Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, April 22, 2019
Zack Blumberg
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Erin White
Ashley Zhang
Timothy Spurlin
Nicholas Tomaino
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
L
ike
countless
people
from around the globe,
I
watched
in
horror
as a terrible fire ravaged the
irreplaceable
Notre
Dame
Cathedral in Paris on April
15. As the damage unfolded,
I found myself transfixed to
whatever screen was in front of
me, watching the same images
of fire and destruction over and
over again. At some point during
the day, I started to question
why I was mired in grief over
the devastation of a cathedral I
seemingly had little connection to
as a non-Christian American.
It’s this universal sense of
loss for humanity, however, that
illuminates the essence of Notre
Dame. The cathedral is a symbol
for spirituality and togetherness
that transcends time, space and
ideology. While part of what was
lost in the fire is gone forever, it’s
important to remember that the
cathedral is more than the sum of
its stone and timber. The process
of rebuilding Notre Dame gives us
an opportunity to renew not only
the structure of Notre Dame, but
the values it stands for as well.
The Notre Dame Cathedral is
one of the earliest and grandest
examples of Medieval Gothic
architecture, built over a century
on the Seine River island of Île de
la Cité. Notre Dame has stood out
among other Gothic cathedrals,
utilizing a revolutionary flying
buttress support system to soar
to 35 meters high, taller than any
Catholic church before it. The
cathedral’s Gothic architecture
has awed those in its presence
for the past 850 years, bringing
worshippers closer to the heavens
above and minimizing their size in
the presence of God. Abbot Suger,
one of the earliest proponents of
Gothic architecture, described
the effects of the jeweled altar
as such: “When … the loveliness
of the many-coloured gems has
called me away from external
cares … and that, by the grace of
God, I can be transported from
this inferior to that higher world
in an anagogical manner.”
Adding
to
Notre
Dame’s
distinction
as
a
cultural
monument, the cathedral has
played host to a great deal of
Europe’s storied history. Among
many historic events at Notre
Dame, Henry VI of England
was crowned king there in 1431,
Napoleon
crowned
himself
emperor there in 1804 and Pope
Pius X beatified Joan of Arc
there in 1909. It’s these historical
events that have solidified Notre
Dame’s role in our culture as a
place where any person, even
the most powerful, stands small
before God, acknowledging the
inferiority of our world compared
with the heavens above.
As part of Notre Dame’s
intriguing history, the cathedral
has been subjected to vandalism
and neglect. During the French
Revolution, the cathedral was
targeted by vandals and renamed
the “Temple to the Goddess
Reason”
by
a
revolutionary
state hostile to the Catholic
Church and religion in general.
Additonally, worshippers at Notre
Dame paid tribute to a woman
posing as the goddess of reason,
mocking the Catholic faith. The
targeting of Notre Dame by anti-
Catholic zealots only solidified
the cathedral’s lasting role as a
universal symbol for God’s grace
on earth.
Even
though
Napoleon
returned Notre Dame back to
the Catholic Church following
the revolutionary period, the
building was in a state of disrepair
by the early to mid-19th century.
French poet and novelist Victor
Hugo brought the cathedral’s
dilapidated
condition
to
the
public’s attention with his popular
historical novel “The Hunchback
of Notre Dame” in 1831. With
that book, the enduring legend
of Quasimodo, the hunchback
of Notre Dame, was born along
with renewed public interest
in maintaining the cathedral.
The renewed interest led to a
major restoration project in the
mid-19th century by the French
architect
Eugène-Emmanuel
Viollet-le-Duc. It was during this
restoration that Notre Dame’s
now iconic spire was added on to
the structure. This substantial
alteration illustrates part of Notre
Dame’s physical transformation
through the centuries, never
losing its core meaning along the
way.
With Notre Dame restored
to glory in the mid-19th century,
the cathedral was again ready to
set the scene for history during
the liberation of Paris in 1944.
