Like most of you, I was not pleased when ASU President Michael Crow and his cronies forced the recent 2.75 percent convenience fee upon us. I realized there would be objections, followed by a lack of response from Crow. This would, in turn, be followed by students sucking it up all over again. I was further enraged as I imagined Crow bringing in more cranes and closing more roads on campus, all at student expense. The anger was building inside of me.
Thankfully, the folks at "The Daily Show" gave me some perspective. Jon Stewart had as his guest Bill O'Reilly, the host of "O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News. What followed was almost like an epiphany.
At the outset, Stewart asked O'Reilly about the reason for his anger. Stewart contended that his guest ought to be happy with a successful career as a TV anchor, radio talk-show host and author. O'Reilly replied, "There's a lot of wrongs we have to right in this world."
Stewart then challenged O'Reilly on the his continued boycott of France over its opposition to the Iraq war. O'Reilly replied in the affirmative, inviting boos from the audience. Not use to being challenged, O'Reilly thundered, "Are you people from Marseilles?"
He booed the audience, accused them of being wine-drinkers and said the French "are our enemies. What is the matter with you?"
Stewart then delivered the knockout punch by breaking it to O'Reilly that France did not really matter. Comparing the land of Chirac to Marcy from the Peanuts series, Stewart said O'Reilly's misdirected outrage was wearing him down. Stewart's basic point - that being angry over France solved none of the really major problems we face - applies to real life ,as well.
It is true, Crow seems like he would not lose a single opportunity to rob already cash-strapped students. However, there are far too many Michael Crows of the world to let them anger the rest of us and distract us from what is really important.
As our lives become more and more episodic, people want to get the best deal possible and move on. If they fall short, it is seen as a major disappointment that calls for grief, anger and frustration. Things that would otherwise pale in the backdrop of the bigger picture are magnified.
Let us go back a few months. Remember the Christian Legal Society fight? To go back even further, remember when ASU big shots declared war on the First Amendment just because this newspaper carried a picture of an exposed nipple?
When the aforementioned debates occurred, they created ripples across campus. The intensity of the debates were justified, given that the underlying issues went to the heart of rights we treasure.
What we could have done without was the fact that everyone took things too personally. The issues became bigger than they should have been. When people get too upset over an aggravating issue, the issue itself takes a backseat to the disagreement.
While the issue itself could be easily solved, it is not easy to soothe everyone's collective egos and tempers simultaneously. As the problem becomes more intense, we get angrier and shriller.
Opposing France does not bring Iraq any closer to peace, yet it does help O'Reilly get angrier. Unfortunately, there is no next step after getting angry. (I have yet to find an example of where pure, unadulterated anger helped solve a major problem.)
When debates have the intention of moving forward rather than making anger itself the cause, solutions are more likely to be forthcoming. Otherwise, we risk looking back and wondering why we were so agitated over something that, perhaps, appears less important today.
Nishant Bhajaria is a computer science graduate student. Reach him at nishant.bhajaria@asu.edu.
