| Summary: | OPINION 5 theconcordian.org • September 29, 2016 THE CONCORDIAN jscarbr2@cord.edu After another successful Faith, Reason and World Affairs Symposium, the planning committee announced today that next year’s event will focus on America and the Middle West. Sonja Wentling, Symposium planning committee co-chair, says she is very excited for the expansive amount of information next year’s theme will offer. “Our goal is to get students excited about the topics we have selected,” Wentling said. “I know that sometimes it is difficult for students to feel engaged when learning about the Middle West, but this is a topic that hits close to home for a lot of people.” The Middle West, more commonly known as the Midwest, consists of twelve states in the central region of the United States – if people actually want to find it on a map. Wentling chose this topic because she felt like Cobbers needed to learn far more about the place where most of them already live. “You cannot become responsibly engaged in the world if you are not engaged in your homeland,” Wentling said. “The Middle West is the best place to learn about culture and such.” The description for next year’s Symposium on Concordia’s website says the goal of the topic is to “deepen our understanding of the rich and diverse history of the cultures of the Middle West and its people.” The Symposium will ignore the oppression and destruction of indigenous communities already in the region, and will instead focus on the hardships that come with experiencing nine months of winter or needing to drive sixty miles to the nearest Target. In lieu of next year’s events, Wentling’s co-chair Mike Bath says he has asked Concordia Dining Services to serve only traditional Middle Western foods for the day. The salad bar will feature more than just lettuce, including Jell-O salad, cookie salad, pretzel salad, fruit salad, egg salad, ham salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, taco salad and more. The main entrees will consist of exotic foods such as tater tot hotdish and fried foods on a stick. For dessert, lefse. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in traditional Middle Western practices. The first session is tentatively scheduled to be an hour of walking briskly around campus and asking, “How are you?” quickly enough that the questioner cannot hear the response. In this culture, the recipient can only respond with, “Good, how are you?” while quickly passing in the opposite direction. Other events include an art display in the Cyrus M. Running Gallery, which holds a variety of Middle Western artifacts. Among these are a preserved snowball from the great blizzard of ’96, half an acre of corn and a rifle. Making an event like this run smoothly is no easy task, especially when the co-chairs must practice their “Minnesota nice” skills on each other. Wentling says it is often difficult to get anything done. “We have become so engrossed in practicing our Middle Western culture that Dr. Bath and I spend most of our time offering to help one another out on a project,” Wentling said. “Next thing you know, we’ve wasted three hours trying to decide who should have the privilege of wearing the traditional Midwestern outfits of overalls and flannel.” For Bath, planning next year’s Symposium comes with a different problem: preserving the true heritage of the Middle West. “We are having difficulties trying to find speakers for the sessions, especially when areas like the Pacific Northwest have influenced this culture so much,” Bath said. “All the Norwegian Vikings have died off, I guess, so they’re no longer an option for speakers. All that’s left of the Vikings now is the football team. It’s truly a losing battle.” Despite this, Bath says he wants next year’s event to feel as authentic as possible. Can students really feel like they are experiencing the true Middle Western culture? “You betcha,” Bath said. America and the Middle West ’The Symposium will ignore the oppression and destruction of indigenous communities already in the region, and will instead focus on the hardships that come with experiencing nine months of winter or needing to drive sixty miles to the nearest Target.’ In defense of the Flat Earthers jwagner5@cord.edu In order for society to function properly, certain assumptions must be made. Every morning, the sun will rise, and every evening, it will set. If you drop a bowling ball, it will fall to the ground. The world is able to make these assumptions because everybody has experienced the sun rising or a dropped object falling. As for the reason why the sun rises or a ball drops, people generally choose the most convincing theory and stand behind it. Does a bowling ball truly fall to the ground because of gravity? Most people would agree that the existence of gravity is a proven scientific fact, but it really isn’t. In fact, gravity is just a theory. Similarly, only a few hundred people have ever been to space to know for sure that the Earth is round—yet most people accept the idea without question. There are some, however, who have an alternate theory to explain that which the rest of humanity assumes without question. These people are called Flat Earthers, because they believe the Earth is flat. Of course, there are many problems that come to mind when