4 OPINIoN Page 4 Monday, November 25, 1985 The Michigan Daily I i Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan The Zombie effect: Part I Vol. XCVI, No. 58 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board ", Girl talk MANY PEOPLE still believe it. Few would dare speak it, however. In a fit of honesty last week, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan reminded the coun- try that sexism is alive and thriving. Regan informed the world that women simply aren't interested in the issues discussed at Geneva. "They're not...going to understand (missile) throw-weights or what is happening in Afghanistan or what is happening in human rights," he said. "Some women will, but most women - believe me, your readers for the most part if you took a poll - would rather read the human in- terest stuff of what happened." Unbelievable. The fact that a man in such high office can be so blatantly insensitive and apparen- tly ignorant of the capacities of over half of the human populaton pushes the mind to disbelief. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. During Regan's tenure as Chief of Staff, several "misunder- standings" have occured between him and key female political figures. Jean Kirkpatrick and Margaret Heckler have publically stated that Regan's sexist attitude has caused them significant problems. Both women have since left their positions and have been succeeded by men. The fact is, women have shown a strong interest in the Geneva Summit. Many women's groups traveled to Geneva; women from five continents asked for a meeting with Reagan and Gorbachev. They were denied the opportunity to voice their very valid concerns. Women have organized locally, nationally, and internationally to influence those leaders who per- petuate the arms race. Women Ac- ting for Nuclear Disarmament, Peace Links, and the women's peace camp at Greenham Com- mons are but respective examples of the movement. Regan's attitude cuts much deeper than his dismissal of world- wide women's efforts, however. He has entirely dismissed their ap- titude. His statement clearly in- sinuates that women haven't the capability to "understand" nuclear arms or human rights. He honestly believes that most women are absorbed by the wardrobes of Nan- cy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev. This attitude, although far from uncommon, is inexcusable in a national figure. Women across the world are passionately involved in the push for peace. They are pushing not only for their own right to survive, but for the rights of the generations which they will bear to live 'in a world free of nuclear hostilities. To disallow women their voice and opinion, to belittle their insight goes beyond insulting to demon- strate a pathetic ignorance. By Robert D. Honigman In popular mythology there's a recurring nightmare. Something or someone invades our everyday lives. It may be creatures from outer space, like the pods in The In- vasion of the Body Snatchers, or it may be earth-grown creatures like werewolves, vampires or the Thing. At the crudest level we are brutally murdered by the invading alien, or they eat us, but the more sophisticated treatment of the myth has the creatures take over our bodies and change us into zombies. This is the more frightening dream because we become the living dead, still inhabiting familiar bodies and yet no longer the same. In Ionesco's play, The. Rhinoceroses, for example, everyone is changing into rhinoceroses, and the worst part about it is that no one thinks anything is wrong or even tries to stay human. The zombie effect is not a purely negative experience. Usually, in return for losing ourselves we gain a taste of immortality and immense power - the Faustian exchange. The Germans were mesmerized by Hitler and surrendered themselves to his awful vision. They were enraptured by the taste of immortality and great power he shared with them. Totalitarian states too produce a noticeable zombie effect. You exchange your freedom for the embrace of the state. You join the wave of thefuture, the all- triumphing ideology that promises so much and in the end gives so little. Buttall oftus make a Faustian bargain with the institutions we enter, and all of us experience some form ofnzombie effect as the price we pay for our membership. We give up some of our freedom and we gain in exchange the power and immortality of the organization. A zombie effect is a situation in which the Honigman is an attorney in Sterling Heights. individual learns to conform to institutional demands and requirements and loses sight of personal goals and values. The individual becomes a "zombie," someone without any deep feelings or emotional ties to their daily experience. They "act" their part, but deep inside is the troubling feeling that something is wrong, that they are out of touc touch with some part of themselves, a part that has other needs and goals than those of- ficially sanctioned. We know it by the technical name of alienation. Institutions like zombies because they are easier to process and control. You go to class one day, and you look to the left of you and see a stranger, and you look to the right and see a stranger, and a stranger is talking. Then you realize that you'd rather be a million miles away, but you know it's simpler to just go on and shuffle through your life doing whatever you are told. You're a victim of the zombie