Living in a Terrestrial Culture – Harry Haines on the post-9/11 world, new media, and the challenges facing today’s college students and their teachers

Dr. Harry W. Haines is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies in the College of the Arts at Montclair State University, and serves as the head of a task force charged with developing the new CART School of Communication and Media Arts.  As of this writing, a formal proposal to establish the new School has been submitted and is pending. The plan is to phase in the new curriculum for the School and, in the fall of 2012, to start the first round of new classes. Dr. Haines received his PhD in Communication from the University of Utah. Before coming to Montclair State University in 2008, he taught at Trinity University in San Antonio; the University of Memphis; and California State University at Sacramento.  His general scholarly interests and expertise include cultural studies and political economy. At the University, Dr. Haines teaches introduction to communication studies; the Vietnam war; queer theory; and news and public affairs. He served in Vietnam from 1970-71 in a medical unit stationed at Cam Ranh Bay.

Last week, we sat down to talk with Dr. Haines about the themes of the October 12th Creative Research Center Symposium on The Uses of the Imagination in the Post-9/11 World and a multitude of pedagogical challenges related to the (so-called) Millennial generation.]

CRC  Let me start by asking you point-blank what the “post-9/11 world” concept means to “us” historically.

HH  These were terrible attacks — heinous and criminal. They have been decontextualized by the media. The American media do an especially poor job of placing events into a historical context. When something dreadful occurs, like the 9/11 attacks, it is as if they happened out of the blue – all of a sudden – without precedent. They give rise to irresponsible rhetoric, i.e., “they hate us because of our freedom…because we are rich,” and so on. These kinds of rationales, to me, are nonsensical. And yet, this mentality seems to be sticking and to have removed any constructive traction for sensemaking. Irresponsible media organizations and pundits even went so far as to smear University professors, including the top U.S. researchers on the Middle East, when they recommended soon after 9/11 that Americans examine the motivations behind these vicious, barbaric acts.

Think about it. Al Qaeda is a truly dangerous and determined enemy, with an ideology and game plan as hateful as anything we’ve encountered since World War Two. And here are so-called news organizations and various media, basically, telling us that we should avoid the hard work of figuring out what makes these terrorists think and act. It’s an act of willful ignorance to insist that we not analyze this deadly enemy and figure out his mindset, and how our own policies may have helped produce that mindset, as crazy as it is. That kind of ignorance betrays the trust of our soldiers.

One of the biggest problems is our apparent inability to go back and objectively assess where we were as a great power following the end of the Cold War, during which time this country did a lot of damage to a lot of people. We ought to have an informed discussion about the Cold War as a starting point for talking about 9/11.

We desperately require a sense of history. We need to commit to struggling to place this terrible event into a historical context.  And when we do this, we should not be subjected to such accusations as “You are anti-American;  or “You hate this country.”  We need a serious evaluation of “where we are” in the world as a society. Again, not from the perspective that we are going to be somehow “overtaken” – the US is not going anywhere. We should be confident in our ability to withstand the challenge of terrorism and to ultimately subvert it. But we can’t afford to be ignorant of the historical and cultural context of this struggle. It will be very difficult for our leaders to develop the necessary political consensus that we’ll need to win this struggle if we fail to be as knowledgeable as our soldiers are courageous.

As a Vietnam vet, I feel very strongly about this. My generation suffered in a war that was begun in ignorance. The current struggle is far more challenging than Vietnam, it’s more nuanced, more complex, even harder to understand. I suspect that’s one of the reasons why artistic reactions to the struggle have so far been relatively limited. The culture seems to be trying to figure out how to deal with 9/11, how to understand it. The introduction of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Washington Mall really opened the door for Vietnam War literature, plays, and so forth. I suspect that something similar will happen as a result of the magnificent memorial at Ground Zero. Nevertheless, we are witnessing a diminution of our power relative to other declining economies in this increasingly interlocking world, and we need to face up to that fact.

CRC   As the young people keep on coming, you are confronted as a teacher by the challenge of how to present “history” to them in all the ramifications of that term, not just by subject, but by perspective.  The past is, indeed, a foreign country. How do you accomplish this goal pedagogically?

