Best Comment - Dan Hewitt - Vision

YORK VISION

COMMENT&DEBATE

Tuesday November 11, 2008

COMMENT & DEBATE

SAMMY COWLEY

Y

USU goodie bag clutched in your grubby little hand you sweep a greedy eye over the proceedings of Freshers’ Fair. Looking for a free slice of Dominos pizza or even just a handful of jellybeans you realise with delight that York is rich with dynamic and diverse societies. What a wonderful world you’ve entered. Except this isn’t the case. Quality over quantity and whilst York is not exactly thin on the ground when it comes to societies it has always struck me just how pointless many of these groups are. Last June saw the ratification of two new additions to the throng; Ladsoc and Tanning Soc. Apparently York’s students weren’t content to tan or to even be merely young and male without an organised committee, YUSU money and YUSU approval. Where is the need and more importantly where is the justification? The Tanning Soc Facebook group has 104 members. Did these people really spend their previous years at York

"even the members of Fusion gain skills beyond how to look good in a white hoodie..." bemoaning the fact they had no society to promote their fake-tanning exploits? Would they even have joined if the two pound membership didn’t supply you with some excellent freebies and the chance to drink yourself orange via VKs at Tru? Whilst the society is obviously a bit of fun, and a chance for the enterprising founders to save on their fake tanning bills I see it as a further example of the student bubble that protects our lives at York. I am not, in anyway, against University Societies, indeed I delight at the puns provided by the likes of CasSoc and Soc Soc. They speak an excellent message of inclusivity. Any budding journalist can submit articles to Vision, learn the skills needed in the journalistic world without the same risks of the real world; even the members of Fusion gain skills beyond how to look good in (and keep clean) a white hoodie. Where it all starts to get a bit patronising is if the aim of your society is almost solely to bring together like-minded students. Put 10,000 people all of the same demographic into 200 acres in the middle of Yorkshire and the chance of not bumping into at least one person who shares your passion for Disney or Douglas Adams is a statistical improbability. The Student experience is clearly one of regression, we take mid day nights, we survive off a nursery food diet of egg and soldiers, baked beans on toast and yes, apparently we also need a social organisation for every single one of our interests, otherwise we can’t and we won’t make friends.

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Socially impotent and awkward. But does swearing enhance the cool factor of Politics lecturers? Vision's Dan Hewitt is not convinced...

DAN HEWITT

S

wearing has long lost its ability to shock and offend. My mum rang me recently to tell me of how my younger cousin of only 3 said the word ‘shit’ at a birthday party and had the entire room in hysterics. It seems the public humiliation of a smack round the arse by your parents no longer applies and instead my younger cousin is apparently encouraged to use swearing as a comedic tool to gain praise and attention, working the room at dinner parties with his perfected pronunciation of various expletives. But though my younger cousin appears to be aware of this decaying language institution and its inability to provoke controversy, it seems York’s Politics lecturers do not. For it seems Politics lecturers still subscribe to the view that swearing equals popularity; that somehow by dropping in the odd rude word here and there they

will gain the adoration of their students, who sit in awe of this uber-cool individual and their lack of care for socialetiquette or educational standards. “ L o o k at this guy in his hi-tech walking shoes and woollen polo-neck jumper putting his finger up at the system! I sure hope he’s in Ziggy’s tonight.”

"Hobbes apparently didn't give a 'fuck' about Republican perceptions of liberty..." Swearing lecturers are I’m sure present in other subjects, but in Politics it has got the point where swearing is being used at completely inappropriate moments in a deluded attempt to appear “down with the kids.” Thomas Hobbes apparently didn’t give a ‘fuck’ about Republican perceptions of liberty, he thought they were all deluded ‘wankers’ with ‘shit for brains’,

that kind of thing. In their vain attempts to appear “with it” they ironically create a David Brent-esque moment in which the lecture hall collectively cringes, as said professor takes a short yet noticeable glance

"A David Brent-esque moment..." from his notes to check whether his rebellious act had gone down as well as the image in his head had promised. This doesn’t happen in other professions. The doctor performing surgery on your broken leg doesn’t ask the nurse to pass him the ‘fucking scalpel’, in the same way that High Court judges don’t describe the jury’s verdict as a load of old bollox. I fear that in an ironic twist this comment piece now contains so many examples of bad language that I myself am attempting to appear cool to you, the reader. Although I do indeed crave such a reputation, my intention is not to promote such

a perception but to argue that we don't care how 'hip' our lecturers, but that they are good at their job. And I mean come on guys, get with the picture. Swearing is yesterdays news. If you want to earn my respect, you'll have to perform some sort of live broadcast on URY in which you phoned my grandmother declaring your intentions to do the dirty with my sister , and subsequenty be forced to resign by University authorities. That’s what we’re into these days.