The area directly in front of
Notre Dame saw heavy fighting
during a major uprising of French
resistance
fighters
against
occupying Nazi soldiers. When
Allied forces finally liberated
Paris, crowds rejoiced in front of
Notre Dame as the cathedral bells
rang, signifying a free France.
With the liberation of Paris, Notre
Dame again claimed a central
role in European history. It’s this
history as a place where humanity
meets the heavens that makes
Notre Dame an icon, irrespective
of
physical
changes
to
the
structure over the years.
Notre
Dame’s
legendary
status as a backdrop to history
and monument to the heavens
makes this week’s devastating
fire difficult to process. While
it appears that much of Notre
Dame’s religious relics and art
survived the fire, the losses are
still immense. The cathedral lost
most of its roof made of original
13th century timber, known as
“the forest” for the sheer number
of trees cut down for the wooden
latticework. The soaring Notre
Dame spire, an iconic element of
Paris’ skyline, also succumbed to
the flames.
Despite
the
devastating
damage,
French
President
Emmanuel Macron has pledged to
rebuild the Notre Dame cathedral
to its former glory in 5 years.
While Notre Dame will never be
quite the same, its next chapter
has the potential to live up to its
illustrious history. With societal
changes such as globalization
and migration roiling the fabric
of Western culture, the ideals of
Notre Dame are more important
than ever. More than a simple
structure, Notre Dame is a
symbol for what human beings
can accomplish when we put
our differences aside and work
together for a higher purpose.
The soaring proportions of Notre
Dame remind us all that, no matter
our worldly stature, we pale in
comparison to a higher power.
These universal ideals cannot
be destroyed by fire. Instead, we
have an opportunity to live up to
the meaning of Notre Dame by
putting aside our differences and
working together as one to rebuild
it. In doing so, we will only add to
the legacy of Notre Dame as the
cathedral rises out of the ashes.
ABBIE BERRINGER | COLUMN
What if I become a stay-at-home mom?
I
have always been raised on a
path toward a successful, full-
time career. My parents and
I have talked about it since I was
young. I am the oldest daughter with
only one other sibling who was very
ill for much of her childhood, so as a
kid I spent a lot of time as my parents’
sole helper. Living on a farm, there
was never a shortage of work to be
done, and I was expected to pull my
weight and do a good job. “We have
to go fix the fence” is still a phrase
that haunts an occasional nightmare.
My parents taught me that I could
do any work I put my mind to and
always wanted me to be successful.
As I began to excel in school they
challenged me to pursue my dreams
and always pushed me to go to college
and to have a career someday.
Yet as I went into my sophomore
year of college, the decision to pursue
a full-time career began to weigh
on me. I had spent the past year
working with first-grade students
at an elementary school in Ypsilanti
through the America Reads program
and felt an immense amount of
satisfaction from the relationships I
created with them. This experience
helped me to realize how much I
truly yearn for a family someday,
and thus I began to face the gnawing
question of what type of mother I
wanted to be.
All of a sudden I began to ask
myself: Would I feel more fulfilled
staying at home with my kids, if
financially possible? Would I feel
more fulfilled being there with them
through every milestone in their
youth, being the one to teach them
to walk, talk, read and write? While
I know so many wonderful working
mothers, and know many children
raised by two working parents who
admire them immensely and are
proud of all the skills they gained
from that lifestyle, I began to wonder
if trying to work full-time and raise a
family would be right for me or would
create the kind of family dynamic
that I want to have as an adult.
My
mother
stayed
home
with my sister and I most of our
childhood, but as we entered high
school she re-entered the workforce.
This dynamic completely changed
how our family functioned. Even
with all of us picking up more of
the workload at home with chores,
cooking and cleaning, things weren’t
the same. Now both of our parents
came home tired, more irritable and
distracted after long days of work,
missed some of our extracurricular
events and couldn’t always answer
our phone calls or be around on
weekends. The feelings associated
with this change were no doubt
accentuated by a lifetime of taking all
that my mother did for us at home for
granted. Yet as I looked back, I began
to reflect on how fundamental she
was throughout all of the seemingly
mundane day-to-day parts of my
childhood.
