23 minute read
In defense of the humanities
coordinatin _e_ditor Christo her Bolster THE CASCADE 7
Our Word of Mouth Intrepid Cascade reporter Steve Beketa went out to the On my mind halls of UCFV to ask students on Feb 12th:
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SARAH COCHRAN (General Studies):
"I have to work, so a black skirt and red top."
KAI JOHNSON
(Biology):
"Nothing."
______ ..,.MASAE KOJIMA NORIKO TATHUHARA
(ESL):
"A big smile,"
---,MIKE BRODIE
(General Studies):
"I don't know her name yet."
RV KONARSKI
(General Studies): We are not human; We are devo
By Christopher Bolster
The politicos down the hall from the newspaper office are having their elections next month. Does anyone really care? Does anyone remember a time when students here did?
I will be the first one to admit that I have been at UCFV far too long. constantly find myself falling into the role of 'local' historian. Given my assumed role, thinking back over the years I can't remember a time that there was anything like a 'real' election for the Student Union. I mean there doesn't seem to be much of a student political culture here The problem is that if we want dedicated students to represent our views and act as our advocates, we need to give them the resources to do their job. I was talk· ing to SUS president Robin Litzenberger last week and he told me that it has actually cost him money to be the president of the Student Union this year.
at UCFV. This could be the reason why this school sometimes seems more like a dysfunctional high school than a university college. I haven't ever seen slates of candidates debating and running against other slates of candidates. There aren't really any issues or campaigns here at UCFV - At least, that's what everyone thinks anyway. They couldn't be more wrong.
"A thong, baseball hat, and Apathy and indifference reigns. But this slippers." Is not shocking news. This isn't particular to UCFV. It's happening everywhere. And yes it is much easier to hide your head in a book. And yes the changing economic realities around getting a postsecondary education are definitely factors. But we forget the vital role that the student union plays, or at least attempts to play.
For many students, the student union exists to provide them with o nifty daytimer, so they too can become good productive members of our society that understand the vital importance of time management. For a minority, the student union is quite literally a lifesaver. Just look in this issue of the Cascade, the Student Union has hooked up with UCFV Student Events and the local Food Bank to offer students an emer• gency food program. This is not even to mention the Student Union's emergency student grants program. What most students don't know is that the Student Union has student representatives on many of the UCFV committees repre• senting your interests.
The Student Union Council does receive honoraria but it is an absolute pittance and most council members are taking a full load of courses. How can we possi• bly expect them to do a good job when they don't have the resources and they are taking classes full-time? As UCFV develops over the next few years it Is of the utmost importance that this problem is solved. In the mean time, ~t least cast your vote in the election. Even If next month's isn't a 'reol' one.
By V.R. Jordan
Its Is always the same question: "You're in school? Good for you! What are you studying? ... oooooh, an Arts degree .. .What are you going to do with that?", as if an arts degree were a sort of white elephant of higher education; very grandiose and impressive, but quite useless. After all, you really cannot do anything with It. (Unless you want to teach, and who has not heard that cowardly anonymous phrase: "those who can - do, those who can't• teach''). Yet that Is exactly my point. You are not supposed to do anything with it. It must do something to you. A good Arts program must produce good thinkers, and if that does not earn us the most prestigious jobs with the highest salaries, that is ok. We have learned how to learn, how to think, how to value the things In life that can't be bought with the almighty dollar.
I like to think that what separates us from the animals is not our scientific or technological genius, but rather our ability to recognize ultimate human frailty and find beauty in it nonetheless. Although science has brought us cures for many of our ills, it has not cured death. It has not cured hate. Indeed, science has brought us nuclear arsenals, biological warfare, landmines and Hiroshima. Was not science one of Hitler's most abhorrent weapons? Technology has made this a smaller world, brought us all closer together. but it has not solved world hunger, it h:.:is not solved war. Technology has shrunk the world so that we are all much more aware of different cultures all over the globe, but ii has also brought T.V. to poor countries so that they may envy our crass consumerism, and they too may learn to desire what they do not need.