thinking of the flat Earth theory. The Flat Earth Society’s website addresses many of them. For instance, aren’t there images of a spherical Earth out there? Those who support the theory that the Earth is flat believe these images are fake. If the Earth is truly round, meaning the sun can only shine on one half of it at a time, then why is it that every picture of the Earth shows it to be vibrantly and hyper-realistically colored? If you look at many pictures of Earth from space, you can find duplicate clouds and other blatant photoshop anomalies. As for the reasons why the images might be fake, different Flat Earthers have varying opinions. One common belief is that, during the Cold War, when the United States and USSR were racing to space, the United States faked the moon landing. Since then, the Flat Earthers believe that the United States has discovered the Earth to be flat, but cannot compromise the legitimacy of the moon landing for fear of losing political respect and control. As such, Flat Earthers believe the government continues to release doctored photos of the Earth, despite their knowledge of Earth’s flatness. Anybody who has traveled the world in a plane might argue what seems to be proof the Earth is round: if one flies west from the United States, Asia can be reached, and if one flies East from the United States, Europe can be reached. In fact, people have circumnavigated the globe. To address this problem, Flat Earthers assert that the world is a circle, not a sphere. The countries are aligned like we know they are—all except for Antarctica, which actually circumscribes the entire planet, forming a natural border between civilization and the edge of the world. The North Pole is in the center, meaning north points inward and south points outward. With this model, one can still travel from continent to continent as if the world were spherical. Most middle school students know the Earth is a sphere because gravity causes objects to become spherical over time. With science’s current understanding of gravity, the flat Earth theory is simply impossible. Because of this, Flat Earthers believe science misunderstands gravity. All one can truly observe about gravity is that objects fall. Beyond that fact, theories govern all remaining rules. Gravity is not the only way to explain objects falling, though. Some Flat Earthers believe the Earth is universally accelerating upward at 9.8 m/s2. Others argue that electromagnetism causes objects to be attracted to Earth. Perhaps there is something to do with the falling object’s density in relationship to the density of its surrounding matter that causes it to move downward. There are many theories explaining that which the world currently calls gravity, each equally convincing to an unbiased mind. If one of these theories were as widely accepted as the theory of gravity, then gravity would seem like the abstract and baseless idea. A common misconception is that Columbus and his men feared sailing to what would eventually be called the Americas because they worried about falling off the edge of the world. The New World Encyclopedia, however, says most people in the fifteenth century believed the Earth to be round. In fact, people may have held this belief as early as the time of Pythagoras, around 500 BCE. The belief spread rapidly, and by 330 BCE, Aristotle also held the belief of a spherical world. If the idea that the Earth is round has existed for millennia, why would anybody doubt the idea today? In short, because it’s important to doubt that which we most strongly assume. As critically thinking human beings, we must question the truth of everything we hear. Scientists say the Earth is round, but unless we somehow observe that for ourselves, we simply do not know. When we begin to question ourselves, we find inconsistencies within our logic and work to fix them. The process of trying to prove that which we think to be certain is not only a rewarding mental exercise, but it also allows one to understand the thinking of others. Remember that dress that broke the internet last year? Some people saw it as white and gold, and other people saw it as blue and black; either way, everybody was positive their version of the truth was correct. The dispute over the dress became volatile enough, and it was a subject that didn’t matter at all. People are similarly stubborn about more serious issues—issues that incite hatred and war. Every time a person refuses to see the credence in another’s views, humanity divides a little more. For the world to begin to seek peace, everyone must learn to understand those who think and believe differently. Whether it’s the Flat Earth Society or a terrorist organization, until the world learns to empathize a little more, harmony will never be achieved. ‘Every time a person refuses to see the credence in another’s views, humanity divides a little more.’ Heated Debate STAMINA TRUMP STRESS EMAIL DEMOCRAT TEMPERAMENT TREMENDOUS CLINTON REPUBLICAN LESTER Editors’ Choice: Top 5 Songs that Mention Writing 1. Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend 2. Paperback Writer by The Beatles 3. Poetic Justice by Kendrick Lamar 4. Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield 5. Lady Writer by Dire Straits
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