4 - The Michigan Daily -Friday, February 2,_2001
31be Sid$ign Bailg
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Narrativising the ascent into fascism
JOSH WICKERHAM Tims r WORLD
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EDITED AND MANAGED BY
STUDENTS AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SINCE 1890
GEOFFREY GAGNON
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MICHAEL GRASS
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66the armed
"Aprophets
conquered
and the unarmed ones
were ruined."
- Niccolo Machiavelli
Recognizing our cul-
ture of violence as a nec-
essary precursor to
violent rule, it's reassur-
ing that we made it through another Super-
Bowl. That faux-war machine of
commodified antagonism is just the dis-
traction we need to ignore Bush Sr.'s "New
World Order."
Pigskin keeps the violence at home,
sideshow to our ringleader's democratic
irreverence. Read Junior's latest guffaw:
"I'm about to name my brother the ambas-
sador to Chad."
Enough with the election jokes Big
Brother. All the people want is your sinful-
ly simian smirk. Let war hawk Cheney run
the show. At least he'd give us an intima-
tion of the malevolent maelstrom brewing
in the bowels of the trilateral commission.
Oh my. I'm quite ahead of myself.
The telling of the tale begins during
dinner at grandfather's assisted living cen-
ter. Conversation had run dry. Ethyl, my
grandfather's caretaker enlightened us with
a world view quite influenced by the book
of Revelation, which ecclesiastics have
since fictionalized for mass consumption.
Imagine Schwarzenegger's "End of Days"
in print.
And I quote: "You'll be sitting there
like you are now and I'll look down to but-
ter my bread and when I look up, bloop
you'll be gone," Ethyl prophesized.
"You'll just disappear."
Chewing my soggy macaroni and
cheese, I looked down to butter my bread,
hoping for the impossible.
No such luck.
Fictional Revelation-based books seem
to be all the rage in convalescent home cir-
cles these days. But according to Ethyl,
this wasn't fiction. Apparently, before peo-
ple start disappearing, the Antichrist will
unite the world under his totalitarian rule.
It's a compelling enough argument.
Machiavelli is in our blood. Neitzsche, no
fool, predicted Hitler's ascendance. Can
the Bible do the same? Is the rise of the
Overman inevitable?
Hitler didn't win the war. We did. And
how do you win a war against totalitarian-
ism? You become your enemy. You take
control.
Noam Chomsky shares this sentiment.
Our society is heading toward a more rigid
and absolutist structure, the linguist asserts.
Private media excludes legitimate public
dialogue. The everyman is nothing more
than a statistic. You are nothing but a con-
sumer, lost in a sea of bogus ideologies
pursuing created wants.
And that's the capitalist ideal: Total
atomization. Watching TV, playing video
games or otherwise not paying attention.
We can also refer to this as the great
recline of Western Civilization.
It's probably hard to imagine your
future self as nothing but an atom of con-
sumerism while you're coveted in this
tight-knit Ann Arbor community. But in
the hearts of every talk-shown and pornoed
liberty lover is a feeling that democracy is
Dubya. And that's scary. Plutocracy, autoc-
racy and aristocracy are not democracy.
While the "dumb president" is unitin
not dividing, the nation-state is disappe
ing. The ascent into hyper-modernity is
taking shape on the global stage.
But I'm hopeful for our ascent into fas-
cism. Not that I'm a fascist.
Look at the benefits: War mobilizes,
catalyzes and pushes people to the limit.
To realize the full reach of our abilities, we
need to finish what modern thought has set
in motion. Fascism can negate the modern
world by pushing our period of high
modernity to the breaking point.
And then we wake up.
"Oh captain, my captain ..." where are
you steering this ship of fools?
Dubya, trusting Jesus as his favorite
philosopher (whatever that means), is lead-
ing the charge to the gallactic millenium.
Chomsky is right. The portent is omi-
nous. You are being recruited for a war.
Now it's decision time. Are the odds
better pulling strings and playing a part in
the world charade or jumping ship
swim?
Me, I wanna disappear.
Josh Wickerham's column runs every other
Friday. He can be reached pia
e-mail atjwickerh@umich.edu.
Wait until Ed Martin
affair ends to fmd
new head coach
To THE DAILY:
To all those students and Daily writers
calling for Ellerbe's head, I have another
view for you. Brian Ellerbe isn't going any-
where, at least not until the Ed Martin fiasco
ends. Why would a high profile coach (Piti-
no, for example) come to a school only to get
their program wiped clean and scholarships
removed?
The only smart thing for the University to
do would be to wait until the Martin case is
resolved, and hire a new coach once they
know what they are dealing with. Ellerbe will
be the sacrificed once the case is closed.
IAN LANG
LSA senior
Daily must remove
Goodstein's 'pencil'
test sports skills
To THE DAILY:
Upon reading the drubbing of the Michi-
gan basketball team's staggering loss to
Michigan State in Wednesday's issue I was
embarrassed.