HH   Our young people need to understand that they already exist in a global culture. I call it a truly terrestrial culture.  Traditional, national cultures and nation-states as you and I have known them are declining in viability; they are blending and overlapping.  When you travel the world nowadays, you don’t experience the same kinds of cultural differences as a generation or two ago. Young people have to understand the magnitude of the world as a globe – this realization is at once frightening and stimulating…and, of course, intertwined with the media, because the media now operate globally. Clearly what is emerging is a communication grid that connects all of the people, all of the time.  When I talk to my classes about this issue, the reaction to that is often along the lines of, “Hey, professor, tell us something we don’t already know!” Yes, they “get” the grid, they understand and were born into it. These kids are thoroughly networked, constantly plugged-in to one device or another. If you ask them — as I used to do, as an experiment — to try to withdraw from media from a week, they just cannot do it anymore.

CRC  We need to define our terms, so let’s contrast and compare the teachers’ and students’ generational orientation toward “media,” and the implications of that.

HH   When someone says media to me, I immediately think environment. We are supersaturated with multiple channels.  I have long been in agreement with Marshall McLuhan’s dictum that media are “extensions of the organism.” This is still very appealing to me. I no longer think of internet, TV and radio as “coming at us.” That is dynamically inaccurate;  rather, they are extensions of us, outward.

When I was a kid in college, it was actually possible to ignore the economic problems of other countries. Today, those problems are automatically our problem.  If we do not encourage young people to think about their place within the global economy, we are being irresponsible as teachers, and we will pay the price.  As much as I see the students’ sophistication as far as using the cool gadgets and tools available to them, what the younger generation do not know are the nuances and implications of their wiredness.  More and more, the professional class, the so-called creative class, have more in common with their opposite numbers.  And this includes students who aspire to this social class, who aspire to be professionals or to be creative.  The young people nowadays, as opposed to in our day, have more in common with their opposite numbers throughout the world. We are witnessing the rise of a new global social class, and our kids are going to have to be part of this huge scale. They do not have a choice. This is where we as committed teachers come in; it is our job to prepare them for that.

This process of intense globalization is reconfiguring the economy worldwide, and our young people also need to understand that this economic restructuring is going to be a permanent characteristic of their future lives on this planet. This awareness and condition have profound implications for higher education.

CRC  How can we encourage the importance of a social conscience in a media-saturated world?

HH  I am resolutely pragmatic when it comes to higher education today. I am positive that a pragmatic disposition and intellectual affinities can and should exist together.  I value a grounded sensibility in American intellectuals; this is a great native tradition of which we should be proud, and which we can, and should, promulgate among our students.

I would like to see this synthesized, homegrown American intellectual style become one of the characteristics of the new global culture. The rest of the world will benefit.

Social conscience and media-saturation are not mutually exclusive. To carry-through on the “saturation” metaphor, there is no doubt in my mind that among the many variations of media, social networking is number one and pre-eminent among the kids.  Biology enters in here.  These social networks will have a huge impact on the physiological evolution of human beings.  No — they are already doing so!  Think about how the modern human organism perceives and organizes reality! When you and I were young, it was the advent of TV.  Now, it is the internet – it is a Web. That tells you a lot about the direction of socialization.

CRC  We live in such a utilitarian environment today, and the University is not exempt from this pressure.  The point and the purpose of subject matter are often questioned. Students ask, What is this topic good for? How is this class going to help me…? So how will the Post-9/11 Symposium, for that matter, relate to them?

HH  The generation we are teaching now – and I say this with the most affection – they are inexplicable in many ways; even though, ironically, I have been trying throughout this conversation to explain them. It is increasingly difficult and challenging to understand how they think. And that is not their “fault” or their problem. It is our problem. We have not been talking here today about the actual content of media as far as the students’ interests are concerned; rather, we are talking about the experience of dealing with technology itself, and it is quite damaging to remove it from their hands.

For example, when we include Web sites as part of the Bibliography for a course, I think students see that as de rigueur – nothing special.  They feel that they have enormous power and autonomy with their handheld devices; they obsess about their communication devices the way we cosmopolitan adults talk about food.

Given the current complex and rapidly-mutating political situation, it is so important for us in the academy to make it clear that we are obligated to provide a critical vision at any given time, to help students construct a coherent vision.  And when it comes to “critical vision” with respect to the 9/11 attacks, that’s where we as teachers have to step to the fore, because nobody in this country seems to be encouraging the American people to think in a broader context as a matter of principle. That is one of the major assets of our forthcoming Symposium, because we will have different professors from widely different disciplines addressing a common problem. This will be so instructive for the students to bear witness.

