Newspapers / St. Andrews University Student … / Sept. 1, 1997, edition 1 / Page 3
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September 1997 3. Not to be cynicfll, but... Deconstructionism vs. Mother Theresa Two Sundays ago, 1 called my fa vorite aunt. The first thing she said was "So, when are you going to In dia?" I'm pretty used to this question, seeing as how I'm going on Neal Bushoven's winter term trip. "Oh, a couple of days after Christmas." "No. I mean, permanently." "Huh?" "Remember?" "Remember what?" "Remember when you were five and I read you that book on Mother Theresa?" "Umm...Yeah?" It had been a gruesome story, full of babies being left in trashcans and all sorts of injustice. But as a five-year- old, I had loved it. My aunt lived with us at the time, and I'd made her read it to me over and over and eventually forced my mother to read it to me at night. I'd sometimes read it myself, but what I loved most of all was to lay baek o'n the cSuch and form pictures in my heiad' asliiy aUrrt ot" my mother read it to me. "Well," my aunt said. "When are you going to take on her work?" "Huh?" "When you were a little girl, you said you wanted to go to India when you were grown and help Mother Theresa. Then you asked me how old she was. I said I didn't know. You said that she looked pretty old and that she'd prob ably be dead so you'd just go to India and take over." "Oh." There was an uncomfortable si lence. "I was just kidding." Aunt Jackie finally supplied. "Yeah, 1 know" I said. "But it still bothers me." I thought back to when I was a little girl. I remembered knowing that President Reagan was a bad man, but not being sure why. I knew that there were poor people in the world and that there were rich people in the world and that comparatively, I was a rich person, but almost everyone in America was. And I was going to go to India and help the poor people because that's what rich people were supposed to do. I was about that age when I read a book about the life of Jesus Christ and was so moved I asked my Aunt (with whom I always shared secrets) to give my life savings (twenty-five dollars) to the poor. Although my aunt preached on theperils of ^exi'sm, I was not aware of racism at all' as'a’five year^ofd'.' I re member knowing that if you were Jew ish, you didn't celebrate Christmas. Other than that, I was pretty sure it was a lot like being Presbyterian. I thought that being Catholic was really different and weird, though. And when I was five years old, I wanted to go to India and help poor people. It's fourteen years later. My complacent, almost halfway college- educated self is sitting in the computer lab, writing my enlightened thoughts for publication. I think President Clinton is a pretty good man, and I can articulate why in sentences that fall into place like little tin soldiers. I know that there are poor people in the world and that there are rich people in the world and that comparatively, I'm a pretty rich person. I'm going to India to see the native art and to take in the culture because that's what rich people are supposed to do. I know about sexism, although I haven't experienced much of it. I know about racism. I know that being Jewish is fundamentally different from being Presbyterian and that being Catholic isn't weird at all. It's a no-brainer that I've pro gressed in many ways. But I have to ask myself what I've lost. I mean, when did having an opinion on something be come more important than doing some thing? When did understanding Clinton's position on the welfare policy and how that could impact the Demo crats in the year 2000 become more im portant %an gfvmg'a poor^y on‘the> street a buck? Is telling myself that he would just spend it on liquor really enough to save him? Is voting occa sionally, keeping up on the news and considering doing charity work enough to save the world? Why, at nineteen, do I find myself arguing whether ideas undermine them selves, while the five-year-old was mak ing sandwiches for the homeless? The nineteen-year-old asks if the homeless man on the street needs a societal struc tural change. The five-year-old an swers, "No, dam it, he needs a sand wich." I have a secret suspicion that the liberals of the world squandered their political power over glasses of chardonnay and long discussions of Foucault while the conservatives were quietly taking over the government. It's just a suspicion, but it bothers me. Before I'd read Ayn Rand, be fore I even knew the meaning of the word "Deconstructionism," before I wondered the great questions of life, I had afew answers. They were simple answers, but they were answers just the same. Is it so much worse to have a few simple answers than to have ques tions and analogies.and literary refer ences and ironies and homages and al legories heaped upon each other like so many cans at the recycling center? I honestly don't know. So, I'm going to India in January. I'm going to tour around and look at the poor people. Vida Mia Ruiz told me tljiat in some villages, children will come out and beg for pens. So, I'lf give them their pens and I'll take pictures of the little children and their smiles. I'll look at art and I'll read about the govern ment and the culture and I'll feel very saddened in a fashionable sort of way, have an epiphany or two, and maybe even shed this feeling that I'm really missing the point of life. And maybe not. -by Suzyn Smith Collide with Wackiness... MaV THE, LAKE. RUN VELLOW WITH NeRT! Kill your Social Life (In Laurinburg, how much do you have to lose?) Flay the game of contract-killing designed for anyone brave enough to run amuck in public with a plastic purple chaingun. To REGKTER, coNT4a Isaac at 5353
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