01 4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, January 17, 2002 OP/ED Cbe fib~uaz~ 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 daily. letters@umich.edu NOTABLE QUOTABLE EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 GEOFFREY GAGNON Editor in Chief MICHAEL GRASS NICHOLAS WOOMER Editorial Page Editors We just never know what may pop up in these times, so we are getting prepared." \i" r.." 1'?oyr . c .. ,ut ecs umicti. ed t O. _ l ,t. 4 av Q..A-%a CG. AN . -" - I. -.1 . . Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. - Jamie Levier, spokesman for the state police in Punxsutawney, Pa., home of the annual Groundhog Day extravaganza. Levier spoke in response to the presence of National Gaurd troops and bomb- sniffing dogs at the event as part of the government's counterterrorism measures. F '(he -_ essbence. of Pio -otno~4 +*%0 r) What is Postmodemism? JOSd WICKERHAM ' THiS swemms WORLD he kids always come up to me and say, "Josh, what is Postmodernism and why are you so keen on it?" And I say sit down, because it's a long answer. So sit down. It's time for a bit of retro insanity, baby! First of all, Postmodernism is a moniker for the historic moment we live in. Yet, despite your first impulse to label the "post" a prefix for "Modernism," Postmodernism does not come after Modernism at all. Mostly, the prob- lem was that theorists thought the new multi- centered modes of thought associated with this way of perceiving would replace Modern dom- inance quicker than it did. No such luck. We're still stuck playing monkey games, as Mod- ernism's cocaine snorting, Jesus worshipping dynasties lay modern, hierarchical ways of thinking over the newer distributed power structures (like the Internet) which by their very nature dissolve boundaries and present the possibility for collective uplift into a higher domain of being. Crap, I'm tired. This means the current historical moment is just as much Modern as it is Postmodern. The sequential ordering of everyday events in our chaotic world has been only partially displaced by the connectivity of electric media. Postmod- ern enthusiasts want that displacement to go all. the way. So the postmodern esthete blurs cause and effect. Instead of thinking about sequence, the postmodernist sees simultaneity. Instead of the active, we have the reactive. Our information comes in droves. And all of these have been more or less known since the early days of media theorist Marshal McLuhan, Andy Warhol's soup cans and the beehive hairdo. "The past as prologue is dead," wrote Joan Did- ion in the tumult of the '60s. The mechanical meathead mentality has been driven under- ground and organic technologies ride high in the cerebral cortex, which we've begun to appreci- ate once again as our center of being. Despite the loss of effect that most of us feel living in the Modern or Postmodern historical moment, the self is supreme. Centuries of individualism, driven by phonetic alphabets, omnipresent egos and the fact that we can never be certain that another person is having the same experience, we are having, have landed us here. We used to be tribal, and now we travel. In order to understand Postmodernism's coexistence with Modernism, we must grasp some definition of Modernity to proceed. Soci- ologist Anthony Giddens describes Modernity as the "modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the seven- teenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influ- ence." Christianity, conquest, science and the pursuit of external truths have been the hall- marks of Modernity. Postmodernism decon- structs them. Observe this Postmodern pedagogy: The Romantic period: Here comes the bus. The Modern period: Look, it's...a bus! The Postmodern period: "There" "goes" "the" "bus" "." We've become bored, knowledgeable of the fact that as soon as something, in the words of A. N. Whitehead, takes on "the formality of actually becoming," it is almost instantaneously out of our control. Things even more quickly become tarnished, changed, disintegrated. Whether it's an idea, the latest weapon, or the newest fashion, repetition is vogue. Beck had it right, you know. We live in "some dead world that looks so new." Quite bogue, if you ask me. I'd almost rather run naked, but it is cold out- side. The second mistake people make with Post- modernism is to say that it is some kind of phi- losophy. That's like saying consumerism, yourf job, your television, or your body is a philoso- phy. These are not constructs to help us come to an understanding of the world. They are givens in this space and time. Postmodernism is about observable effects. It is a sensibility. You either are or you ain't. You're either happy with power structures and being left out of the story, or you make your own identity. That's not to say you believe in your own identity, nor do you believe in the identity that others have lain upon you. Cognizant of the fact that our political leaders (student government prez and vice included) go through "political makeover" sessions and Hillary Clinton credits her political success with pantsuits, it's easy to become cynical. We're asked to believe a lot of bologna. That's why public relations people