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Roy Baldwin is a junior majoring in political science. He has
served two terms as an ASUN senator and this year is
co-chairman of the ASUN Student Services Committee.
by Roy Baldwin
This year members of the Economic Development
Committee of ASUN have laid the groundwork for an idea
that will benefit nearly every student at UNL: the
student co-op.
The idea is to form a consumer-co-operative that would
raise money through the sale of membership shares and would
sell products to its members at significantly lower than retail
prices.
This year we have started the work that will, hopefully,
bring the co-op' into being. Next year, with the experience
we've gained in the last few months, well be able to present
the regents with a detailed proposal, possibly by late fall.
It's important for the student community to discuss what
we want to do with our co-op once we get it going. Everyone
agrees that saving money sounds great, but we should dig
deeper to find the real reason why we should start the co-op.
The most compelling reason deserves some explanation:
Students at this university alone spend nearly $4 million
per school year. That's a lot of money, and in economic terms
it means that we have $4 million in purchasing power that we
can use in whatever way we want. Four million is a powerful
force that could be used to bring about a lot of good things for
us if we could hang on to it.
Of course, what happens is that our money gets spent
rather quickly, and any power we have to effect change
dribbles away on food, clothing, entertainment and all the
other things that people have to buy. The idea behind the .
co-op movement is that if we could devise a way to keep our
money within the student community we'd be keeping oar
economic strength to work for us as well as getting lower
prices.
If we could get together and set up a co-op bookstore, for
instance, and if enough of us bought membership shares that
would be redeemed in two or three years, every member could
conceivably get a substantial discount on books - as much as
ten per cent - once the store is organized.
If we all get together and pool our resources, we'll all save
money. That's the kind of service ASUN should be performing
for the students. That kind of service could become a reality
within a year or two, if we start right now.
Those of us working on the idea must keep one thought in
mind, though. We ought to ask ourselves why we're doing
what we're doing. Are we getting into the co-op business for
the thrill of the student community?
Are we doing it to create jobs and lower prices for students
or just because we dig hearing ''ash registers ring? Some have
been so closely involved in the project that they have begun to
think of the co-op as an end in itself. What those people have
forgotten is that the co-op shouldn't exist just to be selling
things.
If we can't have a co-op with a sense of mission, oriented
toward serving its members, we might as well not get into it.
Nobody gets mad anymore, they
"overreact." The poor are now the
"disadvantaged," and they live in
"depressed socio-economic, areas." The
dull are "underachievers," and the
hoodlum is "maladjusted."
It is an era of word sensitivity and
euphemism. Negroes are to be called
"Afro-Americans," garbagemen are to be
called "sanitation engineers," and
mailmen are to be called "postal
carriers."
Euphemisms and jargon are the ripples
and currents of a swiftly changing
culture. But language is more than a
product, or a reflection of cultural
evolution; it actively shapes culture and
thought by patterning perceptions.
The power of words is so pervasive and
rooted that few people are conscious of
it. According to philosopher Anatol
Rapoport, the symbolic nature of
language is one agent in war atrocities.
'The chemist is not torturing a child;
he is working on a scientific problem,"
Rapoport writes. "The flyer who drops
napalm bombs is not torturing or killing
anybody; he is fighting in the defense of
freedom or simply doing his job."
Language is a perceptual screen. It
classifies experience, and allows people to
perceive only certain realities, whether or
not they are deliberately rationalizing.
The most illuminating studies of
language as a perceptual grid have
compared differing cultures. One
experiment was done with Japanese
women living in America. The women
spoke both Japanese and English, and
were questioned by the same bilingual
interviewer on two separate occasions.
One interview was done entirely in
Japanese, the other in English. The .
women were asked to complete
sentences. They completed them in
distinct and unrelated ways depending on
what language they were speaking.
In completing the sentence, "When my
wishes conflict with my family's. . .", one
woman said in Japanese, "it is a time of
great unhappiness." In English, she said,
"I do what I want."
