Deconstruct yourselves, not The Oberlin Review

Deconstructing, post-modernist, bleeding-heart, idealistic, naive, fickle, pretentious, loud-mouthed albeit intelligent, hard-working, well-informed, friendly, eccentric and anything but average Oberlin students comprise the most unyielding, unrealistic and difficult audience imaginable.

How's that for a description? A little assumptive, no? In fact, you might call it a generalization. And guess what? It is. It's imperfect, but it's there.

At Oberlin we are experts at entertaining various perspectives and postponing assumptions in history, english, women's studies and sociology classes. We like to approach everything from every angle and deconstruct to our hearts' content. But when we are faced with a real-life situation begging a decision or a verdict we are paralyzed.

How many times have you heard this: "I went to the mall yesterday and it was so ... so...�weird." Faced with the "real" world we are overwhelmed. Where do you start? We seem to lack translators that let us use our knowledge in constructive ways. Most of us have (excuse the generalization) one of two reactions: we either maintain the hyper-liberal convictions that fuel our passion or we shake with anxiety at the overwhelming injustices that exist in the "other" world.

Occasionally the mall comes to Oberlin or the real world appears at Oberlin in the form of Brothers Jed or Paul, street harrassment, or, I argue, the Oberlin Review. No, the Review isn't a real-world paper. We are not corporate sponsors of sporting events, we are not owned by a large newspaper company, and we don't pay our employees (much anyway).

But the Review is very real-world none-the-less. It is an attempt to represent this place in black and white every week. It attempts to reflect this undeniably multi-faceted, multi-cultural and multi-layered place in a traditional medium. It is by nature arbitrary and by nature conservative. And if there is any group of students who truly understand these constrains of newspaper communication it is probably the Review staff.

As editors we are all pretty aware of the critical and varied sentiments that the Oberlin student body holds. How could we not be? Yeah, reading Commentary for a few weeks might make us more cynical, but it also makes us more sensitive. It might even be fair to say that the staff is hyper-aware of the diversity of opinions and expression of Oberlin students. We could probably make most of your arguments for you.

The Review, by comparison to the outside world, is a very liberal newspaper. How many other newspapers have universal inclusion as their goal? How many other papers have diversity as their only unnegotiable interest? No happy fluffy holiday garbage here. And no establishment editorials bashing liberals either.

But by being a newspaper the Review is also naturally conservative in a way we can't change. Our format and production implies a certain tradition, a certain adherance to precedent and a certain attempt to present an unbiased "truth." While we will be the first to recognize this is a weakness we also know that without it, we probably wouldn't be able to produce an issue each week.

To make up for these weaknesses we try to represent as many different students as possible; we try to be a medium that can represent diverse students and diverse thoughts.

The problem, however, lies in the fact that people want to be represented, but in their own special way. Tough. The Review isn't an art installation, a poetry reading or a socialist protest. Rather, the Review endeavors to be opinionatedly objective in a society and a time where objectivity is extinct and opinions are considered narrow-minded.

Here's the catch: at some point, every person who considers him/herself an individual must swallow the consequences and commit to an angle. And that's a truth embodied in every single article published in the Review.

Do we claim to be all-knowing? Absolutely not. Do we claim to be error free? With our overlooked typos scattered amongst the span of our issues, we would be a joke if we did. But we do claim, rightly I'd say, to publish a fairly comprehensive issue every week.

We can accept our shortcomings and constraints, but can you? Performers of every kind call and e-mail the Arts section-indeed, all sections of the paper-seeking publicity and performance reviews. What they mean is, "Represent us as we view ourselves, not as the pop culture on campus views us. Make us look good, stroke our egos, validate us."

It's not going to happen. We do our best to appeal to everybody, and egoism is about as valid as a generalization. And if you think that the Review is self-serving, then think again. And then make your decision.