talk to humans, just as the human language lias
picked up the caput ity to lie effective with dogs.
In the fields of Lapland there has been no sepa
rate and spet ml human language but instead
herding has produced a large, expressive Ian
gunge, a language that cuts across the phantom
wall of the Linneun species in a way that can he
seen in anv bugene park to all but the most die
hard t Cartesians
()l course, individual participants in the Lap
land herding don't get the same significance out
of the common signs A y isitur to (China who was
issued token inscribed in (Chinese could exchange
these tokens lor meals two tokens for a large
meal, one lor a small meal, etc It could be argued
that the visitor makes use of the signs hut does
not understand the importance to the (Chinese ol
the writing on the tokens Hut conversely, the
(Chinese don't get the same meaning out ol the id
eogrems as does the hungry visitor
1 suggested at the start that the humanist aporia
ol language (adorned with analytic rigor and ( an
ont/ed in cognitive linguistics, logic al semantic s,
even the journalistic prose, prescriptions), be
sides being meshed with heritage is politic ally
savvy This opportunism goes beyond the inten
lions or conspiracies of a few administrators Rea
soning is probably never practiced from the disin
terested sc holarstnp ol ac adenuc folklore It is no
sec ret that the University conducts experimenta
tion on live mammals other than sapiens.
When Portuguese traders captured black na
tives in the African jungle and forced them at
gunpoint to carry their ivory booty on its journey
to Lurope.it was convenient to view these blacks
as less than human When a researcher elicits a
sc ream from a research animal, it is soothing to
consider that scream as a mec hanical response
rather than a communication in genuine lan
guage
Liam Krllrn is a res/de/if ol i-.'ugene
/' JUST A FIGURE
\ OF SPKttUfePPy''
vr