Dear reader,
I hope you’re well, and that your winter break was a restorative time for you to relax and prepare for another easy, quick and sunny winter term at Lawrence in this caring, uncomplicated world we live in.
I had you there for a minute there, admit it.
It’s a nice sentiment, at least for anyone who isn’t paying attention to, well, anything. This term promises lots of change on campus, with the LUCC presidential election looming, mysterious construction happening in front of Warch and even some major changes coming to The Lawrentian in the next ten weeks. All this sits in front of a backdrop of conflict and uncertainty in Congress, never-ending COVID variants and the increasingly believable possibility of never seeing the sun ever again as winter settles in Appleton.
It’s an exciting time to be an Opinions section editor. Everything going on makes for lots of fascinating and important writing, and the way I see it, opinions have never been so powerful. We are inundated with data and A.I. generated thoughts on things, and it can be hard to know what to make of it all. There have never been many things we seem to be able to say with much certainty, but now even the few things we seemed to be able to agree on are being cast into doubt. Skepticism is important, and so is changing our broadly held societal beliefs, but this development is not always a positive one; climate change, for example, is real, and we do ourselves no favors by arguing about it. Still, I think it’s good to have opinions and critical thoughts about things, and the opinions section is useful for building these sorts of things. Even if the article you read seems to completely miss the mark, you’ve still developed your thinking on the topic in some way or another.
My hope is that you will see work on a variety of new topics from a variety of new writers this term. Last term brought several new hires for the section, including two cartoonists who will bring even more diversity to the sorts of things you’ll see around here, and as always, I hope I’ll hear from you as well. To me, the most important part of this job remains sharing many different perspectives with the campus community, as well as offering a platform for anyone to say a few words about something that matters to them. So enjoy reading, writing, talking, arguing, starting campfires, or doing whatever the newspaper is useful for you to do. This winter there will be no shortage of things to talk about.