This embarrassment stemmed not from
our defeat however, but rather the honor and
integrity that Raphael Goodstein lacked in
the authorship of his column.
I am embarrassed that the Daily employs
someone with his lack of constitution. I think
you should take away his pencil and give him
a ball.
See what he can do with it. Michigan
State is the defending national champion.
Last time I checked, that means they are the
best team in the country. We were smashed
by the best team in the league in their gym
last year. What else do you expect? They
_
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beat us again this year. So it goes.
However, I do think it is unfair to say that
the basketball team casts a dishonorable
shadow over the University of Michigan.
Was anybody watching when we beat Indi-
ana? How about Iowa (no. 14)? How about
when we held a serious lead over Illinois (no.
7) for the majority of the game? I am by no
means saying that we have an excellent bas-
ketball team, much less a good one. But I
think we deserve some respect.
Charlie Bell's comment about State's lack
of competition is reprehensible. State may
have won, but Bell is a loser. Where is the
sportsmanship? Put Bell and Blanchard on a
court by themselves and I think Bell would
be hard pressed to make the same comment.
Bell would get hurt.
We have decent players, we are just hav-
ing a bad year. Maybe it's the coaching.
Maybe not. Give Moore and Queen and
Robinson a couple years.
Have faith, they will wow you. Fans,
don't go the way of Goodstein and jump off;
the bandwagon when the road gets bumpy.
Hang on and they will give you the ride of
your life.
JEFFREY LEV
Engineering freshman
Sanz's '80s affinity Y0
clouds intellegent,
good music taste
To THE DAILY:
In Branden Sanz's column ("All I ever
needed to know (I learned on '80s radio),"
1/31/01), he says that he soured on ra4
when Nirvana hit the air. I have to ask
why?
Because it swept in an era of bands ghat
sung about what was really going on in life?
Or because they actually wrote lyrics from
the heart rather than Ratt's "Get in our way,
we'll put you on your shelf?"
Or is it because it completely countered
the superficial transgender hair rock of the
late '80s? Obviously, Sanz has a problem
with intelligent music that is true to itself and
requires some talent to produce. 0
Grunge came around for a reason, and
that was to create smarter music fans. Sanz
probably would have hated the Beatles'
White album or Led Zeppelin's Led Zep-
pelin I. You missed out on the best music
of the last 20 years, Sanz.
NELSON LOPEZ
LSA first-year student
f
f
Grievances: Disgruntled with the 'U'
DAVID HORN HORNOGRAPHY
ur school - this
school - is dis-
graceful. Noth-
ing is quite as it should
be.
Top to bottom;
minute details to ulti-
mate purpose; academics
to semantics, the Univer-
sity has a lot of work to
do if it wants to truly realize what it claims
to be all about.
I don't see all of what goes on. I am one
student and my scope is limited.
I'm not involved in every organization; I
don't know every student and faculty mem-
ber; I don't take every class nor am I
enrolled in every college. I have spent less
than two years here, but I've seen some
things - in the classroom and elsewhere -
that trouble me and my $20,000-plus
tuition.
O.K. First things first: I lived in South
Quad my freshman year and the elevators
don't work. The elevators don 't work in
South Ouad!
friends in South Quad this year and I'm
greeted by the same thing. The elevators
ought to work just fine.
The failures don't end on East Madison
Street though. Angell Hall is a wreck these
days - and the construction is only partly
to blame. While I can appreciate the Uni-
versity's effort to renovate and expand the
principal building on Central Campus, I
have a hard time reconciling the inconve-
niences it causes.
For a long time, there was no real way
to get into the building from the Diag. Now
it's just a tiresome eyesore, and the sounds
of sawing and drilling echo throughout the
classrooms of Angell - a constant distrac-
tion.
Fix Angell, but don't do it all in one
shot. Work on it a little over the summer,
maybe some at night. But don't sacrifice a
healthy academic environment for the
expedient construction of a building.
Once inside, things aren't always better.
I had a sociology professor last semester
(class of approximately 20) who did not
know the name of a single student. He was
material. They are each an intermediary;
communication should be their greatest
asset. I have been blessed by never having
encountered such a GSI (I'm an English
major, and I'm not even quite sure where
North Campus is), but my friends tell me
that they legitimately can't understand a
word from their G.S.I.s.
Unacceptable.
We use the Frieze Building at all.
Unacceptable.
Wolverine Access. At least there seems
to be some progress being made. The
online registration arrived, and as much as
I miss the soothing guidance of the CRISP
lady, that aspect of University life is
improved. But this closing down at mid-
night business? Come on. When do th1
think I'm awake? When do they think
have time to be messing around with my
schedule? Why would a service like
Wolverine Access ever be closed?
Unacceptable.
There's much more bitching to be
.voiced but there is only so much that can fit
on this page. This is a smattering - a sam-
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