"At the fall of the medieval age, we lost our sense of certainty about who we were and what our existenca meant. So we invented a scientific method of Inquiry and sent this system out to find the truth of our situation. But science seemed to splinter into a thousand faces, unable to immediately bring back a coherent picture. In response, we pushed away our anxiety by fuming our focus to practical endeavours, reduced life to its economic aspects only, and finally entered a collective obsession with the practical, material aspects of life. As we have seen, scientists set up a worldview that reinforced this obsession and for many centuries became lost in It themselves. ihe cost of this limited cosmology was the nar• rowing of human experience and the repression of our higher spiritual perooption ... " The Celestine Vision • James Redfield Science can be either a tool in the hands of an enlightened and humane race, or merely a destructive weapon In the hands of apes. I am a defector from the science program. I panicked and jumped ship in September not because I abhor science or I cannot succeed in it, but because I recog• nize that to be a great scientist. you must first be a great thinker. I want to be more than a monkey in a lab coat, a programmer in a cubicle, another cog in the great machine.
Did not our mothers always exhort us to '1hink before you actl" There must be a stronger emphasis - if not a priority placed on teaching students to think, contemplate, consider, reflect, meditate, and ponder. This is what truly separates people from animals. Without these abilities, and the use of them, we really do become "the most pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth" (Swift, from Gulliver's Travels). We become mere animals ruled by our appetites and passions. But we are more than that. We can be more than that. Science is not the cure for what ails us, and perhaps neither are the arts, but at least we are asking the right questions.
~your most humble servant continued from page 5
and $4,125 In the final term for accredited programs.
John Ballheim, president of the DeVry Calgary campus, soid he is pleased with the government's decision. The question of whether private education has a place in Alberta is irrelevant, he says.
"In my mind, it's not a matter of private or public. It's a matter of another accredited, peer-reviewed academic program that meets the needs of students, their employers, and society."
The Alberto government's decision to allow the DeVry institute to grant degrees follows closely behind an October request by the University of Phoenix, a private American university, to open a Calgary campus. The University of Phoenix cur• rently operates a school in Vancouver with tuition rates from $8,500 to $10,500 a year. The government has not yet granted the university operating rights.
8THE CASCADE
FEBRUARY 161 2001
The spark neglected burns the house
by Kyle Webb
The lesson this week, my friends, Is ideology 101. "What the ·$@# is ideology you ask, and how does it figure into MY life?" Well, I'm here to tell you. Really! What WOULD you do without me? (Probably die of ignorance and boredom.)
If you don't know it by now, we live in Canada, and YES, it is an independent country, In theory at least. But do you know what it means to be Canadian? It's a bit more than Molson Canadian and Hockey, I assure y(!)u.
Being Canadian is an entity in itself. Canadlanism is an ideology -there's that word again. Travel abroad and you will see that you are distinct from all other people in this world. It Is significant that as a people, we are well respected around the world. This fact alone should tell a little of what it is to be Canadian; the rest of the world acknowledges who we are, and this is something distinct from our rather contemptible American neighbours.
We live, at least according to the United Nations, in the greatest country in the world. We have wealth comparable to the US while maintaining an overall standard of living that is without par. We have unbounded natural resources and a people that are highly educated and highly skilled. We have a caring society, one that, relative to other nations, looks after the entire population, not just the privileged few or the moral majority. We have - relatively speakIng - a free and egalitarian society.
This is not to say that there are no problems in this country; that is far from the truth. The Canada we grew up in--yes, the one that most of us students were born into in the 70's and early 80's-is being eroded all around us. And this is NOT something that is happening slowly and gradually, rather, the country is "crashing at an alarming rate." From the cuts in corporate taxes, to the rise in tuition fees; from the hike in gas and natural gas prices to the rise in the debt on your credit cards and mortgages, things are not improving in this country, rather they are disintegrating. The rich get richer (lucky you, you greedy bastards) and the poor get poorer. You'll see. When members of your community and your family start dropping off the socio-economic map and you're too busy and too ignorant lo help them with their problems, who will come to the rescue?
If there are no social supports then nobody will, and then I guess it's just survival of the fittest. Move along, and don't bother helping the weak and the downtrodden, they'll just pull you down with them.
Some more examples as evidence: Today, while watching the news, CBC Newsworld did a story about how the government wants to privatize gun control. Now let me get this straight. A private company--Smith and Wesson, for example--is going to make sure that people register their guns? I'm sorry, but instinct tells me there's something wrong with this picture. Is this the next step towards the legalization of handguns and concealed firearms in this country? When have you ever known a private company-especially an American one-to care about anything but the bottom line? What's to stop the big gun companies from teaming up with the private gun registration companies to run advertisements supporting the gun lobby? They will both stand to profit enormously by brainwashing Canadians into being gun-toting vigilantes like our friends to the south. And they already have the Canadian Alliance on their side.
