March 21, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA AT MONROE
PAGE 7
OPINION HAWKEYE P.O.V. A monster we’ve created This week’s discussion will be about the mess that is Charlie Sheen. Why exactly does the Hawkeye have a point of view on Mr. Sheen, you may be asking. We don’t. We have a point of view on why everyone is so fascinated with his life. Society has become so consumed with the life of the drama and misfortunes of the rich and famous. Is it our [and by our, we mean society] fault that Sheen likes to beat up on his wife and then hang out with strippers? Of course not. But, is it our [and again, we mean society] fault that we continue to give him more publicity. TMZ, a website that needs to get a hobby besides stalking celebrities, will post a video of Sheen, and any other celebrity for that matter, that shows them going off the deep end. Instead of just ignoring it, we must simply have to put it on our Facebook wall and share it with the 1,000 “friends” we have accumulated over the past couple of weeks. Not too long ago, we ran an editorial that blamed US for keeping these celebrities in the news. Not the collective us, but the magazine US. Well, now it’s time to blame the collective us. Are our lives so dull and unfulfilling that we must anxiously wait at our computers to
see when a celeb screws up big time? There is an old time saying, “No publicity is bad publicity.” By watching, posting and commenting on a mess of a celebrity, we are giving them the satisfaction of staying in the limelight. It seems like some celebrities can do way too many drugs and still have the number one show on CBS. It’s finally spring time, and time to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and bird’s chirping. But instead, we’d rather sit inside and watch the train wreck that is Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. The collective “us” at the Hawkeye would like to ask everyone to get outside, enjoy your life and stop paying so much attention to Charlie Sheen’s.
Escaping the perception paradigm
CHARLES STRAUSS Protests emerge from the Arab League, and 63 percent of Americans oppose intervention in the Libyan conflict, yet American missiles still rain down from the Mediterranean. Since World War II, the United States has become the global police, creating conflicts around the world and spurring resentment domestically and internationally. The culprit of the division of interests is a conflict of paradigms. Sept. 11 brought the perspective of the global system arranged by America and European powers to the forefront of international politics. Many within the Islamic civilization, stretching from Africa to India, reject separation of church and state, women’s rights and capitalism. In the West, the principles are indoctrinated through our education system and media. In the Islamic world, Madrassas (Islamic religious schools) practice the same tactics. What results is a collision of par-
adigms. This materializes into conflicts because our perceptions are reality. Samuel P. Huntington, a renowned American political scientist, describes this as the “Clash of Civilizations.” Perception is the byproduct of the mixing of our attitude and knowledge. What we know to be true about the world and our attitude toward it defines our worldviews. H. I. Hayakawa profoundly argues “the map is not the territory.” Our map is what we see and understand while the territory is reality. No map can perfectly depict the territory, and each person’s map is slightly different. Perception doesn’t just cause conflict between societies, but within them as well. This is often exhibited by generational paradigm shifts within a society. I hear our professors talk about university life in the “good old days” (to which every generation claims to have once belonged), where withdrawal for non-attendance and Moodle didn’t exist, among other obstacles. The hypocrisy is that the people who abused the system are now the ones running it. To professors, Moodle is a revolutionary tool that can help students and professors communicate and share resources outside of the classroom. To me, and many other stu-
dents, Moodle is an invasive tool teachers can utilize to make assignments due outside of scheduled class times. College is a profound paradigm shaper because of the intellectual pursuit it requires. The more we learn about the world, the more accurate our “map” becomes. College is also influential because of the age group to which the majority of students belong. Stepping out from the cocoon of protection and influence of our parents is instrumental in becoming an adult. It is an age of exploration and discovery. The conflicts that emerge from the differences in paradigms cannot be avoided. It is not a single person, culture, country or civilization that instigates this, but human nature itself. We can only seek to be understood and to understand, but never truly achieve this. Although this cannot be overcome, it can be improved. Perceptions will never be perfect maps, but we can make them better. Henry David Thoreau once remarked, “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.” contact Charles Strauss at strauscd@warhawks.ulm.edu