IT'S AS if many of us live in a hole. As easy as it is to become completely absorbed in the University community, it is no surprise that many of us are unfamiliar with the topics introduced by following headlines.
"Middle school fight leads to shooting" (Detroit Free Press Sept. 27). "On Thursday ... the Food and Drug Administration approved RU-486, otherwise known as 'the French abortion pill'" (Time, Oct. 1). "Bush gains on Gore with inroads among college grads and older voters" (Newsweek, Oct. 1). "Yugoslavs begin protests to press Milosevic to quit" (Detroit Free Press, Sept. 27). "Buoyed by win over Giants, Redskins turn their attention to Buccaneers" (The Washington Post, Sept. 26).
Who knew? With the notable exception of the Redskins news, a significant number of University students probably are reading about these issues for the first time. And even if many of us have read similar headlines, do we really know the stories behind them? We live in a community composed primarily of people between the ages of 18 and 22. Many of us go through entire days, if not weeks, without interacting with any older adults, save University employees. And many of us spend entire months without looking at any news media with the exception of The Cavalier Daily.
All of the headlines above, whether pertaining to national news, international events, or politics and the upcoming election, have the potential to influence our lives. So it is odd that so many of us know so little about what is going on outside the University community. Political analysts, particularly in election years, spend a significant amount of time bemoaning voter apathy, particularly among young voters, as a significant factor in national elections.
Not all college students, however, are apathetic -- many are just unaware. It is easy to avoid any and all news media. Newspapers cost money, something most college students are short on. Computers are used for e-mail, word processing and Napster. Televisions spend more time tuned to MTV or ESPN than CNN or C-Span. And when was the last time anyone listened to an AM radio station? With all our media outlets occupied, many of us hardly make the effort to seek out news coverage.
As easy as it is to tune out national or international news and politics, it is important to remember that the world extends beyond Rugby Road, and that there are places further away than Hereford. As college students, and particularly as University students, we have the privilege of living and learning together in a unique situation, which is, in a lot of ways, removed from the "real" world. This privilege does not obliterate the responsibility of social and political awareness.
Things like the approaching national election will have an immediate impact on our lives. The other topics introduced by the aforementioned headlines will have a less immediate, but still significant, impact on our lives.
Political unrest in Yugoslavia, and the potential U.S. involvement in the conflict, will influence international politics, which, in turn, influence who we choose to lead the country. The approval of an abortion pill has already altered the national debate about abortion, and has the potential to change the way sexual relations are viewed in America. The ongoing school violence highlights a growing and dangerous trend, which, unchecked, could influence whether or not your children are able to attend school safely.
And the Redskins' performance will dictate whether or not you can tell your grandchildren you were a fan way back when.
As college students we are in a very unique situation. It is easy to forget about the rest of the world. We are also in a unique position to affect change. Concretely, we are old enough to vote, and to represent youth perspectives to an arena dominated by 50 year-old white men. More abstractly, college is meant to educate us and prepare us for adulthood.
A large part of that preparation should be instilling the ability to make informed and influential choices. This ability cannot be reached if we refuse to be informed of what is going on in the world around us. So switch from the Instant Messenger screen to a news page for a few minutes and climb out of, or at least poke your head out of, the hole in which we all seem to live.
(Megan Moyer is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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