Fresh from Accident and Emergency with a broken elbow, Harry Pearse answers the age-old question: which student paper should you read? whose memories are unsound, a crucial decision lies ahead of you. Delineating and solving campus’ most important dilemma; which paper to read, are an important

HARRY

PEARSE

T

here is obviously an issue of partiality here. Raised on an insalubrious diet of rubbish lager, Efes and Vision throughout my university career, I’ve nurtured a nostalgic affection for, and dedication to the above commodities. Yet even under intense scrutiny I believe that this quintessential York University troika objectively justifies my high appraisals. Naturally, the joys of cheap beer and sweating kebab need no additional explanation; almost everyone I know has at one point had their lives enriched by either of these precious indulgences. However, both have little in way of competition. The £1.50 pint in Gallery has no rival equipped to refresh and rejuvenate at such low cost. An Effes Special Burger is an inimitable culinary delight. Fact. But, ones journalistic appetites are superfluously catered for in our campus bubble. And, with the year now fully underway, the administrative rigmarole of supervisor meetings and course enrolment etc are no longer a distraction. So, for the freshers out there, as well as our returning darlings

task. The different options are stark, reflecting, I think, the interesting student taxonomies exhibited here in York, to which I have referred on previous occations.

"Campus

politics is boring. The ducks are more interesting than YUSU's machinations..." In the interest of fairness I spent last week desperately entreating members of other campus publications to produce pieces to accompany this one. I offered them these very pages to extol their own brand, and provide you with a more balanced appraisal of York’s student journalism. Regrettably, I received nothing but rebuttals. Naturally, without a sparing partner a fair and considered discussion of the options available is impossible. (I find it unfathomable that people with pretensions to journalism would forego opportunities for the exchange

of views in the interest of reaching conclusion or consensus). Nevertheless, I feel loath to leave the University's inhabitants in a position of ignorance. Therefore, I will seek to briefly encapsulate what this paper does and doesn’t offer you. Let's be clear on one thing; campus politics is boring. The ducks are more interesting than YUSU’s machinations, and the equitable distribution of paperclips are of no significance to anyone. Consequently, when YUSU’s upper echelons convene to talk about the events of the previous few hours, the Vision office does not implode. We don’t have news editors whose lives are fortified by the Matt Burton’s edicts, or ‘contributing writers’ whose only means of entering a suffocating journalistic fraternity is by decamping to the YUSU offices and setting up a live feed. So, if it's regular updates of university administrative particulars you’re after, you’ll have to look elsewhere. A concomitant absence is of a stylistic nature. Apart from Vanbrugh’s chair, we try to limit Vision-’Important People’ intimacy in order to facilitate a necessary degree of detachment. Being the puppets of Alex Lacey and Charlie Leyland, (names I procured with great difficulty as most people don’t know them), would make the paper insufferably dull. Irreverence and humour are more easily achieved by not being bedfellows with those one reports on. (Regarding Matt Oliver, we mainly talk about football or his gross college negligence.)

Acting as the propaganda arm of certain societies, (Fusion?), has tarred particular publications with the brush of self-satisfaction. We at Vision are amicably reconciled to our ugliness. But were we beautiful, would not have the chutzpah to advertise that fact. Vision’s main function is to ensure that the foibles, amusements and disasters of campus don’t go unnoticed. Demystifying financial crises or offering rationales for overseas military intervention are the preserve of national newspapers whose staff are better able and better positioned to attend to such tasks.

"Students are more interested in who has recently fallen in a bin or accidently caught on fire..." University newspapers, steeped in blind emulation, and devoid of irony, have woefully misjudged their function, and forfeited their potential appeal. When leafing through campus papers, students are more likely to be interested in who has recently fallen in a bin or accidentaly caught on fire. Superimposing national news templates and formal journalistic conventions onto the workings of a student population is a mistake. As a community we don’t accurately reflect ordinary populations so treating us as such is silly. Ergo- I like Vision.