Editor's Note (11/3/09)

Story by Carson Vaughan 

| Published Nov 3, 2009

In the sociopolitical sense, I’m bored; and for the sake of this column, that’s a problem. Hoping to generate ideas to satirize or support, I spent the week surveying friends and peers, neighbors and relatives, humans and ASUN officials—all to no success. The following is a list of some of the problems and passions, both pathetic and more pathetic, people mentioned:

1. Soccer fans: “Everybody pretends they like to watch soccer now. They wear their new Manchester United jerseys and pretend to stop and watch the game when it’s on at the bar.”
2. Eye Contact: “In Germany it was the norm. Eye contact was a sign of humanity. Here, though, people are ashamed to look up and say hello when they’re walking on campus.”
3. The music snobs at the Daily Nebraskan: “Did you read that column the other day? That list about the people who have destroyed music? Jurassic 5 would have been nothing without Dave Matthews. I hate all that ‘I’m indie’ bullshit.”
4. 475-RIDE: “What else has ASUN done for me? This is the one service I actually use, and now they send me a letter telling me I shouldn’t use it?”
5. 475-RIDE: “I’m not about to ask the Committee for Fees Allocation to increase student fees so they can be more irresponsible.”


The list continues, but they’re all as frivolous as the previous handful. Nobody is fired up; campus is stagnant; everybody is bored—and that’s a problem. This is a public university, and it’s time we act like it. It’s time we put our money where our mouth is. It’s time we replace the protesters in the campus green space with a group that doesn’t hate fags and funerals. It’s time the rest of us raise some noise, because that’s where this education begins—and I need a column idea.

Robert Maynard Hutchins, who led the Comission on Freedom of the Press in 1946, once said, “A civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about important issues is on the way to totalitarianism and death.” Although it would be premature for me to declare that our university is dying, I wholeheartedly believe the conversation is dragging. Instances of both student and faculty activism are few and far between.

I don’t mean to say our students and faculty aren’t involved; they are, and that is evident. UNL students are mentoring Lincoln children through the Nebraska Human Resource Institute, recycling with Ecology Now, playing video games with the Electronic Gaming Club and dressing up like Goku with the anime club. UNL faculty are recovering stratigraphic records from the Antarctic, retrofitting vehicles to reduce harmful diesel emissions and researching the appetitive properties of nicotine.

But nobody is going to argue that mentoring Lincoln High School leaders isn’t good work. Nobody is going to discourage groundbreaking geologic research in the MacKay Sea Valley, nor should they. I’m talking about the Bill Ayers issues (read “Editor’s Note—10/28/08”), the legalization of marijuana, the drinking age, pornography, gay rights, anti-Greek sentiment, affirmative action and all those issues that break into the collective social conscience. We don’t need a presidential election or state approval to debate our student issues in a lively, vigorous and therefore education manner.

There is a fine line between civility and laziness, and much too often we exploit the latter and disguise it as the former. Is it rude to show opposition to the cancellation of Bill Ayers’ lecture? No. Is it rude to speak up if you think 475-RIDE shouldn’t have such strict limitations? No. Is it hypocritical of me to dish ridicule in private and sheepishly or indolently back away in the public forum? Absolutely.

It is our civic duty to keep sparking the conversation. The administration may try their best to bypass controversy on campus, but they are not to blame for the death of the discussion.

So speak up. I need a column idea.

Respectfully-er,
Carson Vaughan
Editor-in-Chief
DailyER Nebraskan