Reacting to the Tom West "Dairyland" piece

Tom West

Did you come across the Dairyland Peach commentary on UMM? Shall I assume it commanded your attention instantly? 

We can sense some candor dripping through in this piece. Whatever else the guy lacks in reason - will get to that in a moment - he is willing to be like the boy who says the emperor has no clothes. He surveys UMM's state of affairs in the year 2022, shrugs and then gives a pretty forthright reaction to it all. 

So what I'm suggesting is that he is not blinded by the usual party line talk about the school. Live in Morris for a while and you learn the talk. How to encapsulate it? Start with the word "outstanding." Then get out your thesaurus, list some other like words. 

It is always nice to be "positive." But it ought to be in the eye of the beholder. Any school that focuses on the liberal arts can present itself as being up in rarefied air. How can you knock such instruction? Seems virtuous on its face. 

UMM has been a cog in the local economy, to be sure. So there is an instinctive impulse to reaffirm what the school has historically stood for. So I'm assuming that if you read the December 2 "Dairyland" piece, you were struck by how it seemed so unfettered. In effect, there are problems or issues here and we must not be constrained in how we address them. Such pure logic. I laud this piece on these terms. 

It does go horribly wayward at the start, unfortunately. Another paranoid Republican, this guy seems to be. Donald Trump has taught them well. Constant sense of victimization. It is nearly their brand now. Maybe they can cheer up by collecting the new Donald Trump trading cards from the web. The grifter wants money for this of course. Alex Wagner of MSNBC says all you need to do is "right-click and then copy/paste" with the images. 

All Trump wants with this is attention. I'm helping him right here. 

 

Steve Sviggum

Sviggum's alleged sin

The writer of the Dairyland piece is Tom West. Looks like an old coot. He sympathizes with Steve Sviggum right out of the starting gate. Poor Steve is a victim of "virtue signaling," I guess. Mr. West says all Sviggum did was "ask an impolite question." 

All things being equal, it is best to be polite. So Sviggum should not have suggested that our UMM may have "too much diversity." It's simply asinine, and one needn't be applying virtue signaling to assail it. 

As far as I'm concerned, West is the one engaged in virtue signaling, as in Republicans having a monopoly on virtue - "we're beyond criticism." You know what would shake a lot of these people up? If Trump actually gets charged with something. Or if his top lieutenants like Mark Meadows or drunk Rudy Giuliani get charged. Really, it would cut them down to size, make a lot of us start to wake up. As it stands, Republicans cannot take criticism. 

West says that Sviggum's question re. UMM "gives the political class a chance to do what it does best: signal its virtue (as opposed to solving society's problems)." 

Republicans have been on a tear with trying to solve society's problems, these problems including abortion, pornography and free speech. Mike Lee and J.D. Vance are leading on the pornography front. Lindsay Gramm wants social media companies to be licensed by the Federal Government. He has a reason: social media can hurt young girls. Silly rabbit, regulations always have "reasons" behind them. Part of the longstanding Republican brand is to rail against regulations. Right now they seem pretty charged up for promoting regulations and limiting freedom. 

So Tom West thinks "the political class" (as if that did not also include Republicans) is to be pooh-poohed because they think they are right and the others are wrong. This is the essence of political discourse: one side saying one thing, the other disagreeing. So West would address me with scorn if I simply pointed out that Steve Sviggum was asinine in talking about "too much diversity." 

 

Erred with articulation

Certainly a man of Sviggum's standing could have refined his words better. He could have spoken more in terms of being skeptical of affirmative action or other policies that might be seen as putting a thumb on the scale. That's fair enough, reasonable. But too much diversity? As opposed to what? Well, as opposed to what Sviggum's suggested norm would be: a white bread student population of the type that has prevailed in outstate Minnesota for a long time. He subscribes to the Norman Rockwell depiction of America. People of color would be seen as novelties. We accept them but we also know who's in charge. Let's not disrupt the apple cart. 

Let's be clear: the U of M Board of Regents is a landing zone for long-of-teeth, basically washed-up state politicos to keep their name in front of the public. So, Wendell Anderson, Dean Johnson. A quick re-cap: Johnson got in trouble because of someone's little tape recorder. The late Anderson's fall is better remembered. Hubris? 

Now we come to Steve Sviggum. First the Regents tried fooling us by announcing to the media that he had "resigned." Silly rabbit, not really. Though the headlines blared as much - and I had one good friend get fooled - Sviggum did not resign from the Regents, he only resigned as vice chair. 

West says " 'racist Republicans' has become a mantra for some progressives." Listen Mr. West, we progressives do not bite. We are reasonable people, so stash your delusions. We are reacting to Sviggum's words in a most logical way. 

Nothing too crazy for him

West thinks "progressives have become more shrill." Compared to what? Compared to Donald Trump? Compared to Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz? This "clown show" is going to stop being funny if dangerous policies get pushed through. 

Senator Graham has called for his "national abortion ban." Wouldn't a lot of men be concerned if pornography got removed from the Internet? Good luck with such an effort, really. 

The Internet is stronger than all its would-be adversaries, the censors. If consenting adults wish to have sex, have it filmed and have others watch, who cares? I'm actually part libertarian. Perhaps it's people like Mr. West who want to see "big government." 

Too bad I have to navigate through all these noxious weeds before getting to West's points about UMM. That aspect of his writing is really like fresh air, way too scarce to observe out here on the prairie. So he has no blinders on re. the campus. West talks about declining enrollment not only at UMM but also at the U's Duluth and Crookston campuses. He notes "the Morris shrinkage is the most severe."

The numbers he cites: 1,946 in 2013, 1,068 now. Heaven help us if we didn't have diversity, eh? 

I have said all along we should all adhere to the melting pot principle. Hence we would not pay attention to our differences at all. But academia decided long ago it did not like the "melting pot." They opted instead for diversity with all its complexities. Academic people like to make things complex. We have a multi-ethnic building on our campus. It was the music building when UMM was born. 

 

"Little Marshall?" No

Hell's bells, I should've reported higher up in this post that Southwest State University has an enrollment of 8,700. That's the figure West gives us. What would our town of Morris be like with 8,000 students at UMM? I guess the campus is really only tailored for 2,000. And now the number is half that? Talk to UMM-oriented people and they will almost always say our real enrollment number is lower than the official one. A major question has to do with separating out students that may not be on-campus. 

Are the satellite campuses of the U really a headache to the central administration? That's how West assesses things. 

Easy to love this place

Should we exist or shouldn't we? Back in 1960 we in Morris stood as the "winner" in getting our U of M branch, as we overcame the interests associated with south of here. The cheese stands alone? Not really, not with Southwest State U, what my father once called "little Marshall," having 8000-plus. Not so little any more. 

West wisely cites the elephant in the room in connection to UMM: the squeeze or the financial pressure on liberal arts institutions. More people are re-assessing such studies, he says, and I'd add that the cost of college is another elephant in the room. Does liberal arts have enough value?

OK, to give West credit as something other than a reactionary old Republican coot: he writes "perhaps Morris should expand its offerings in the sciences and market itself as a technology hub." 

It's true that the late Chancellor Jack Imholte would roll over in his grave, yes, but times change, they really do. West goes on with more fine-tuned proposals for Morris. Fine, we can weigh all that. But maybe the time has come for the firm resolution that "the status quo is not acceptable." Get your heads out of he sand, pilgrims.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com