Post-modernism engages mind, sparks imagination

To the Editors:

This letter is in response to a letter submitted last week titled, "Humanist approach to post-modernism":

This summer, I worked as a counselor at an academic camp for teenagers called CTY. While there, I ran an activity called "Postmodernism: A Crash Course in How to Annoy Your English Teacher." 80 kids signed up for this activity, more than 25 percent of the total number attending the camp, where most activities were lucky to get 20. And 80 kids sat and listened to me talk about post-modernism (with a little levity thrown in) and even took notes. Afterwards many came up to me and requested I run an additional pomo discussion group.

Why did these kids respond to post-modernism so enthusiastically? They did, I think, because it told them that maybe what their teachers had been telling them all along wasn't right. Maybe their thoughts and their ideas were valid, too. These were very intelligent kids, and to them it was a validation and an opening up of possibilities to them that were not previously available.

I tell this story to dispel the traditional notions of post-modernism as both something too advanced for non-college students to grasp, and as something boring or stale. It is something that engages the minds and sparks the imaginations of our best and brightest, something that far from being confined to higher education, should be brought into the high school and middle school classroom as an available option. The notion that any individual interpretation is invalid because it can be proven false by a contradictory, yet equally valid reading is a dangerous one to English teachers simply wanting to read through something like Shakespeare as something that has an easily grasped narrative and "message" that can be regurgitated and graded on a multiple-choice test. Post-modern philosophy, first and foremost, is a force for greater innovation and stimulation of people understandably dissatisfied with the traditional method of teaching.

As for your charge that postmodernism can lead to greater disunity and a splintering of society, I acknowledge that this is a risk, and yet I feel that it is one worth taking in order to receive the benefits of this theory. Far from uniting individuals, the rationalist humanism view of "universal truth" essentially alienates those whose experiences do not line up with this imposed reality, and only serves to set up the purveyors of "truth" as an unquestionable elite whose dominance over the way people think allows them to achieve a dominance in society.

The danger of the rationalist point of view is that this is how our children are raised and taught to think: in a linear, hierarchical, ordered way that does not allow for multiple, conflicting meanings, or nonhierarchical systems, i.e. a large chunk of the world we live in. The fact that we are taught from a rationalist perspective makes it much harder for us to conceive of solutions that do not line up with this point of view. And this, I feel, is dangerous, and a major cause of the problems we experience. The humanist view of "progress" as an unstoppable force towards utopia has been disproved time and time again, and yet it is something we cling to in order to justify our actions. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this worldview, but to set it up as the "only truth" is to create a kind of intellectual religion, and surely we must realize the dangers in this.

Your criticisms about splintering are valid, and yet they are mainly the fault of being locked into a rationalist mindset while attempting to integrate postmodernist ideas. Groups do have the right to exist, but only in relation to a greater whole. However, if the greater whole is ruled by a group that does not recognize their truth as valid, it is understandable that they will become isolationist. These are problems to be overcome, not reasons to totally abandon postmodernism as a philosophy.

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Michael Barthel, College Junior

No sex, no guns, no drugs Plague OC hockey games

To The Editors:

The 09/03/99 Review article on the Oberlin ice rink quoted a certain local youth as seeing "College students using drugs, guns and beer" during an OC ice hockey game. "They were smoking and fighting. The place was trashed," the youth is quoted as saying. Well, campers, I'm here to tell ya' that it ain't so!

As one who has attended every OC ice hockey game for the last two seasons, (as both a rink supervisor and as a game offcial handling score-/timekeeping), I can tell you without hesitation that the OC students at the hockey games were NOT doing bong-hits in the bleachers or snortin' in the restrooms, they were NOT armed (not at all, not in any way!), and they were NOT intoxicated (at least most of them weren't, and besides, please define "intoxicated..."). Were they among the most rabid, loud, absolutely nutso and fantastic sports fans that I've ever seen at Oberlin? You bet they were! The students were behind The Plague every game and it showed in the hockey team's performance-great! The students packed the rink every game and they really rocked the house!

Was the rink "trashed" by the students? No way! Some of them even stopped to pick up the pop cans, candy wrappers and other debris as they were leaving the rink at game's end. (I've seen parents leave the rink looking worse after a Saturday morning kids' hockey game.)

Please, folks, read the article with a little grain-of-salt about the source of the quotes. He's a good kid, (and a dynamite little hockey player in his own right), but the eyes of a 12-year old see things very differently than those with a full grasp on reality. Student fans braving the cold and the late-night hours to support OC ice hockey do not need the bad rap put on them by the article and its quotes. Perhaps the next article on the rink and hockey at OC will contain more in-depth research, possibly an interview with a more "mature" observer of rink activities. (No, 13-year olds don't count!) Thanks for listening, campers! Until hockey season......

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Rick McDaniel, Oberlin Resident

MRC understaffing not a choice decision

To the Editors:

I am writing the Review concerning the lack of staffing in the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) for this academic year. As well as a place to educate the larger College community, the MRC has always been a venue in which many people who have traditionally been in the margins could go to organize, socialize and mobilize. Since it began, it has been a resource to many students by originally having one associate dean, two assistant deans and four community coordinators/interns for the Africana, Asian Pacific American (APA), LGBT, and Latina/o communities. It has served as a liaison between the administration and student groups of color as well as LGBT student groups. To some students the MRC has been a main reason why they have managed to stay at Oberlin.

However, this year, the MRC has started the semester with the two Africana and APA community coordinator positions empty. In addition, Shilpa Davé, the assistant dean of Student Life and the interim director of the MRC has left Oberlin. Davé had been covering work for what was a three-Dean position. In order to compensate for Davé's absence, Ntombi Peters and Michelle Shim have graciously come back to Oberlin. However, in order to fill the gap in the MRC, they are both having to take on the large load of trying to provide for their communities (Africana and APA respectively) while the two intern positions remain empty. In affect, two people are doing five people's worth of work. At the moment there does not seem to be any effort on the part of Student Life to hasten filling these positions. As the year wears on, the responsibilities of these internship positions will increase with many upcoming events such as Black History Month events and the 11th Biennial APA Conference.

This situation is absolutely unacceptable. Although both Peters and Shim are competent and experienced, being a community coordinator is a full time job, often times demanding more than 40 hours of work a week. This, on top of the responsibilities to Student Life, is too much for two people to do. We need our community coordinators to be available for us during MRC office hours as well as during group meetings, socials, etc. We also need the relaxed attitude that comes with being an intern as opposed to an administrator.

If this situation stays the way it is, we will end up having two burnt-out, hard-working administrators and many students (and their communities) frustrated and unhappy. This does not seem like a choice situation for either the administration or the students, nor does it seem in the best interest of the Oberlin College Community.

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k. terumi shorb,Conservatory senior

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Atif Aziz, College senior

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Christine Harley, College sophomore

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Anil Kesavan, College senior

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Adrian Leung, College junior

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Manu Vimalassery, Double-degree senior