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