One respondent completed the
sentence, "Real friends should . . ."with
"help each other" in Japanese. In the
English interview, she completed it, "be
very frank."
. The English language is saturated with
words and expressions of time and space.
Americans "waste" time and "save" time;
they record history, pay wages and
schedule future events m units of time.
As indispensable as minutes, hours and
days may seem, some cultures conceive
time as immeasurable and Indivisible. The
Hopi Indian, for instance, has no schedule
and may spend years building an adobe
house, according to one anthropologist.
Non-spatial concepts are often
expressed in spatial language terms. Such
familiar English phrases are a "thread of
thought," "level of understanding," or
"broad interpretation." One study
revealed that 20 per cent of all the words
in an English dictionary had spatial
connotations. Such words included
"together," "distant," "under," "linked"
and "congruent."
B classifying experience, words shape
thought. They reflect and perpetuate a
culture and its values. S.I. Hayakawa,
president of San Francisco College, notes
that the labelling of ethnic groups reflects
social perceptions.
"When is a person a 'Negro'?" he
questions. "By the definition accepted in
the United States, any person with even
small amount of 'Negro blood. . . is a
'Negro.' It would be exactly as justifiable
to say that any person with even a small
amount of "white blood' is "white .'. . . the
former system of classification suits the
purposes of those making the
classification."
The English language encourages a
two-valued orientation to the world. Note
the popular assertion that there are two
sides to every question, and the
abundance of abstract opposites: good
and bad, right and wrong, beautiful and
ugly, strong and weak.
Hayakawa asserts that the Nazi
government was popularized with such a
two-valued orientation, "If good is
'absolutely good' and evil is 'absolutely
evil' the logic of a primitive two-valued
orientation demands that 'evil' be
exterminated by every means available.
Murdering Jews becomes, under this
orientation, a moral duty. . ."
Americans appear similarly susceptible
to the two-valued oversimplification.
Current liberal and conservative rhetoric
can often be reduced to sophisticated
versions of "We are the good guys and
they are the bad guys."
Words are no more than a set of
symbols with some meaningful
relationship to the real world. They are as
often the tools of misunderstanding as
they are the tools of communication.
With more complete awareness of the
power and characteristics of language, as
a perceptual grid and a communications
tool, the misunderstanding may be
relieved. The interdependence of people
in a highly-organized, specialized mass
society makes accurate icommunication
imperative for every responsible
participant.
Dear editor:
I am disappointed in Friday's editorial endorsing Rep.
Charles Thone for two reasons.
First, it was too early. Other candidates running against
Thone have not been approached by the Daily Nebraska n staff
for interviews to determine their credentials. The Daily
Nebraskan should endorse candidates after the filing deadline
March 10.
Secondly, I do not entirely agree that Thone has always
served his constituent interests. His voting record shows a few
surprises concerning his record on civil rights, employment,
education, consumer rights and the draft.
Thone in 1971 voted against an amendment repealing the
President's authority to induct men into the armed services,
and voted for a two year draft extension.
On education, he voted against a bill which would have
increased appropriations for the Office of Education. On
employment, Thone voted against a public works extension
and an increase for funds. On consumer rights, Thone voted
against an amendment which would have strengthened
consumer rights before federal agencies.
This example in consumer rights is contradictory to
Thone's statement, "Some of the little things in service work
are gratifying;. . . being able to turn around some aspect of the
federal government in favor of the constituent."
On civil rights, Thone voted against giving the Equal
Opportunities Commission cease and desist powers, which
would have given the federal commission more power to
prevent employment discrimination based on race, religion,
sex, color, creed and national origin. Instead, he supported the
administration's version, strongly opposed by civil rights
forces. Thone also voted against a comprehensive child care
bill, the Equal Rights Amendment and a bill to end sex
discrimination in higlier education.
In the words of Kathy Braeman, another nominee running
against Thone, such issues involve "human values of vital
iispertence to all voters in our district-men and women."
The Daily Nebraskan has more homework to do before it
endorses candidates this soon.
Celeste Wiseblood
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MARCH 8. 1972
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
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