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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 13, 2000)
Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz Editorial Editors: Bret Jacobson, Laura Lucas Newsroom: (541)346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu Thursday April 13,2000 Volume 101, Issue 130 Eiffirald In this golden age of the indi vidual, in which our cultural icons are recognized as often by first name — Madonna, Shaq, Jewel — as by their last, something has swung out of bal ance. Way out of balance. In a so ciety whose citizens increasingly know their “rights,” personal em powerment too often comes at the cost of public decorum and a civi lized, considerate society. Does it really have to be that way? I don’t think so. One needs travel no further than the local movie theater to see what I’m talking about. It’s a miracle at times to actually hear on-screen di alogue —that is, in between conver sational pauses benevolently grant ed by the chatting couple sitting near you. Think twice before asking these always boring, never witty conversationalists to tone it down. One does so at one’s own peril. Sit ting through “The Talented Mr. Rip ley” the other day in Springfield, I felt compelled to ask two teenage girls sitting two rows in front of me to be quiet. “Hey, if you don’t like it, you can always move,” one said. Sure, that’s an option, but some thing in me blanches at the idea of letting the incredibly thought less people whose constant talk ing disrupts moviegoing for seri ous film-watchers set the bar for in-cinema behavior. The low est-common-denominator approach may work for televi sion news and standardized testing, but does it really need to extend to movie theaters as well? Lest you think that was an isolated incident, a few nights later while watching “High Fidelity,” a hilarious romp through the minefield of adult dating and relationships, it happened again. This time, the trouble was from behind: an older couple, in their 50s, chomping away on popcorn housed in a bottomless plastic bag they’d clearly smuggled from home. Some of you know what I’m talking about. After quick deliberation I turned and said to the woman as nicely as I could, “You know, that’s really noisy.” She told her husband what I had said, and I overheard him say, — not so difficult in most movies — “I don’t care if it bothers him.” Bully for him. After all, we all have a right to do as we please whenever we wish. What’s often forgotten is that many of the choices we make impact other people in our community, whether on the road, in loll you Bryan Dixon Emerald Opinion Whit Sheppard the classroom or at the Bijou. We have umpteen opportunities a day to help make life more or less pleasant for our fellows. In a community of 20,000 or so, such as the University, this becomes even more impor tant. How many times have you walked into an unflushed, sewage-laden toilet stall in the locker room or the EMU? Just flush, baby! How many doors have closed in your face on your way to class? Hello! I’m a per son, not a mannequin at Nordstrom’s. How many of you whose scholarships hinge on maintaining high GPAs have want ed to throttle classmates who keep up a run ning dialogue in large lectures? Sure, they have a right to not learn, to ignore what the professor has to say. Indeed, we all have a right to the pursuit of ignorance. It’s just that those who are motivated to learn, to make the best out of the amazing opportunity that is college, have an equal right to pursue knowledge in an atmosphere that supports their efforts. And I would argue that our community is far better served by support ing the latter group, while encouraging the former to save their conversational impuls es for other venues and other times. As members of a community, we say as much with our silence as we do with our spoken advocacy. There’s nothing cool about staying silent when the exercising of personal rights interferes with another’s pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Wouldn’t it be a shame if the celebration of individual rights came at the expense of a civilized, working community? There’s no reason the two cannot co-exist and serve to bolster one another. No reason, that is, oth er than a continued decline in considera tion and common courtesy, and an unwill ingness to balance individual rights against what’s needed to keep the machin ery of our community running smoothly. Whit Sheppard is a columnist for the Emerald. His views do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald. He can be reached via e-mail at whit neys@darkwing.uoregon.edu. Letters to the editor Production the root of it all I felt dismayed after reading Ma son West’s column “A Lackluster Cause” (ODE, April 11). His as sessment of students’ protests against sweatshops reveals the alienation of people in this coun try from injustices in which we di rectly participate. West suggests that students have little reason to protest today, so they have to search for a cause. His article im plies that people should only protest when they are “personal ly” subjected to injustice. How far has the cult of individualism come when consuming the prod ucts of exploitation is not seen as personal? The fact that so many goods in this society have been produced under conditions of op pression IS personal. WE are the ones consuming those goods! The United States is directly implicat ed in that system of production. Choosing not to buy particular products under the suspicion of exploitation is not a good enough solution because these products are flooding the market. We need to change the conditions of pro duction. Student protesters show not only solidarity and empathy with the plight of other human be ings but also the deep realization that what happens to these people is not separated from our own lives. The causes these students are fighting for are not “pale in comparison to those of the past,” as West suggests. There is plenty of injustice in contemporary socie ty and anyone who has his or her eyes open would see it. The fact that we try to deny injustice in or der to be able to continue with our everyday life is a different matter. Barbara Sutton sociology Still carrying the torch I read Mason West’s column Tuesday (ODE, April 11), and while I agree that it can be annoy ing when people either appear to be hypocritical or under-inspired to recognize “their own issues,” I think West is missing a crucial point. The war our “hippie” moth ers and fathers were “fighting” against involved violence that they found to be unjustified for whatever reason. But there are still just as many, if not more, evils in the world today that aren’t always as recognizable as a media-ex ploited war. And to discount those who have the courage to at least publicly state their problems with these evils, I feel, is failing to com mend them for at least attempting. (And it does take courage because entities that impede democratic processes, e.g. the World Trade Or ganization, are even more insidi ous in the long run than a “police action” — trade officials consider ambivalent, apathetic responses to global problems a welcome stance.) Please research what is ac tually going on in the world — en vironmental disasters, continuing degradation of women and chil dren, continuing degradation of a truly democratic process at the hands of corporate interests, in creasing violence and crime worldwide, and realize that we are not copying our parents, we are continuing their protests. Before we make any significant progress, I would wager that our great grandchildren will be following in those footsteps as well. Alison Wise C. Lundquist College of Business, MBA 2000
