Friday, March 6, 1998
Ignore people who challenge our ability to make a difference
When I read that four crazy French men, while dressed in black, abducted a Ronald McDonald statue from a restaurant in Southern France, I was appalled. On the next page, Saddam Hussein is hiding biological weapons from the United Nations. "Oh well," I thought.
Lou Tran (lbt104@psu.edu) is a senior majoring in mechanical engineering and a Collegian columnist.
To an otherwise unsuspecting student body, I have recently discovered
the identity of the salesman who propagates this morose feeling
of "not knowing where you are headed." His name is Mr.
Sizely.
He has had a grip on us ever since we started watching TV, reading the newspaper and trading stickers. His specialty is desensitization and desecration of everything sacred. In his dealership office, he encourages followers to call him by his first name, Profit. Ironically, he has attained the status of grand high profit. It's almost a religion he's got going although there is no such thing as rabbi, bishop or ayatollah, just profit.
It goes something like this. When watching a commercial on starving
children in Ethiopia our first instinctive reaction is to hop
on the next Boeing 747 and fly to Africa. If that isn't enough,
you might also call the number on the screen to subdue the stinging
left from the slap of conscience that was just dealt.
This is Mr. Sizely speaking to you. He wants you to fly to Ethiopia
only to find that the average person makes $120 a year and that
the average life expectancy is a whopping 47 years of age.
At this point, you realize that the $2,000 you donated can really
only support 16.6 Ethiopians for the year in a country of 55 million
people, according to The Addis Tribune.
That's when you know you've been had and your plans are defunct.
Your small contribution is unfortunately lost in the grand scheme
of things.
Profit Sizely makes you feel like anything you do in the world
really doesn't matter.
However, it wasn't always like that. For example, Mr. Sizely didn't
really exist back in the Middle Ages during the time of city-states.
Early medieval society was rural and local, with the farm serving
as the characteristic social unit. An average person would probably
grow up in a village or city-state and then die in the same area.
The difference is that there was motivation for people to make
a difference in their community or world for that matter. If you
fixed a leak in the town hut, people knew. Problems were centered
on a more local scale and the actions by people in the community
were noticed.
It's not to say that the world was a better place but problems
were on a more attainable and less global scale. Nowadays, we
open the paper and are faced with issues that we can't do anything
about.
Ultimately, we surrender to a feeling of hopelessness and sense
of futility. In fact, it's almost easier to forget about worldly
problems and just graduate to support the capitalist regime of
covetousness.
In the new testament by grand high Profit Sizely, he says that
the world is too large for anyone to make a difference and that
all we should be worried about is making money, losing money and
getting our hub caps stolen.
But don't share this indignation. With the greatest solemnity,
I must proclaim that students resist the intoxicating fumes of
Mr. Sizely. Instead of succumbing to the social proclivities of
trying to think globally and conquer the world, why don't we just
think about making a small difference locally?
The proceeds are globally donated in the end result. That's why
teaching is such a noble and respectable profession because it
is truly giving back to the community. Get involved with Habitat
for Humanity or a local soup kitchen once in a while.
Therefore, what are you really going to do about the problem in the Middle East? Probably nothing. But there is something you can do about stopping the local Frenchmen from stealing Ronald McDonald. Start a petition.