This is plain evidence of our government copping out of another area of public responsibility. Do Canadians want this? Do you want to see private AMERICAN firms controlling our forums of public morality and responsibility? I don't believe you do.
Further evidence on the sports front:
The Montreal Canadians are now owned by Americans. What could be a worse coup against Canadian nationalism than Americans to own the icon of our country's hockey history? And as George Gillette said himself, "moving the Canadians would be like buying the New York Yankees and moving them lo Oklahoma, better yet, why not St. John's, Newfoundland?
Add to that the hot off the presses newsflash that says David Stern is considering letting Michael Haisley move the Grizzlies. Americans are funny, aren't they? They always come with the best of Intentions saying "we'll turn this around 100%, but as soon as they can't find a quick solution to the problem in their tiny little brains, then they rush back to New York and Washington to see if they can move their business to Texas or Florida where it's nice and sunny for the players, and they can hire Mexicans and Cubans to work the concessions for $4 an hour.
In conclusion: the sports analogy may be wasted on most of you, but it's what I know, so I'm sticking with it. It's simply to get you to understand that whether ii be professional sports or professional politics, the business elite is only around so long as they can make the big bucks. The size of their heads IS relative to the size of their pocketbook, their home, and their stock-price.
Civic pride and responsibility rests with the people who live in that city and region. If Canadians don't own their businesses and have no say in what happens to their taxes, then there is no accountability and social responsibility to the owners and the government. It's as simple as that. Things might not be so bad as. I would have you believe, but there is some truth in every word that is spoken. Take that grain of truth that you find in this article and keep it with you as you become an adult and see the world for what it really is. We are all citizens; you cannot divorce yourself from this fact. It is your duty, you responsibility, and in your best Interests to see that your city, your province, and your country is healthy and strong and free.
l\.~111,I • h ... 111
Anorexia: A misunderstood disease
This is a psychological disease that I believe Is for the most part misunderstood. I'm not going to sit here and claim to be an expert on it, but I am someone who has suffered through it, and to a certain extent it still affects my life.
Going back four years, I was slightly overweight. Not grossly overweight, but enough that I could stand to lose a few pounds. The constant nagging of people in my life lead me to decide that I needed to lose weight, and that I needed to do it now. For a period of about two months I cut down my meals to maybe two or three per week, no chips or chocolate bars, and I consumed lots of coffee because it's supposed to speed up your metabolism.
I ended up losing over fifty pounds in about five weeks. It's crazy to think about that. I lost fully one third of my body weight, and I had no clothes that flt anymore. I thought that being thin would bring me the important things • friends, guys -the whole popular scene. What it did bring me was to the emergency ward of the hospital. Because I had lost so much weight so fast, my blood iron count had decreased significantly as well. Iron transports oxygen and not enough of it was circulating in my system which caused me to blackout. Even to this day I have problems with my circulation. I have an Iron supplement that I have to take every morning. Somehow I have been lucky in that I have gained back twenty of the fifty pounds that I lost and I weigh in now at a healthy 120 lbs. Yes, I'm still on the skinny side, but I have a much healthier image of myself. It took going to the hospital to help me realize that I had a serious problem that needed to be dealt with. My advice to anyone who thinks they are overweight and are considering starving themselves - It's not worth It. I have to face a long time of supplements before my body will be able to take care of itself again. Please don't do this to yourself.
features editor Kris Lind
THE CASCADt 9
Mind the Gap
We may be creating problems so complex we can't sequences of this failure to recognize our own limita• solve them, says Canadian political scientist Thomas lions could be drastic. Homer-Dixon, author of The Ingenuity Gap
By Paul Reeve, The McGIii Dally
MONTREAL (CUP) - Julian Simon, the late, infamous American economist, was best known for insisting that the human race could grow, becoming ever more prosperous and more numerous, forever. His rationale for this surprising idea was (not at all deceptively) simple: keep the population growing, and you1 II increase the amount of cleverness on Earth. All those clever people will come up with clever technological ways to overcome any and all resource limits, given the operations of a free m:.irket.
In fact, he thought, that's hardly even necessary, because "(w]e have in our hands now the technology to feed, clothe and supply energy to an ever-growing pop• ulation for the next 7 million years." (At a one per cent growth rate per year, the human population would increase over that time to be vastly larger than the number of atoms in the universe.)