effect. Columbia psychiatrist Herbert Hendin found modern students deeply troubled by a zombie effect. "The students I saw tried many escape routes. The main ones moved in two seemingly different directions: one toward numbness and limited controlled experience; the other toward impulsive ac- tion and fragmented sensory stimulation." Lansing Lamont in his book Campus Shock (1979), reported that in a survey of the campuses of major universities, in- cluding Harvard and Michigan, he found widespread symptoms of social maladjust- ment, cheating, racial mistrust, crime. "What shocked me most, however, was the numbness, emotional as well as moral, that I encountered everywhere." It isn't hardto create a zombie effect. Students are isolated and broken down by immense loads of academic busy-work; harrowing grade competition; narrowly specialized training; chaotic housing and transportation conditions; a lack of privacy and long term community; a widely dif- fused and confusing course structure that assures no two students will share more than one class together. Only the institution will certify them as reliable and highly skilled technicians and allow them to pass on to other large scale institutions. There is massive coercive pressure to create cheap, efficient, reliable human machines. And in the end, students succumb. "It is not the idea of being programmed that bothers them," Hendin found, "but of being badly programmed. They envy machines." But it's more than machines that the creature wants, for in every zombie movie, the creature sucks the life blood out of its victims in the process of converting them to a zombie. And the central fact about the university is that funds are shifted out of undergraduate education to support and subsidize graduate and research programs. Undergraduate education is sucked dry of resources for the benefit of institutional growth and development. This is not a conscious effort to exploit students, but rather a preoccupation with institutional competition and prestige. In fact, I doubt if faculty and officials ever realize how much they use and manipulate students. Officials point to exciting ex- perimental programs, like the Pilot Program and the Residential College. The institution wears a human face .In~ describing 'total institutions,' Erving Gof- fman once noted the prisons always have a 'model cottage' that they show to visitors. And a creature like the University has to appear to be kind and generous or it would lose its power over people. That's why in the best zombie movies nothing is what it seems. The university says, "Power and status are the only good things. Weakness and failure are the only bad. Give us your lives for these things." All of us want the good things in life, or none of us would have gone to a university, but unless we realize that a bargain is being struck with a more power- ful and selfish adversary, we may not make the best deal we can. We'may discover that we've gained what we want, but lost what we need to remain human. Wasserman TM NOTr GETTING EN1OU&A' HELP WiTh TTW 4 y I WE WANT TO TM AW1TR I ~M E.DUCGfloN v1 .., N4AND IT OUT AS . V UCERS BUT TI4A WON'T AD UP To A.NY MORE MONEY WILL IT ti UN~... WOULD &oM-SOPY I SLP -rNIS WD WIT" 1NIS, EDUCATION. )q , _I _1 l_. J u J t y v'at w - 7 i G:. :L< vs-t L'S1 . ... LETTERS: Whitewash resolution alert! A MOVE on T WO WEEKS ago, the Philadelphia chief of police resigned - an indication that mon- ths after the May 13th bombing of the MOVE house that left 7 adults and 4 children dead and 60 houses burned to the ground, there are still many disturbing and unanswered questions about the bombing. Initially, the media and Philadelphia public officials agreed that MOVE was a group of crazy radical fanatics that con- stituted a public nuisance. When MOVE's neighborhood went up in flames, fire officials and the mass media claimed that MOVE put gasoline on its own house and lit it. The follow-up investigation of the MOVE bombing has received little media coverage despite the sen- sational coverage of the siege and the bombing itself in May. Since the initial consensus to blame the victim, fact after fact has emerged to paint an ugly picture of a savage bombing with possible political and racial motivations. First, the New York Times reported that the bomb dropped on the MOVE house was an "incen- diary device." Today, though Mayor Goode denied knowledge of it and says he would never have approved the bombing of a house, it is clear that police dropped a military charge on the house. When the fire went out of control fire nfficials rennrter that thev away gasoline from the roof of the MOVE house before police executed the bombing. Water can- nons fired tens of thousands of gallons of water at bunkers on the house in the heat of the siege only to be shut off after the bombing. In the investigation of the bom- bing, other interesting details came out. The police officer who dropped the bomb on the house refused to testify for fear of in- criminating himself, but police have said that the MOVE bombing was premeditated. It had been planned a year in advance. It turns out the mayor rejected the idea of using a crane to knock down the MOVE bunker. The crane idea would have cost $6,500, which Goode considered too much. Police pumped 10,000 shots into the MOVE house. Recent autopsies show that two children died from shots while escaping the fire. While police