During my infancy, she read
and talked to me constantly as she
went about her day. As I grew older
she was able to make me healthy
homemade lunches, drop me off
at school and pick me up if I got
injured or sick. She sat with me
through hours of homework, took
my sister and I on fun adventures
in the summertime and we read
books all the time. Because of her
influence, I began watching the
news and became invested in politics
long before I finished elementary
school. I’ve always known that she
fueled my passion for history and
politics through her own, but I never
stopped to consider how different
my childhood could have been if she
had been working 40-hour weeks
just like my dad all that time. While
many modern childcare providers
provide excellent education and care
for young children, if one can afford
it (and that is a big if), I feel that these
benefits couldn’t have replaced the
strong relationship I developed with
my mother or the family values she
cultivated in me everyday.
Studies have found that children
“who spend long hours in child care
may experience more stress and
are at increased risk of becoming
overly aggressive and developing
other behavior problems.” While
competing studies have shown that
there may be benefits for children
of
working
parents,
especially
daughters of working mothers, due to
increased independence and having
a working mother as a positive role
model, others have continued to
question the importance of the role
of a stay-at-home parent. The better
economic situation of having two
incomes can often benefit a child’s
education, while the lack of parental
attention can lead to feelings of
neglect and troubled inter-family
relationships later on in a child’s life.
All of this conflicting literature,
however, hasn’t changed how I feel
about potentially staying home with
my kids. My only fear is that if I make
the choice to stay home, I will lose the
respect of many of the career women
around me. Even on campus I have
heard many young women make
negative comments about stay-at-
home mothers that concern me when
I consider that these peers will be the
women that surround me as an adult
as well.
My mother faced the scrutiny
and judgment of career women in our
communities who treated her as if
her life was easy and raising kids full-
time wasn’t a respectable choice. She
was scolded by women around her
as if she were a failure to feminism,
a sentiment that many women who
choose to stay at home claim to share.
These particular women seemed
to hold the opinion that because
women had access to work they
had a responsibility to permanently
shed homemaking and stay-at-home
motherhood all together. So much
of third and fourth-wave feminist
theory claims to be embracing the
liberal mantras of intersectionality,
diversity and inclusion, and yet they
exclude the increasing number of
women who make the choice to stay
home.
My hope is that by the time I am
in a position to make that choice, if
it becomes financially available to
me, I will have the appreciation and
respect of not only my spouse and
parents, but of the women around
me too. I don’t want to feel as if I have
failed anybody’s expectations and it
is sad to think that making the choice
to stay home and raise kids is seen as
a failure in our modern world. While
I am immensely grateful to live in a
time where I have the opportunity
to choose to enter the workforce
full time in nearly any career field I
would like, it doesn’t mean that I have
to make this choice simply to buck
traditional values. In fact, I hope that
modern America can learn to respect
families and women who still choose
traditional values and stay-at-home
motherhood instead of shaming
them the way my mother and other
stay-at-home mothers I know have
been shamed. While the choice may
not be for everyone, I know one thing
for certain: I have nothing but respect
and admiration for the work my
mother did in raising my sister and
me, and she deserves that respect not
just from me but from other women
as well.
E
veryone’s a disrupter
these
days.
Whether
it’s trying to disrupt
capitalism or trying
to disrupt how the
residents
of
San
Francisco consume
their
overpriced
juice, no one seems
to be happy with
the way things are.
However, I believe
we’ve run into a
problem
of
sorts
that there is not
much disrupting left
to do.