Okay, so Julian Simon may have been a little oH base.
Enter Thomas Homer-Dixon, head of the peace and conflict studies program at the University of Toronto, and author of the recent book The Ingenuity Gap. He tells us that Simon's boundless faith in the power of the human mind to overcome any and all obstacles, even those thrown up by its own recklessness, is surprisingly common, especially among contemporary economic and political elites.
"There's a kind of triumphalism in the States right now," he says, "If you take a look at the cover story in the Atlantic Monthly lost month, it's an argument about the ability of the New Economy to get around resource limits. and it looks at the oil industry in particular. In fact the only case that the guy examines is the oil Industry, and he draws on that, he extrapolates from that, and comes to an amazing conclusion, that our ingenuity can exceed all resource limits on the planet."
But he says a growing mountain of evidence points to the conclusion that this faith is unfounded. And the conUs vs. The Brain
"Lei's start from the beginning. Let's start at ground zero, the engine of our ingenuity, the locus of it," he says. Homer-Dixon is talking about the human brain, whose history he delves into in o chapter of The Ingenuity Gap.
"I'm really struck by the work of Rick Potts, who's at the Smithsonian Institute. He suggests that the reason we·re such good generalists is because we had to adapt, when our brains expanded, between ten thou• sand and three hundred thousand years ago. That was a period of very dramatic climate change in Africa. A sharp non-linear event, perhaps caused by flipped ocean currents in the Atlantic. Human beings had to develop the ability to change their behaviour quite dro• matically as their environment changed. An ability to be a good generalized problem-solver had an evolutionary advantage."
Here he's drawing on research from a field called, appropriately enough, complexity theory. Scientists in this area try to draw insights from a variety of domains • from fluid dynamics to macroeconomics - together to gain insight into the functioning of complex systems.
It's a kind of unpredictability that, if we ignore it, may leave us with a false sense of security about how well we can anticipate what our most pressing problems will be in 5, 1 O or a hundred years. That1 s the kind of diffi· culty Homer-Dixon is talking about, o kind that may leave us and our creative, problem-solving intelligence behind.
"We now have u,e capacity to modify the planetary ecosystem in a major way, and are we now creating a world that's too complex even for our own vaunted abil· ities? I wanted people to come away with some kind of quite deep appreciation of just how extraordinary the human brain Is. But you don't say, It's an amazing lnstru• ment, therefore we can solve all our problems. It's an amazing instrument, but it may have created problems for Itself that are beyond Its capacity to solve."
Jack In, Tune Out
The concept of the "ingenuity gap" Is simple enough. Homer-Dixon takes "ingenuity" as the ability to come to grips with increasingly complicated problems by gener• ating ever-more-complicated solutions. The supply of this ability, he says, is subject to o variety of limitations, including the cognitive ones. Al the moment. a variety of factors, Including fallout from our earlier solutions to other problems, are making our problems more and more complicated. The gap arises when the increase ,n complicated problems outstrips our supply of ingenuity to solve them.
If our problem Is that we1 re better al creating problems through complexity than we are at coming up with the ingenuity to solve them, is more complexity always going to cure what ails us?
Not quite, but almost, Homer-Dixon thinks, ''It may tum out that in some cases the solutions are simpler solu• tions. But I think the general trend is toward a more complex world, with more complex Institutions and more complex technologies, a more complex relationship with our environment. And when we have problems at various times because of our Institutions, technologies or environments, we1 re going to need more complex solutions. There will be exceptions, but in general it seems that we 1 re moving in that direction. I don 11 think that1 s necessarily a bad thing."
He also worries that the increasingly self-enclosed, technologically enhanced lifestyle of rich countries is cutting ott the very signals that would prompt lJS worrying more viscerally about the pressing environmental problems that threaten us, thereby keeping us from recognizing the humbling facts about our place In the grand scheme.