are employed. Postmodernism asks you to decon- struct these narratives to get at the meat. Trust me. You'll thank me and your therapist will thank me! Postmodernism in the academy can be used by almost any discipline to describe a variety of phenomena. My first contact with it came when I was doing an archaeology field school at a 2,000 year-old American Indian site. At our lunch breaks, "postmodem archaeologists" (as if . they exist) would always get a chiding from my professor and the field assistants. "Postmodern archaeologists don't care about cataloguing any- thing. It makes no difference to them if the fire- cracked rock is found two meters or two centimeters below the surface. The historical narrative is dead, they say." What my professor didn't understand is that the death of a narrative does not mean the death of history. Postmodern simply realizes that what is here and now is all that we really know. To the extent that we can legitimate our own feel- ings, we can get beyond the schlock served up by college graduates who have nothing better than to make things like Billy Bass, the singing mounted fish. To the extent that we can put our- selves forward in the face of uncertainty and fear, perhaps we'll break from the cycles of late capitalist pastiche that have come to dominate our lives. But I am, as I can only assume you are, exhausted. We're running out of configurable material space. Form? Function? What's the dif- ference any more? If you're exhausted like me, try to imagine something beyond a postmodern time and space. Then you'll knowwhat post- modernism is and why we must press its agenda to the limit, exhausting - whether in our own minds, or in our physical realities - all that this sensibility has to offer. Maybe then we can move on. Josh Wickerham can be reached via e-mail atjwickerh@umich.edu. Y LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Y VIEWPOINT Be fair but practic BY RACHEL ROTH Apparently I was the victim of racial profiling because I was stopped in the airport. Young, white, American girl with dirty-blonde pigtails - an obvious security threat. I was pulled aside immediately. They took everything out of my bag. I shed my jacket, vest, long-sleeved shirt, sneakers, even socks, and stood barefoot in my T- shirt and jeans as they banged my shoes, frisked me and ran a metal wand over my body many times. There was a conference over whether I would have to go into another room to take off my pants because the zipper was activating the metal wand, but they handed me back my now- scattered belongings and set me free. Do I resent it? Well, I would rather not have to arrive at the airport at 5 a.m. for a 7 a.m. flight, but you do what you have to. I am not sure if these checks are the best way of guarding against terrorism - after all, there were no official secu- rity breaches on Sept. 11 - but we must try to do something. If trying harder means being random- ly chosen to have my shoes checked, so be it. It does seem a little ridiculous that children, fami- lies, people in wheelchairs, are stopped, but this has a good reason. We want to make sure as well as we possibly can under the circumstances that no people, regardless of nationality feel threatened or unwanted by the United States. The only rea- son that everyone agrees that random checks are not only acceptable but necessary is for this rea- son. It is only natural for people to categorize, to use facial, linguistic, or ethnic characteristics to place individuals in groups. Compartmentaliza- tion is a very human way of thinking. This is nei- ther always good or always bad. When justice is nhcr rp , by .a m ivcinn_ ha i er; nil an evil thing. However, now that we are guarding our country, we must use every piece of informa- tion which we have about our would-be attackers in order to defend ourselves. Meaning that a sin- gle Arab man traveling alone is naturally more suspicious than a Dutch child. A few days ago, a Muslim woman was pulled aside and made to remove her headscarf. This was offensive to her modesty. If the soldiers made her take it off right where she was, then they did something insensitive. In the case I read about, however, the woman was'lead into a separate room, and with only her and another woman in the room, was asked to remove it. That is much more appropriate. Ideally, I wish that we could let her just walk through with no hassle, but it is important to security that any pocket, cloth fold, or bag that could conceal a weapon must be checked. The same day that this woman was stopped by the airlines, 75-year old U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) was also pulled into a separate room and asked to strip down to his boxers. His artifi- cial metal hip had set off the detectors. The point is that America is trying not to hurt anyone's feelings while still being realistic about protecting its people. Examining Dingell seems stupid, yes, but it is America's concession that eth- nic profiling will be used only when it makes sense. And in the aftermath of Sept. 11, it often does. To ignore clues we have about terrorist identities may preserve our total equality and free- dom ideologically, but it could be signing our own death