Students
It has been pointed out that the University is on the margins of American life (under this heading one might include Canadian). Almost all of my peers and I have been submersed in this margin for the past several years, and I imagine that we often have little clue as to how the rest of North America really thinks and feels. The shows we watch are our shows, the news we read is our news, the ideas we bat around are our ideas, and the music we listen to is our music. Students run their fingers along the surface of almost every aspect of public life, but often forget that most people are submersed within one of those aspects. Most people don’t have the freedom to flit from here to there and back again at will.
It’s easy for students, particularly in Arts degrees, to get tangled up in their ideas and think that they can somehow change the world, or that the world will stand up and care one day soon. This is a lie.
It’s easy for students to, having rejected the dumb philosophy of the masses, think that they have ipso facto bettered themselves. This is a bigger lie.
Aaron had an entry in the Red River Media Festival, or whatever it was called, so I went to see what kind of media our Red River students are producing. Most of it was vacuous horror or contentless virtuousity, but the few ‘messages’ there were seemed typical for the early college mindset that cries, “I’m not a part of that (naive consumer-driven) world, I’m an individual, don’t try to put me in a box”. Okay okay, those who were there know that I’m drawing out what were really very few entries. The empirical evidence to support my case isn’t, in this case, overwhelming. But what I’ve repeatedly seen in University settings is this: the rejection of a certain kind of conservative (political and religious), capitalist, suburbia-located, consumer-based middle class lifestyle, which apparently shoves its denizens into fearful little boxes suited for the markets they live in. This rejection is usually followed by a mild sort of socialism, informed at best by the incisive criticisms of comedians like John Stewart and his ilk. Having made this gargantuan leap from their old suburbian faith to new social-awareness, these students seem to think they have made it intellectually, and if the rest of the world would only wake up and listen to their astonishingly simple but profound message, things would begin looking up in the world.
Oh, how wonderful to be naive.
Aaron Hildebrandt said,
Mar 30, 13:34 #
I think you pretty much nailed it. Art student, by and large, have these grand ideals about changing the world. Of course, I’m one of them, but I’d like to think I stand out a bit in that regard (and I realize that, once again, that’s a sentiment of most art students). The people responsible for the angst-ridden horror were (as far as I know without exception) first-years straight out of high-school. Which is why you see a huge difference in worldview between “Tips for Modern Living” and, say, “Little Leandra”. So it gets a lot better as you leave the high-school mentality, but even then you’re trading one banality for another.
I’d write more… but I’m in class right now. Dreaming about intellectual revolutions and signal in the noise and all that.
Would you believe that I was the only person in my class who knew who McLuhan was? Intellectual revolution my ass.
Tristan said,
Mar 30, 14:12 #
That’s sad. About McLuhan I mean. I bet half the students in your class are avid Steven Berlin Johnson readers, and haven’t read a word of writers that should really concern them like McLuhan and Postman. Or maybe they just don’t read at all and even Johnson’s a mystery to them. I wouldn’t know.
What’s the use of having theology students familiar with McLuhan and Postman if the media students aren’t even aware of them? Blah. I’m upset.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing for arts students to have gradiose ideas about changing the world, or standing out. It’s just sad that most arts students are no longer willing to do the work necessary to make a real contribution. They assume, as I said before, that because they have rejected one old way of thinking, they’ve made it on the path to intellectual self-actualization. In fact they’re still just babies waddling around in their diapers, and completely unaware of this fact. Though by arts students I was thinking broadly in the field, theologians and philosophers included (albeit to a lesser extant that media students and the like). I guess the ‘intellectuals,’ versus the artists, probably doubt that they’ll change the world, but think they ought to be able to (if only someone would hand over the reigns…), while arts students think they will (and even might), but don’t realize how vacuous and hollow the changes they are seeking really are.
Make Poverty History!
njero said,
Mar 30, 22:31 #
On a side-not, I had to chuckle when I read your list of things that art students reject. In the circles I run in Adam Smith is the architect of Heaven. I suppose the perspective of my clique is quite atypical considering the demographics involved, but the inclusion of capitalism in your list still snuck up on me.
Tristan said,
Mar 30, 22:47 #
Adam Smith? Really? Weird. Maybe I’m missing something.
Creature said,
Mar 30, 23:44 #
I can only say this: not all of us are going to change the world, but if no one ever tries, nothing’s going to happen. Call it arrogance if you may – I say it’s hope.
Tristan said,
Mar 31, 11:01 #
“if no one ever tries, nothing’s going to happen” – Oh don’t worry. There’s no danger of nothing happening. Something’s always happening. There’s plenty of danger of arrogant uneducated college students causing more damage than harm.
njero said,
Mar 31, 15:48 #
Many thanks T, as my reply was going to be much less appropriate. Though not, as I see it, in an ad hominem sort of way.
Seriously Creature, I don’t have anything against you personally, and I really hope you are not offended by my reaction, but I find it necessary to stress the fact that I couldn’t agree with your sentiment any less than I do now.
Unless perhaps I misunderstand what you are trying to say. Elaboration on your part would find me joyfully enlightened.
Tristan said,
Mar 31, 16:34 #
Oops. I meant more damage than good. As it stands, that sentence is just nonsense.
Troy Unrau said,
Mar 31, 16:55 #
I think that the only real changes that have happened in the recent world, from Hitler to the current US abomination have been the result of linear media. Radio, newspaper and TV. The reason that they are worse than others is that they can over time convince other people that public opinion is swawing, and thus mob mentality kicks in. If there was no media, we’d have no idea who the mob was going to vote for, and would make decisions outside of social influence.
The internet is breaking this, as blogs (such as your own) are able to bite back without having to spend capital to gain influence.
This is why those art students that want to change things in the world might succeed today, because they don’t have to do the work previously required (to set up a press, radio tower, etc.) to get their message across. Such as your message :)
Tristan said,
Mar 31, 19:29 #
Just a few points:
1) A blog is just a digitally crystallized speaking platform. It is useful, but ultimately will do little to change the relationship of individuals to systems. Acquaintances conversed with each other prior to the advent of the internet. The crystallizing element changes things somewhat, I’m sure, but it isn’t a huge player in getting people to make decisions “outside of social influence.” It’s just another social influence, and no substitute for real intelligence.
2) Mobs formed prior to what you call ‘linear media’. Interestingly, using this term points to the real impact of such media – which has nothing to do with individual/system dynamics, but with ways individuals, and therefore groups as well, think. But the media forms you’ve identified hardly correspond with what McLuhan considered the ‘linear’ mode of thinking. I realize that probably wasn’t your intention. But frankly, I can’t see how you lump your various ‘linear’ form in with one another and then contrast them with the web.
3) Media change the shape of the communities of which we are a part. But within the basic concept of community, they don’t, I think, radically alter the substance of discussion. They may, however, provide aesthetic distractions and give the illusion of more substance than actually exists. I think this is their most common function, and I think that the efforts of various modern clairvoyants to get people to realize this have been largely (and unfortunately) ineffective. The first and most obvious of these is, again, McLuhan, whose model came from the Edgar Allan Poe story of the sailor who escapes the maelstrom by studying it.