CRC  The intention in using this loaded term, “the imagination,” was to take a creative view of our present and future – redemptive, positive, forward-looking, inventive. This is usually the assumed province of “the Arts” but it is of course not exclusive to the Arts.  Hence, as you point out, the diversity of the Symposium panel.

HH  When I apply my own imagination in this context, I am an idealist; I want to imagine a world where such an event as 9/11 will be unthinkable, a world in which this kind of criminal offense would not even be thought of. And I would like to believe that given their enhanced and natural communication skills, our current students will be able to make some contributions to, and really enact, that ideal.

As we were saying earlier, radio and television was my professional orientation. I was originally drawn to those formative media as a young man because I believed that TV and radio could facilitate a “better deal” for people.  And I wanted to participate in making use of those media to bring about a better world.  I still have great faith in that ideal for the new media as we conceive of them today. The impetus of American journalism is still very much to identify problems and to solve those problems.  I say this to my students all the time. I believe in the social responsibility of media. That asset has not changed, no matter how the media themselves change.

CRC This is one of the issues we will be discussing in our panel in Memorial Auditorium on the afternoon of 10/12. What can we, as creative and imaginative teachers in our varied and respective disciplines, do to help our students “face the future”?  The years ahead will continue to be conditioned by the repercussions and implications of 9/11 and other cataclysmic and pervasive events. We as teachers are in positions of power to interpret these events with our students.

HH  Yes, indeed, and looking more deeply into my imagined ideal future, I see the encouragement of democratic values. This is a real legacy that we can hand off from generation to generation.

The best way to for us to exercise the power, as you call it, that we have as teachers is to inculcate these values, to invite our students into the conversation, and prepare them to participate in the critical analysis of whatever the object of study might be. Hence, when there is an opportunity to talk about 9/11, we should seize it. The proper role of the teacher is not just to replicate his or her perspective. We need to invite and prepare students today to participate in this ongoing democratic dialogue, a bold and critical assessment of whatever we might be as a society. This kind of inquisitive pursuit can take place in a chemistry or biology or philosophy or psychology class just as easily as it can in a media course.

The new media are facilitating the single most import communicative event on this planet since the invention of the printing press. We are living through an unprecedented phase of human experience, and we must be aware of that, and pass that awareness along to our students so they can face the post-9/11 world properly equipped.

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The Uses of the Imagination in the Post-9/11 World. Continue the conversation on Wednesday, October 12, from 2:30-4:00 pm in Memorial Auditorium on the Montclair State University campus, when Prof. Haines will be joined by Profs. Norma Connolly (Justice Studies), Scott Kight (Biology), Lori Katterhenry (Dance), and Ofelia Rodriguez (Psychology); and Mike Peters, University Photographer.  There will also be a special commemorative performance by BFA Dance students of excerpts from the classic There is a Time, by Jose Limon.  Moderated by Prof. Neil Baldwin, Director of the Creative Research Center, the Panel Discussion is co-sponsored with the College of the Arts Office of Education and Community Outreach; the Office of Equity and Diversity; and the Center for Advising and Student Transitions. Admission is free.

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Montclair State Remembers 9/11 — a Webcast — examined the political, cultural and artistic fallout from the attacks; it featured interviews with students, alumni, faculty, eyewitnesses and prominent journalists, and contained news footage of the event and the aftermath given to Montclair State by CBS News. The program was a production of  “Carpe Diem” and “The Montclarion” in association with The College of the Arts.  Also contributing – the Dumont TV Center, Information Technology, University Communications, the Broadcasting Department, the Communication Studies Department, The Art & Design Department, The Cali School of Music, The Theatre and Dance Department, The Muslim Student Association, The Veteran’s Association and CBS News. Guests included Bloomberg Columnist Jonathan Alter, NPR Marketplace Correspondent David Brancaccio, WCBS Radio Reporter Tom Kaminski, Dr. Neil Baldwin, Dr. Larry Londino, Dr. Suzanne Trauth, and Professor Beverly Petersen. The webcast was hosted by Professor Marc Rosenweig and Montclarion Editors Katherine Milsop and Tanja Rekhi.