Mind the Gap continued on page 18
Franz Kafka is a hooty owl ...
by Samual Becket
Franz Kalka Is a hootl A hooty-owl hoot, Each and every time I'm in Prague, I make certain I look him up. I've never actually visited him before this Interview, but I've looked him up many, many times! I looked him up In the Greater Prague Telephone Directory, the Czech Insurance Brokers Registry, the Bureau of Vital Statistics • Birth Records Section, the city and county marriage registries, Bar Mltzvah records at the Alte Neue Schul. I looked him up in the National Citizens Registry and the Department of Jewish Affairs' Master Census. At the Prague Central Police Bureau, I looked him up in the Traffic and Parking Violations Section. the Misdemeanor Section, and the Felony, Sedition and Treason Section. I looked him up on the mailing lists of the top three Czech direct marketing firms, the membership lists of all of the amateur writing clubs in Prague, his elementary school, secondary school, and collegiate transcripts, his credit reports and banking records, Special Permits and Licenses, Real Estate records, Old Age Pension Accumulation Reports, his employment records, the last seven years of his National Personal Tax reports, his uni· versity entrance exams scores. Military Eligibility and Service Records, the Danube Valley Endangered Species List. his health records, physician visit and hospital slay records, his Library records including collected and uncollected fines, his grocery pur· chase receipts, personal ads, public lavatory graffiti, animal licenses, telephone billing records, utility bills, loans, savings accounts, installment plans, mortgages, equities portfolios, magazine subscriptions, and many other lists and registries throughout Prague, throughout Czechoslovakia , and Eastern Europe.
My interview appointment was on a Tuesday at 4 p.m. in a small but well stocked restaurant a few minutes away from Kafka's apartment. Franz arrived precisely dipshit on time, asked for me at the headwaiter's station, and sat down opposite me. He didn't say a word. He just sat there and stared at me like a goddamned sick chicken - just like in his pho· tograph up there. Kafka glanced at the menu and ordered rolls, butter, and mineral water. For my part, I ordered the snails in garlic butter (they refused), stutted shrimp, pate maison, pate•cakes-bakersman, fried stuffed mushroom caps, artichoke hearts, arti· choke brains, bleu, edam, and wensleydale cheeses, vichyssoises, duck-duck bouillon, duck• duck goose, lobster bisque, gazpacho, soup madrilene, soup toreador (sang froid), hunter's soup, soup du jour, whorehouse salad, hail caesar salad, chef's and popeye spinach salads, rolls, butter, red wine, white wine, moanan wine, country crackers, backstage ham, cold turkey, tongue-in-cheek, glutton mutton, veal, roast whatsyour beef, afghanl pizza, ural chicken, sweetbreads, sauerbraten, road hogs, stuffed midget, stuffed shirt, shitta kidneys, chien saigonnaise, celestial tripe, extraterrestrial liver, stutfed quail, stuffed partridge, ]innapalre trees, tobacco smoked pheasant, browned nose, blood sausages, rolls, butter, pork chops, smoked butt, my butt, cornish hens, salmon, rounder, flounder, pike, mackerel, snapper, perch, fish·in•a•barrel, sardines and anchovies, capon, kamchatka hot dogs, lobster, shrimp creole, old crab, crab cokes, mussels ,n yellow-matter custard, clams, crawl-daddies, oysters, scallops, nun's habit-rabbit, dead dog's eyes, ham· bourgeoises quebecolses, squab, rolls, butter, horse biscuits, meadow muffins, lyonaise potatoes, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, grilled blowhards, pickled baked anjou pears, tomatoes, carrots, celery, broccoli, squash, racketball, asparagus, endives, carrots, peas, porridge hot, more peas, porridge cold, beets, more peas-par• ridge, llma-beans-in•a•pot, nine-days-old gherkin, chick peas, white rice and brown rice, cheapdrunk whiskey, pissbeer, water, Harvey's milk, soda, soda, soda, and what will you have Stan, rolls, butter, a slice of cowpie a la mode and a large large large bowl of fruit. "Feeling a bit pecklsh?" inquired this laugh-a-minute Kafka. I quickly retorted: "No, not really. I had a late lunch." Hahl That sure shut his goddamned beakl You know, I swear to god that waiter could've thrown corn or millet around on the floor for Kafka to peck up and I know for a fact that that birdbrain would be just as happy!
When we finished eating around 2 am, I decided I really didn't like this guy. so just for spite, I told him everything knew about him: everything I'd learned from every single list. Thal process took until 7:45 am. He finally got up, bleary-eyed and sick looking, and said "I have to leave now. You made me feel like on Insect." "That's loo bad, li'I buddy," I replied. "Just because you look like one doesn't mean you have to feel like onel" When he finally left, I just sot there and laughed my stupid arse right off. Then I puked. ... Marie Dressler? What the ... ? What do you mean, Marie Dressler? And owls? What about owls? This is the Rabelasian piece, right? Oh Jesus Christi
