I wrote a column a few weeks ago criticizing what I see as the corporatization of higher education, specifically at our University. Part of what made this article work was the clear sense of outrage I directed at various parts of the giant machine that occasionally provides us with instructors and a classroom. As I received feedback, however, I became aware that things are more complicated than they seem. The bookstore, which was never my target, received the majority of the post-article ire. That’s unfortunate, but also illuminating. It’s easy to write small articles from a position of unbending moral authority and divide the world into spheres, one black and the other white. It’s even easier to go through life like this.
Instead, I prefer the color gray. Things are never clear-cut. It is important to write with care because carving up people and things into those sharp, antagonistic colors unfortunately leaves a series of jagged edges. I prefer my tiny world to be more rounded, if muddier.
Those of us who put things in the public sphere for consumption have a particular obligation. The seven evil corporations that rule the world and control the media we consume have allowed us to temporarily nudge public opinion in whatever direction we find important. This was once, I think, a sacred duty, but it seems like this is no longer the case. It’s difficult to write about anything in a clear way without taking some license to ignore a counterargument or complicating factor.
It isn’t just writing that has taken on this black and white dynamic; it’s larger factors in our society. Political polarization, sports rivalries and class divides have only grown worse as everyone has grown more sure that they’re right and everyone else is wrong. No one has all the answers, but no one ever admits that. The implications are far-reaching. What do we do in the absence of the prepackaged moral values most of us have been taught since birth? Is there some way to create a new framework for how to think about deeply contentious issues?
One thing Republicans and Democrats may agree on is that mainstream media is not in the business of providing truth or social value, but rather of clawing some percentage of market share away from competitors by whatever means necessary. Writers Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee would not approve of the current rush to mass-produce media that exhorts us to engage in whatever social justice movement is the flavor of the month, and they were white men who knew a thing or two about disenfranchisement. Outrage usually does a good job of increasing page views and a bad job of everything else.
So, be careful and be more forgiving. Disagreements are not indications of a person’s moral value. There’s no reason to believe this over anything else that gets put on the internet, but remember that media inherently has spin. The issues are more complicated than they originally seem, and the only way to wade through the mess of hot takes and op-eds is to doubt everything and form your own conclusions. Well, either that or nihilism.
Drew’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at d.ricciardone@cavalierdaily.com.
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