Chris Banyas

Editor-in-Chief

In the intervening weeks since the conclusion of the fall semester I have accomplished many things, but I am most proud of  finally reading Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” the consequences of which were far reaching.

Over the course of two sittings I ventured into the lives of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, Avdotya Romanova Raskolnikov, Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin, Porfiry Petrovich and Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov, among many others. 

As my eyes fluttered along the last few lines of the story I felt a great disturbance in the force, which we will come back to in a bit as that also features prominently in the story of the last weeks of my life.

I quickly snapped the tome shut, hoping to stave off the spread of the contagion I already felt spreading throughout my body, to give those around me a fighting chance. The book seemed to float from my hands toward the rapidly blurring floor as I slowly moved, more fell from my chair into the bed where I remained for quite some time…

I was as idle as a painted man clinging to a painted life raft upon a painted ocean.

I found myself experiencing the very same feelings Fyodor made light of towards the end of his story, only along the corridors of my mind rather than the gloomy grim Russian avenues.

“He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity ‘on a square yard of space.’ Towards evening this sensation usually began to weigh on him more heavily.”

I came to briefly, shivering and shaking from the fever dreams, the mattress soaked with sweat. I was conscious long enough to take in a film in an effort to ease my mind, another piece of art which had long been staring back at me from my bucket viewing list:  “Solaris.”

Not the George Clooney remake, but the 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky original in all of its 167 minute glory.

I remember the darkness closing in somewhere near the end of the third act. The alien ocean swirled and churned beneath the station under the eyes of the occupants, atomic and neutrino alike. I next recall standing in front of the gilded map of the world hanging above my bunk, fingernails splintered, broken and bleeding as I tore at the region marked CCCP.

Wracked with pain my body convulsed, contracted and clenched before disgorging bloody Cyrillic characters onto the floor. 27-letter-Russian names surrounded me, rising up from the piles of still dripping characters, arranging and rearranging themselves into an impenetrable wall which slowly closed around me like a collapsing concertina, driving me back into the brush strokes of my life raft.

Sometime later I found myself being wheeled into a cinema by a burly mustached man sporting white smocks and a surgical mask. 

What better way to right the wrongs of the body, he said, than to take in a film.

It worked so well last time.

Had I said that out loud, or merely thought it. Was he listening? Did he hear me?

As the opening scrawl of “The Force Awakens” entered and quickly exited my limited field of vision along an invisible wall of some sort before disappearing into the inky abyss, I sat bolt upright in bed.

If someone were to write an opening scrawl, a briefing on existence for the world in which we find ourselves today, a sort of elevator pitch for those being deposited by the stork, what would it say?

Surely it would contain much of the same dire language and perhaps even a glimmer of hope as the above mentioned passage contained for the characters inhabiting that world, but how would it differ?

To return to the image of a man floating upon a painted ocean, consider an observer looking down upon him through the confines of a telescope, effectively creating tunnel vision.

This myopia would largely define the scrawl preceding the existential initiation new beings would receive upon reaching Earth, in whatever fashion pleases the imagination best.

A wise man once said: “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

We live in a time that, in reality, is no different from any other time before, in which sentient beings are largely obsessed and preoccupied with changing things for the better. Whether or not you buy into Randian philosophy, and the selfish/selfless issues which arise, I believe this to be true.

The problem lies in the sewing of the “good” intention, when what is reaped is far from what was imagined as the seed was devoured by the Earth.

I present to you my observations.

One of the greatest issues facing the world today is a lack of understanding. Whether this manifests in a Parisian shooting, the invasions of foreign states, or other violent acts, consider what is being done in reaction:  direct military action is taken on a state level over the course of which massive collateral damage is inevitably inflicted, laws and acts are passed in an effort to keep weapons away from “dangerous people” in a preventative measure, masses of civilians utilize social media in an effort, at least in their eyes, to empathize with those suffering with hashtags referencing Muslims, terrorism, and everything in between, and leaders directly address nations in efforts not dissimilar to the sentiments contained within those hashtags.

Yet none of these half-measures have come anywhere near hitting the nail on the head, or rather driving the nail through the head of the hydra, and are instead trying to pin down one of the symptomatic tendrils trailing behind it.

Dr. Heern is a recent addition to the history department at ISU, and I was fortunate enough to take his class: Middle Eastern Civilization, where I developed what I consider to be perhaps the greatest educational asset I have attained in my time at ISU, namely a significantly greater understanding of Muslim peoples and Islam.

Do you understand the Shia/Sunni divide?

Instead of dropping bombs on people, why aren’t we mandating every student be enrolled in a course like this, to better prime them for the world which they will be entering? For the future.

Not to better face an enemy, but to better see the roots of the misunderstanding and to better be able to approach the situation.

The same can be said of the educational system in Idaho and the nation, from primary school through higher education.

No Child Left Behind was one in a long line of attempts at treating the symptoms of a problem, which will undoubtedly continue to manifest under different names.

A system has developed under which those who want to help students are ground to pulp before being removed.

Why do we have problems with education? Because our priority is not the future, but the present.

Consider ISU. I have many mixed emotions about the institution I have spent the last six years inside of. I believe there are wonderful aspects of the university, which you will find in press releases and reports spoon fed to media outlets, but there are also voids and divisions rapidly undoing any good arising from the strides forward.

In many ways policy makers undoubtedly have best interests in mind. Whether or not those best interests are their own and their kind, or the masses is not clear.

I won’t bore you with conspiracy theories, rumors, whispers or things that might have happened, as again, if no one is willing to speak out about something, it did not happen.

The silence is deafening.

Anyone who presents a case to you in black and white is a charlatan, and this is not my intention. Things like the STEM and CPI programs at ISU absolutely show promise, and for many offer educational illumination.

I believe, much like the man upon the painted ocean floating beneath the giant lense, ISU is similarly viewed by those who control it. The painted ocean is instead a painted university, distorted and irregular, blurry and out of focus from the viewpoint of those gazing down from above through their instruments.

Are there patches of paint which accurately capture the truth? Undoubtedly. However there are also great swaths which do not, and the ants which populate the educational terrarium inside these can only tolerate the focused beam of light from above for so long before bursting into flame.