Public complacence disheartening

I had an interesting non-confrontation in the Benedum computer lab last week. It was Friday,… I had an interesting non-confrontation in the Benedum computer lab last week. It was Friday, the day my column runs, and I was sitting at a terminal getting some work done. I glanced over to my left; the kid next to me was reading The Pitt News. He flipped through the paper rather quickly, reading bits and pieces from the day’s stories. When he got to the opinions section, he turned to his friend and said — and this is paraphrasing — “This Karim guy never talks about anything.” He promptly moved on to the sports section, not seeming to notice that I was sitting right next to him.

I find this gentleman’s physical nearsightedness to be fantastically metaphorical. Just as he failed to recognize my adjacency to him, so too did he fail to see and understand why the issues people like me talk about are, in fact, important.

He represents to me a paradigm of the average American citizen: indifferent to the world around him. People like this don’t take action for themselves; they assume that someone else will take this responsibility. One doesn’t have to look far to see it — just look at the dismal rate at which suffrage rights are exercised in this country.

I don’t take such attacks personally because I know that opinions are subjective. This lad — and anyone else — has the right and validity to disagree with the substance of my arguments. But that is not what is at issue here. People like him seem to think that issues like government corruption, corporate greed and social inequality are “nothing.”

It is certainly not my intention to appear an arrogant fool, nor do I wish to front a know-it-all image. I certainly am not. I’m just one boy trying to open eyes to the big picture: reality.

As displeasing as this sounds, my job as a columnist is not to entertain readers. My main focus this year was to improve the content and substance of this newspaper. I wanted to help to purge some of the frivolity and perhaps even elevate the scholarly level of this publication. It’s an uphill battle because of the general apathy of undergraduates, though I am definitely aware that there are people out there who truly care to read and discuss important stories.

Writing columns that students don’t consider drab or boring is pretty easy. I strive against that because letting readership influence my writing is a form of corruption. If someone chooses to read an opinion — a perspective — he does so at his own will, for the purpose of enlightenment. It isn’t up to the writer to coax the reader with interesting anecdotes or crafty storytelling. It doesn’t serve the public any benefit to dumb down content just to create an appealing appearance.

Someone has to represent reality. In society, there will always be people who choose to be blissfully unaware of reality — it’s very much like Plato’s cave allegory or the movie The Matrix. I feel nothing but sorrow when people reject reality simply because it is too much of a mental burden.

To be informed is to be in control. It’s difficult for many to understand that they’re being controlled through their ignorance, or that society conditions us to preoccupy ourselves with petty material things. To have a hand in running things first requires critical awareness of our environment. Ideally, everyone would be informed enough to have a representative piece of control.

The world is growing increasingly crazier on a daily basis. Americans overlook the rapid escalation of nuclear armament in this country, a blatant precursor to an inevitable ill-founded war with Iran. U.S. contractors in Iraq unscrupulously steal money portioned off by our government for “rebuilding Iraq.” They get away with it because the U.S. law that prosecutes such action only applies to the U.S. government, not foreign ones. People are utterly indifferent to news that President Bush played an integral part in the Valerie Plame leak, even after he declared that whoever was involved in the leak should be put in jail. The list goes on and on.

While the country sleeps, politicians and businessmen are running the show. They are committing — and getting away with — actions that should be perceived by rational people as being ridiculously corrupt. But since no one seems to think that these are important issues, there is no resistance to their nefarious ways.

Karim wishes you a prosperous summer. He can be contacted at kab85@pitt.edu.