2008 Woodie Awards
Too much polarization in bake sale name
By: Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: Forum
Despite all they can do, computers only understand ones and zeros. Something either is or it is not; there is no in-between.
We are fortunate our forefathers sought to limit our actions, not our thoughts. They granted the freedom to think, without fear, without restriction - which means we also have the freedom not to think.
By their admission, the real problem with the College Republicans' Anti-Feminist Bake Sale was that not quite enough thought was put into its name. Yes, it would have more appropriately been billed as the "Anti-Extreme-Feminist Bake Sale."
The problem facing our country on a much larger scale - and the same problem that I believe caused the misnomer of the bake sale - is polarization.
These days, we can only be for abortion or against abortion. For corporeal punishment or against it. For feminists or against them. All of the presidential candidates are attempting to push us toward being for or against many things.
The imbroglio of absolutes is steadily robbing our culture of its intellectual freedom, diversity and a certain bounciness - the three wonderful qualities intrinsic to American life, which I find surfeiting every single day I work here at the University.
As much as I wish the College Republicans had put just a bit more thought into naming their event, when was the last time a demonstration hijacked a bake sale?
I can't think of a better example of intellectual freedom, diversity and, indeed, bounciness.
Humans are capable of much more beyond the "for or against" mentality. We are not computers and know that between one and zero there are innumerable gradations, an infinite amount of gray area.
It is precisely these questionable places, the spaces between the absolutes, where the purity of our human existence is proven again and again.
- Bo Butler
Materials Management Unit Supervisor, Jerome Library
We are fortunate our forefathers sought to limit our actions, not our thoughts. They granted the freedom to think, without fear, without restriction - which means we also have the freedom not to think.
By their admission, the real problem with the College Republicans' Anti-Feminist Bake Sale was that not quite enough thought was put into its name. Yes, it would have more appropriately been billed as the "Anti-Extreme-Feminist Bake Sale."
The problem facing our country on a much larger scale - and the same problem that I believe caused the misnomer of the bake sale - is polarization.
These days, we can only be for abortion or against abortion. For corporeal punishment or against it. For feminists or against them. All of the presidential candidates are attempting to push us toward being for or against many things.
The imbroglio of absolutes is steadily robbing our culture of its intellectual freedom, diversity and a certain bounciness - the three wonderful qualities intrinsic to American life, which I find surfeiting every single day I work here at the University.
As much as I wish the College Republicans had put just a bit more thought into naming their event, when was the last time a demonstration hijacked a bake sale?
I can't think of a better example of intellectual freedom, diversity and, indeed, bounciness.
Humans are capable of much more beyond the "for or against" mentality. We are not computers and know that between one and zero there are innumerable gradations, an infinite amount of gray area.
It is precisely these questionable places, the spaces between the absolutes, where the purity of our human existence is proven again and again.
- Bo Butler
Materials Management Unit Supervisor, Jerome Library
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