Indiana Daily Student
5
OPINION
Tuesday, March 21, 2017 idsnews.com
Editors Dylan Moore and Zack Chambers opinion@idsnews.com
EDITORIAL BOARD
ON YOUR MIND
Lessons on leadership courteousy of Crean On March 16, as NCAA’s March Madness was tipping off, IU fired basketball head coach Tom Crean. IU Athletics Director Fred Glass, in making the decision, stated his appreciation for what Crean had done for the team, but that he was looking for “more consistent, high levels of success.” Between fans clamoring to #firetomcrean, and sports analysts and coaches fighting to defend him, IU’s decision is a controversial one, but it lies in an important truth. To quote leadership author John Maxwell, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” Without excellent leadership, no amount of passion, talent or hard work can be used to its potential. Crean’s years with IU basketball are indicative of the power leadership has on a team and a community. In the nine seasons Crean coached, IU won the Big Ten outright in the 2012-13 season and the 2015-16 season. Both were seasons of great leadership, but not by Crean. Players like Cody Zeller, Victor Oladipo and Yogi Ferrell are praised in those years for leading the team and the fans to victory. Crean knows that leadership is essential to winning basketball games. In both the 2014-15 season and this season, he has attributed much of the team’s problems to lack of leadership. But he doesn’t call for this from himself. He instead demands that his players show more leadership, but leadership doesn’t come because it’s demanded. John Maxwell, in his best selling book, “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership,” talks about the Law of Magnetism. The Law of Magnetism says what you are is what you attract, so people who are good leaders attract good leaders. It also claims that the better leader you are, the
STEVEN REINOEHL is a sophomore in business.
better the leaders around you will be. Crean may need to brush up on his own leadership before he demands it from his players. Rather than hoping for another Ferrel or Oladipo, Crean needs to realize that excellent leadership from coaching staff wins championships more consistently than any other formula. John Wooden broke records In the 1980s with his legendary leadership at UCLA. He won seven consecutive championships, with four of those being undefeated seasons, both unheard of streaks before and after his time in basketball. Maxwell, who was mentored by Wooden, says that Wooden’s dedication to improving himself before asking it of his players primarily drove him to victory and made him an excellent leader. Crean could have taken a page out of one of the most successful coaches of all time’s books. Before asking his players to be better leaders, he should have looked at his own leadership capabilities. He should have led his teams to victory rather than demanding that they lead themselves. IU’s administration knows strong leadership is what wins championships. Players like Zeller and Ferrell and coaches like Bob Knight have proven the power of leadership again and again. IU’s basketball program has a long history of strong, effective leadership. Leadership is how banners get hung on the wall of Assembly Hall. Crean did not show that same excellence in his nine years of coaching, and his time at IU rose, and fell, on leadership. sbreinoe@umail.iu.edu
ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN VANSCOIK | IDS
G20, do not abandon trade Global economic summit should not embrace protectionism Recent reports out of the G20 forum indicate countries are giving way to President Trump’s trade agenda. Reuters claims that language about resisting protectionism was dropped from the conference’s pledge. This is very alarming, particularly coming from the G20. First, some background. The G20 was established in 1999 to promote policy discussions on the global economy among the countries with the largest economies. Members include the United States, Mexico, China, the European Union and Brazil, among others. The goal was to grow the global economy while promoting fiscal stability. It is ironic then that an organization devoted to applying economic thought to policy would be walking back pledges against protectionism, a theory almost
universally maligned by economists across the left and right. Economists arguing against protectionism began with the original capitalist, the author of “Wealth of Nations”, Adam Smith. He assaulted the mercantilist attitudes of his era, where countries were skeptical of allowing imports to drain their stores of gold. Smith argued imports are a net gain for all involved since they expand the options of consumers. Proponents of the Trump trade agenda are quick to point out that our trade deficit, the difference between the value of all we import against the value of total exports, is massive. To them, this shows that dollars are flowing out of the U.S., enriching other countries at our expense. But this is only half the story. As Smith would point out, those dollars have to
come back somehow. The American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, shows that countries that receive more U.S. dollars than they spend trading with America reinvest that money in the U.S. This is known as a capital account surplus. When money leaves due to trade deficits, it comes back as investment. Look at the trade deficit plotted against the capital account surplus. It is amazing how closely they mirror each other against the X axis. Surely G20 members know this. The editorial board is all for fair trade. Trade deals should not privilege one nation at the expense of another. Tariffs and barriers should be universally eliminated. If the U.S. is to lower ours, then our partners should as well. But embracing 18th
century style protectionism is not the way to go about this. Trade makes us all wealthier. While there are certain individuals that lose out — manufacturers come to mind — the country as a whole is better off. If we want to protect these people, better to do it with some of the excess wealth generated from trade than to hamstring the whole economy. Arbitrarily, if trade generates $100 of extra wealth, we can spend some amount of that helping displaced workers get back on their feet. That way the country can reap the benefits of trade while protecting the vulnerable. The G20 should not walk back free trade rhetoric. Now more than ever it is important to stand against economic illiteracy. Trade makes the world rich.
