In May 1941, Kurt Vonnegut was an opinion columnist for The Sun. Under Well All Right, a column he shared with others, he wrote, “Sometimes it isn’t as easy as it might seem, this business of discovering the real news in the news, for there are all kinds of devices to submerge it.”
What an apt sentiment for the Internet Age.
My new column, Campus Dialectic, will not teach you how to find the “real news” in the news. But it will show you where I see it.
When I joined The Sun, I thought that I would find truth in the lens of a camera. I started as a camera operator and video editor, hoping to learn the visceral trade of disfiguring temporal bodies. My inexperience led me to pursue the truth through a more familiar medium: prose. Later my freshman year, I began writing film and music reviews and soon became one co-editor of the arts and culture department. My first column, Elfbar Ideology (to be concluded!), was an exercise in cultural criticism that dealt with my generation’s tendency to sacrifice for others over themselves. I thank Elf for showing me that valuable work can be done in the opinion department, where Campus Dialectic will call home.
I wonder if Vonnegut, who would go on to assume my same title of associate editor, appreciated the privilege to read every opinion that the campus community brought to The Sun during his tenure. I feel a special responsibility to put today’s opinions in conversation, to pull them deeper into the eye of the zeitgeist. It’s apt, then, that this new column will, by design, review recent Sun op-eds to speculate on cultural and political issues. It will be dialectical by many notable accounts, from the Platonic to the Aristotelian and Hegelian. It will engender dialogue, critique the art of rhetoric and agitate ideas as to provoke their latent dynamism. In the spirit of a naive Vonnegut, yet a haunted witness of the horrors at Dresden, it will locate the real news.
The Cornell Daily Sun is interested in publishing a broad and diverse set of content from the Cornell and greater Ithaca community. We want to hear what you have to say about this topic or any of our pieces. Here are some guidelines on how to submit. And here’s our email: associate-editor@cornellsun.com.
Eric Han is a member of the Class of 2026 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is the associate editor of the 143rd Editorial Board and was an arts and culture co-editor of the 142nd Editorial Board. His monthly column, Campus Dialectic, reviews recent Sun op-eds to speculate on cultural and political issues. He can be reached at ehan@cornellsun.com.
