A fair point, but I dunno. I agree with O’Connor’s conclusion-- that “Nickel and Dimed” isn’t the best reading for Freshmen-- though I think it’s a decent choice-- but I partly disagree with her reasons why.

When I started college, the entire incoming class had to read Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. I think that was a good choice-- it was a fairly simple book about American media-mindedness that lent itself well to freshman-level exegesis. Even better, we got to watch the Peter Sellers movie. Yeah!!

But the discussion we had wasn’t very spirited. It was fine, and a few people got into some pretty good debates over the greater meaning of the book, but I think it could have been a little more fun.

Which is why I’m not sure I agree with the O’Connor or the Conservatives at UNC....I’ll give you a minute… go read.

So… O’Connor calls the idea that freshmen should be discussing partisan politics “astounding.” I couldn’t disagree more. Any freshman class at any college can hold a rousing, if not openly rancorous debate on politics which I guarantee will contain more substance than Hannity and Colmes. Besides, the kids are going to spend the next four years flitting from cause to cause-- why pretend otherwise?-- so why not help to guide their educational experience in a way that might be constructive?

I think Ehrenreich’s book is a good choice for freshmen. It’s heart-breaking, passionate, and polemical. It’s thinly argued, anecdotal, and full of holes. It invites debate and discovery as freshmen brainstorm ways to defend their position. It allows students to take positions and defend them, and I don’t think it hurts anything that the discussion is inherently political. Perfect, right?

Well, yeah, except for one thing. The risk the discussion sinking to the mere level of Hannity and Colmes. To me, this would be the biggest reason not to assign Ehrenreich or her ilk. O’Connor puts it well, writing about the Conservative protesters:

The committee’s seemingly unimpeachable plea for “greater fairness and balance” in the reading program conceals a less savory jockeying for ideological position.

“It’s intellectually dishonest to present only one side,” says the group’s founder, Michael McKnight. That’s true. But couched in that demand for balance is the committee’s conservative agenda. The group seeks more balance not because balance is inherently desirable, but because of the committee’s interest, as its Web site announces, “in promoting conservative and free market ideas and perspectives on the UNC campus.” It is protesting because Nickel and Dimed gives conservative politics a bad rap. As McKnight told The Herald-Sun, “as a Christian, I was offended, and as a conservative I was really offended. It’s one thing to disagree with someone’s point of view, and it’s another thing to ridicule them.” Tellingly, McKnight frames his complaint in terms borrowed wholesale from the liberal identity politics that he and his group oppose.

The tacit assumption by both liberals and conservatives that Chapel Hill’s summer reading program is more about politics than about reading should give us pause. We ought to be asking what it means to read opinionated works as either a confirmation or negation of identity—but instead we are fighting endlessly about whose identity gets top billing when readings are assigned.

And that’s the problem. As I said above, discussing an easy target like Ehrenreich’s book does foment discussion and mixing. But it’s not very deep. Popular political debate these days is all surface, surface, surface (and hell, when has it been any different?), and maybe colleges could do a little more to encourage deeper thought. Even popular political writers like P.J. O’Rourke might be an improvement. Even better, actual literature, such as Elie Weisel, the aforementioned Kosinski, Milan Kundera, Zora Neale Hurston, or Toni Morrison might do the trick. Except maybe for Morrison, these authors aren’t very hard going, and their work inspires thoughtful discussion from many sides. Moreover, these authors are more, what the hell, collegiate than Ehrenreich and “Nickel and Dimed,” and for some student’s it’s the last elevated thing they’ll do for four years. So, I agree with O’Connor’s argument (as usual), but I do not share her conviction that a little political heat is a bad thing.

... as for the ostensibly adult people arguing about whether a book can rot the brain, for shame!

[note] Edited to remove gibberish and non sequiturs 9/4/03

Great. The facts of the main case that this decision hinged on are outrageous enough, without getting into the utterly nondemocratic, old-school-Whiggish phenomenon of one magistrate deciding the ultimate fate of a defendant. From the article:

The case that led to the appeals court ruling was described in the decision as “the raw material from which legal fiction is forged.”

According to the ruling, that “raw material” included:

• A police tip from the defendant’s mother-in-law based on her daughter’s “extra-sensory perception”

• An alleged romantic encounter between one of the defense attorneys with the first prosecutor in the case during negotiations on a possible plea agreement

• The judge imposing the death sentence while allegedly under the influence of marijuana. The judge was later disbarred.

Jeebus. The best case for jury sentencing I have ever read.

This is a good point for me to discuss why, in my political-science naivete, I am a self-described “centrist” (Buckethead would write that, “handwringing anklebiter,” and he wouldn’t be wrong). My personal ethical and moral systems make me ambivalent about the death penalty. While I am in favor of the death penalty when applied by jury to the most horrible of capital crimes, I feel it is meted out too liberally and for too many offenses. Regardless of any cost/benefit analyses which show that keeping a multiple-murderer locked up for life costs a fortune whereas killing them is cheap, I don’t like to measure life by that metric.

The point at which my support of the death penalty breaks down is where my faith in humanity breaks down. Lassiez-faire is a great idea in theory, but at some point, somebody is going to do something completely shit-headed that ruins the party for other people. Circumstances like the aforementioned capital case, which apparently hinged on psychic evidence, for example, make me gibber and howl in fury. If a person’s life is in the balance, I feel that a standard of evidence beyond “no reasonable doubt” should apply-- there should be ironclad proof. Obviously psychic evidence doesn’t make this cut. Yet, here it apparently did. Exhibit A in shit-headed party ruining.

There’s a line, let’s call it the “shithead line,” beyond which my nanny-state instincts step in and I want to buy the world a helmet. A similar argument applies to, say, capital markets, since we’re talking about capital things today. An unregulated market is theoretically “fair,” as long as all players are assumed to be rational and optimally situated to take advantage of opportunities. But neither circumstance really applies. The “shithead line” has been crossed many, many times in the last few years by companies I’m sure I don’t need to mention. On the near side of that line, I prefer a lightly regulated market. On the far side of it, I prefer the swift hammer of armed response.

However, my rational mind understands that buying the world a helmet would cost a bundle and break the bank, thereby doing more harm than the high-minded good that was originally intended. A balance must be struck between swift-hammer justice and other regulation, and just letting people do what they think is in their best interest. The constant question for me is to clarify just where that line falls.

But I digress. Regarding the death penalty, I have been heartened over the last few years to see a serious inquiry into how death sentences are given out-- first in Illinois, and now at the Federal level. Perhaps it will lead to a clarification of the shithead line as pertains to capital punishment. Life is precious, and even though I’m no Christian (and I’ll see YOU in hell), I feel that even the worst among us deserve small mercies, especially if a little more attention to process keeps innocent (that is, less guilty) people from being put to death.

Psychic evidence, indeed. . . goddamn twinkie defense rassen rissen d’hoy glaven