warrant. All the equality in the world is no good if America can no longer safely exist. MSA ignored lack of information To THE DAILY: Wednesday's report ("MSA passes resolu- tion in favor of detained local Muslim leader" 1/16/02) regarding Tuesday Night's Michigan Student Assembly meeting grossly misrepre- sented my comments during constituents' time. Not only was I not the only constituent who voiced concerns about the wording of the Had- dad resolution, I clearly stated that I supported the resolution in principle, but that I could not support it on the merits because it had some fac- tual inaccuracies, much like Tomislav Ladika's report on my comments. Moreover, I thought the funding was not a necessary component. His report only gives further evidence to my con- cern that many students rely on misinformation and unfortunately do not have the proper facts to make the decisions the resolution asked the assembly to make. I would like to add that I am very proud of the event the sponsors put together on Wednes- day night on such short notice. A deep discus- sion and education on civil liberties is greatly needed, and they brought in excellent speakers to do so. I would like to commend the AADC and the American Civil Liberties Union for their hard and speedy work on this excellent pro- gram. ERIC FELDMAN LSA Senior brutal and were holding two evangelical Ameri- cans for possible execution. Casting aside that the Sept. 11 attacks were years in their planning, and granting Woomer's hypothesis that bin Laden may have been led by reports of a U.S. resolve to attack Afghanistan to launch his own strike on the U.S., why would bin Laden, by no accounts a stupid man, think that "pre-emptive- ly" striking civilians in the U.S. would do any- thing but make an imminent attack on Afghanistan an accelerated certainty? Second, the only evidence Woomer offers of prior U.S. knowledge of Sept. 11 is the strange suppression of evidence resulting from the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui. Is there any reason to believe that the evidence in Mous- saoui"s laptop would have predicted the Sept. 11th attacks, or even evidence that was con- tained in that laptop would have made any sense to investigators prior to the attacks? I understand that there is some credible evi- dence that the U.S. government may have known of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor before it occurred. At least the geopolitical motives of that era are better understood. Surely Woomer can appreciate the profound internal shift that would have to occur for most of us to accept the notion that our own government would willingly allow the killing of thousands of its own citizens for murky policy goals that could theoretically have been achieved at far less cost and effort. While Woomer may have already made this internal shift, most of us have not and we're going to need far more com- pelling evidence than what he's presented to us to even consider it. RAJA RAGHUNATH Law student Pregnancy centers. provide alternative To THE DAILY: Th Tlilv A+, l "Tn,,tA o 1e cumstances, such as being unwed. And yes, unlike Planned Parenthood they don't tell women that they need to have an abortion and ask for $300-$700 as payment. Crisis Pregnan- cy Center volunteers do whatever is necessary in order to help their clients through their preg- nancy and continue emotional, spiritual and material support well after the baby is born. What does Planned Parenthood do? After they sell the vast majority of their clients an abortion and take their money they tell them to "have a nice day." They could care less about women. And by the way hundreds of millions of dollars go to Planned Parenthood via federal tax dol- lars, while nothing goes toward crisis pregnancy centers. The other main problem that I have with the Daily's editorial is its claim that by promoting "Choose Life" license plates the state of Michi- gan is tacitly opposing abortion. Is the Daily pro-"choice" or pro-abortion? If you are pro- choice then it should have no problem with the new license plates since "choosing life" is cer- tainly an option that a woman can "choose' according to the laws of the state. But, of course, hard core pro- "choice" supporters, such as theDaily are only for one choice - abortion. Choosing life is a valid choice and women who find themselves in difficult circum- stances do notralways have to kill their unborn child, however much you and the greedy doc- tors and their affluent supporters want them to. ANDREW SHIRVELL LSA senior The letter writer is president ofStudents for Life LETTERS POLICY The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from University students, faculty, staff and administrators will be given priority over others. Letters must include the writer's name, phone number and school year or University affiliation. The Daily will not print any letter that cannot he verified. Ad hominem attacks will not be i This 'conspiracy' lacks content Roth is a member of the Daily's editorial board. She can be reached via e-mail at rmroth@umich.edu. To THE DAILY: Nick Woomer ("A conspiracy theory worth discussing," 1/16/02) is suggesting that high- ranking elements of our government were so