Netflix is a prime example
of disruptive technology. As
Netflix has gotten older, it
has become a worse platform
because everyone has tried
to disrupt the industry by
introducing more and more
streaming services – Hulu,
Amazon Prime Video, HBO
Go
and
Disney’s
recently
announced
Disney+.
And
though Netflix was the original
steaming service, since other
copycat services were created,
certain broadcast companies
have
started
pulling
their
content
from
Netflix.
I
remember when you could
watch “Family Guy,” “How I
Met Your Mother” and others
on Netflix, but today those
have all gone elsewhere – and
there is no sign this will stop.
Perhaps we are headed toward
a reality wherein CBS, NBC
and every other studio will
stray from signing contracts
and instead launch their own
streaming service and if you
just want a few shows from
each provider, you have to
buy all of those subscriptions.
Of course, once this happens,
rates of pirating content will
probably rise. This entire mess
is ironic because this problem
is exactly what was supposed
to be fixed with Netflix.
Recall that one of the original
motives behind the whole “cut
the cord” movement was that
instead of watching all shows
offered on cable you
had to subscribe to
them all – something
addressed
by
Netflix.
Uber
is
another
example
of
disruptive
technology, but in
a
different
way.
Uber worked well
because it addressed
a
monopoly.
The
reason
Uber
was
able
to
grow as fast as it did (despite
leadership being caught with
their pants down about once a
month) was because of the way
most taxi medallion markets
were set up. Let’s take New
York City as an example. In
a nutshell, the cycle went
something like this: someone
would want to be a taxi driver
and hence needed a medallion.
Very few new medallions were
released by the government
each year due to lobbying
by the taxi industry, so the
only way to start was to buy
a retiring cabbie’s medallion,
usually for enormous sums.
That
cabbie
would
then
retire on that money, so the
person who wanted to be a
cabbie would then work until
retirement and this process
would happen again. Uber
came along and removed the
need for that medallion. They
democratized the profession of
taxi driver almost overnight.
What
has
happened
as
a
result? Like most things, there
have been ups and downs —
discrimination
tended
to
both decrease and increase
with
these
ride
sharing
services, and there have been
complaints
about
Uber’s
business practices.
Uber worked well because it
addressed a niche market that
was in need of being disrupted
— Netflix did the same when
it joined the market as a
streaming service. However, as
Uber has started doing things
like Uber Pool Express, a bit
of a problem has come up. The
idea behind Express is pretty
simple: A group of people set
their destinations and then
all meet at a predetermined
spot. Then they are driven to
another predetermined spot
and walk the rest of the way
to their destination. If this
sounds familiar, then you may
have heard of a revolutionary
technology known as a bus,
which dates to 1905. The issue
with buses, however, is not
that they need to be disrupted
– it is that they need to be
better funded, among other
things.
Uber Pool Express’s problem
is that it’s trying to reinvent
the wheel and that really gets
at the banality of so much of
“disruption” and “innovation”:
it is done for seemingly no
reason (save ego stroking).
However, it makes sense that
this problem has come up —
and it is not just with Netflix
and Uber. I would argue we as
a society have run out of things
to change, and we ought to
stop pretending otherwise and
creating things for the sake of
it. This is how we ended up in
the near parody that we live
in today featuring everything
from Netflix for coffee to Uber
for private jets. Disruption
just for the sake of disrupting
(you don’t need a Netflix for
everything, same with Uber)
is tiresome. Truth be told, a lot
of things are fine the way they
are, and it would do us well to
reflect on that before trying to
reinvent the wheel – or bus.
When innovation becomes disruption
Abbie Berringer can be reached at
abbierbe@umich.edu.
What the Notre Dame fire couldn’t destroy
ANIK JOSHI | COLUMN
Anik Joshi can be reached at anikj@
umich.edu.
Dylan Berger can be reached at
dylberge@umich.edu.
DYLAN BERGER | COLUMN
SOFIA ZERTUCHE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT SOFZER@UMICH.EDU
ANIK
JOSHI