BLABBERMOUTH
GETTING IN THE GROOVE
Disney falls short on gay moment
Time to relearn how to monotask
Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast” opened Friday with its share of controversy, mostly surrounding the possible inclusion of a gay character. On the press tour prior to release, Director Bill Condon teased that the film would have an “exclusively gay moment.” This moment features LeFou — Gaston’s bumbling sidekick, whose sexuality was not explored in the original animated film. But the “exclusively gay moment” turned out to be not that exclusive — nor really that gay. Disney should have been bolder. Throughout the movie, LeFou’s comical devotion to Gaston is well established, but possible attraction is dismissed at every turn and occasionally used as a punchline. And as much as I would have loved to see LeFou make out with Gaston, who is unbearably attractive with his rippling man muscles and springy-looking chest hair, LeFou’s allegedly gay moment instead comes at the end of the film with a nameless character. In the final scene — a massive reunion of townspeople and castle folk in the grand ballroom — LeFou stumbles into the arms of a nameless man. They smile at each other, and the camera
cuts to a wide shot of heterosexual dancing couples. And that’s it. Really. We don’t even see them dance together. LeFou hugs a hot guy while wearing formal clothing and apparently that counts as groundbreaking. The best that I can say for “Beauty and the Beast’s" “explicitly gay” character is that an interpretation of LeFou as homosexual no longer feels as far-fetched as Disney LGBT interpretations of the past. Shang from “Mulan” as bisexual, Turk from “Tarzan” as a butch lesbian, and Timon and Pumba from “The Lion King” as a gay couple all come to mind here. Interesting interpretations, certainly, but ultimately easily refuted. Although an interpretation of LeFou as gay in the new film certainly feels more plausible, the filmmaker’s coding of Lefou’s sexuality is not explicit. In fact, the argument for Lefou as a straight man who stumbles into almost-but-not-quite gay laugh moments is equally as valid as the argument for his homosexuality. Condon described his characterization of LeFou as someone who “on one day wants to be Gaston, and on another day wants to kiss Gaston.” This uncertain area — between straight admiration and gay desires — all
BECCA DAGUE is a senior in English
but justifies the wishy-washy characterization of LeFou’s sexuality. It is a narrative that allows Disney to stay within a safe gray space of ambiguity in which neither interpretation — gay or straight — is entirely incorrect. Yes, LeFou seems attracted to Gaston in one moment, but it is equally arguable to attribute his actions to the devotion felt between close, platonic friends. And the moment in the ballroom in which LeFou briefly holds another man is, at the most, slightly suggestive. Frankly, if Condon hadn’t keyed viewers in to the fact that LeFou was supposed to be coded as gay, the dance floor embrace would likely have gone over most people’s heads. In short, the overall effect is far from explicit. Instead, it comes off as a subtle hattip to the LGBT community that never advances beyond a closeted acknowledgment. For filmmakers to call LeFou Disney’s first openly gay character when his sexuality is ambiguous at best feels like a hollow attempt at progressive politics from a company unwilling to take an actual stance. rjdague@indiana.edu
I’m a great multitasker: I can check Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and my email, all while doing a reading for class. I say that in jest, mostly because my multitasking generally results in a protracted and unnecessary amount of time spent on homework. The art of monotasking has disappeared as of late, but everyone could benefit from reintegrating into their lives. I believe that monotasking — or focusing on just one task at a time — is a skill that most of us possessed pre-cell phones and pre-social media. However, with the rise of smart phones, internet, and constant connectedness, this ability to monotask has disappeared. In an age where there’s always another tab to open, site to browse and app to fire up, it’s so easy to get distracted from what you’re supposed to be focusing on in the moment. I’m certainly guilty of falling down the social media wormhole while reading an article for class. It’s so tempting to pull up Instagram when you just simply can’t read another paragraph of dry text. Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed
to consider the amount of times I’ll probably get distracted while writing this column. Perhaps the problem is in the name. “Multitasking” sounds much more productive than “I was reading this book for class but then I took a 30 minute detour on Twitter.” Maybe, then, we’re deceiving ourselves and we’ve just forgotten how to devote our full attention to something. A 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that a two-to-three second lapse in attention was enough to cause a person to double the mistakes they made while trying to complete a task. Information overload is certainly a related problem, too. Throughout the day, we encounter all sorts of articles, tweets and texts, all begging for our attention. I often feel mentally exhausted after toggling back and forth between a paper I’m writing and my Twitter feed. I often long for the days before social media had expanded into the attentiondemanding behemoth it is today — that is, my middle school years. I would curl up on the couch and read a book
ANNA GROOVER is a freshman in English.
from cover to cover, only pausing to grab a quick snack. I can’t remember the last time I did that, and that saddens me immensely. Now, the process of reading a book is always punctuated by glances at my phone to check my texts or social media. It takes me much longer to read a book and the physical process of actually doing it isn’t as satisfying, somehow. If you’re anything like me, you’re tired of this feeling. So let’s resolve to do something about it. Let’s leave our phones and laptops in a different room if they aren’t necessary for the task at hand. Let’s delete all of our social media apps if necessary. Let’s close our emails, resolve to check them only once or twice a day, and stick to it. In other words, let’s rediscover what it means to monotask, to devote ourselves wholly to one thing until it’s complete. I think we’ll find it much more fulfilling, more productive and less exhausting than multitasking. acgroove@umail.iu.edu anna_groover
A NOTE FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD The Editorial Board is made up of the Opinion section editors and columnists. Each editorial topic is selected and discussed by the Board until we reach a consensus, and a member of the board volunteers to write the article. The opinions expressed by the Editorial Board do not necessarily represent the opinions of the IDS news staff, student body, faculty or staff members or the Board of Trustees. Spring 2017 Editorial Board: Dylan Moore, Zack Chambers, Kaitlynn Milvert, Miranda Garbaciak, Becca Dague, Neeta Patwari, Anna Groover, Maddy Klein, Emma Getz, Colin Dombrowski, Jessica Karl, Steven Reinoehl, Austin VanScoik, Julia Bourkland, Kathryn (Katie) Meier, Lucas Robinson, Sam Reynolds, Mercer Suppiger, Brian Gamache, Justin Sexton
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