deny that they shot the children, there were no shots by MOVE members after the bom- bing. Despite the razing of 60 houses, a poll of Philadelphians in May con- ducted by Time magazine showed 71% approval of Goode's handling of the bombing. Perhaps that 71% would think differently now if it knew the details. Unfortunately, because the facts about the bombing have dribbled out over a period of months, the To the Daily: The University of Michigan has a set of guidelines concerning classified research. The rules state that no U of M researcher may participate in a project that is directed toward the destruction of human life, or the results of which may not be released within one year of completion. Last summer, for the first time in thir- teen years, the Research Policy Committee (which oversees the classified guidelines) rejected a project. The proposed project Prof. Tanter submitted would have been unpublishable for more than a year. The guidelines became a stumbling block. This fall, in order to deal with this problem, the regents appointed a twelve member committee to review the classified guidelines. This may sound O.K., but as the committee decided last week to close all their meetings (possibly even including two "public hearings"), in violation of the Open Meetings law, it begins to look more and more like a whitewash. President Reagan's SDI plan (Star Wars) calls for 28 billion dollars worth of research, much of which could not pass the present guidelines. President Shapiro feels that we at the University of Michigan need to do this research and get this pen- tagon money. In September, without even one minute of discussion, the regents passed a resolution encouraging UM researchers to pursue SDI con- tracts. In October, only one regent and no Pres. Shapiro showed up at the Star Wars con- ference that was attended by over 1000 concerned faculty, students, and community mem- bers. The next committee meeting is this Monday at 5:30 p.m. in the second floor conferen- ce room of the administration building. Invite yourself! This is an important issue. It, like the summit (which is also stumbling over star wars), deserves coverage. -Dan Archist November 20 Poor question framing Labelling excesses To the Daily: You recently printed a letter condemning Zionism as racism that typified the inadequacy of such a position. While addressing the real need for a solution to the Palestinian problem, the letter failed to provide the nexus bet- ween racism and the political ideology of Zionism. One of the tenets of racism is separation predicated upon im- mutable characteristics. While the notion of a Jewish State does not call for separate treatment, even if it did, the source of that distinction would be unrelated to racial characteristics. The only benefit that Jews enjoy is the Law of Return which provides for immediate citizenship upon en- try to the country. That is no more radical, in terms of a secular democracy, than the adoption of the date of the birth of Christ as national holiday. Furthermore, the State of Israel has always guaranteed equal political rights to her Arab citizens e.g. the right to vote in Parlimentary elections. The population of the West Bank is willingness to address the other party as a human being who is equally.interested in coexisting. Both parties to this conflict have been guilty of substituting labels for real human problems. Maybe it's time the author of the previous letter works toward a solution instead of perpetuating the conflict. Meanwhile, we are encouraged by the recent positions of the Jordanian and Israeli leaders in moving towards direct negotiations. -Steven Lupovith David Medow November 20 BLOOM COUNTY To the Daily: Good journalism begins with the ability to ask good questions. Unfortunately some times the Daily fails on this account. An example of this problem was the recent inquiring photographer question, "why do you hate Ohio State?" To ask this questions presup- poses that one does indeed hate Ohio State. Only one of those asked had the common sense to challenge this presumption. I don't believe that journalism must be objective to be good, but I do think that consistency is im- portant. The Daily claims to strive for objectivity. In pursuit of this goal it even tries to bar its reporters from participating in political events, even if the repor- ter is not reporting on them. The Daily's claims of objectivity sound hollow in the face of such a leading question. One might argue that I've missed the point, that the question was funny, a joke meant in good clean fun. While hate of- ten starts as something meant to be funny it is not good clean fun In asking "why do you hate..." the Daily promotes hate. This time it is our team hates your team, and it's part of a game. But what happens when it becomes our race, our creed, or our coun- try hates you and yours? The game becomes racism, political oppression, and war, or in' the case of the United States and the Soviet Union the game become an arms race that threatens ou entire planet. There is a connec- tion between "why do you hate Ohio State" and "why do you hate the Russians." -Gala Kile November 21 by Berke Breathed MR. SG't. 5c077Y ? //-23 W6..W '?W (aNrAWM6P MOfMA7A6i6~Thrg6 MOM r~coRnf ,5."qk /a AO jI a- wgtt rvu IYIA'K OFqAl M5 dc/5r Pn.qWeT, 1,1'r7W SSW 5Uta. W1IrOCr 7W \ CAMpr IN. tI: C'q7!RVOWM. AR( o- YU / F s Z4/ AN J 3 ia ----------- Q- I I