g. t. anders

My uncle gave me a 35mm camera. From it I learned the finer distinctions of light and shadow and the grainy music of film. I had never taken pictures that looked more beautiful than real life until I learned to balance aperture, exposure, focus, and natural color.

What could be more beautiful than a walk in autumn-sun-dappled woods with a full roll of film? Only a walk in frigid barren woods too cold for snow when the dull colors of the trees defied the wind-chill.

The camera caught it all. Some of my shots came out bad, and you could say I wasted a lot of money; but the gems were worth it. Oh, there were gems.

In a desperate drive to get out of dodge, flying over potholes and tramping through the March mud, I forgot my camera. In the woods I found muted colors: the artist had arranged it all so that even in death, the organisms would sing in symphony.

It was not a camera that I needed, but the eyes he had given me before my birth.

A quick overview:

http://www.ohioverticals.com/blogs/akron_law_cafe/2011/02/ohio-senate-bill-5-abolishing-state-collective-bargaining-rights/

I can understand the outrage: the bill boils down to a forced pay-cut for public employees.

Maybe it’s just my annoyance with the shenanigans of college professors, but I don’t mind seeing their union broken. Profs have it good even without a union. I work a mildly-technically-demanding job for $11 an hour with no benefits, and I manage to keep up with my apartment, my car repairs, and my taste for good food. Even after the passage of S.B. 5, college profs will remain comfortably above my current station in life.

Profs: deal with it. I can.

But outrage over S.B. 5 points to a deeper problem in our culture. An economy not based on the production of real value must eventually come to a day of reckoning, right? Profs may contribute intangibles to society through their broadening of young minds, their teaching of the arts, their inspiration of students; but intangibles have nil economic value.

Who helps the economy more? The farmhand or the professor of English literature? The electrician or the professor of music history? The architect or the professor of women’s studies? Of course all such disciplines have cultural value that can’t be measured in dollars and cents; but when the dollars and cents are missing from the state piggy bank, something has to give.

Higher education will survive Senate Bill 5. If professors value their contribution to culture over their own economic gain (which they must to remain consistent with what their skills contribute to culture versus to the economy), they will make sacrifices and continue teaching because it’s their passion. If they care about their own wallets more than their intangible contributions to culture, then they should seek jobs that contribute tangible value to the economy–in essence, they should receive what they give and give what they receive.