Ever Wonder Why It Behooves a Watchdog to Bark?

3-30-06

Jon Christman

Editor-in-Chief

The search for purpose cannot be avoided in our world.  It is wholly natural to every created thing, and its presence is encountered in every action and thing that man experiences.  Those who claim that it is not can be found teaching students in universities and writing books to share their ideas—both of which are activities with an intrinsic purpose.  Without knowing a thing’s purpose, we cannot fully understand it.

Imagine trying to describe what a chair is without saying what a chair is for.  I can describe its physical composition; it is made of wood and is four feet tall.  I can tell a story of how it came to be from the cutting of a tree to the delicate craftsmanship of a carpenter.  I can share how a good chair does not break under pressure.  However, this is incomplete. Only when we combine all these descriptions with a final component – the purpose, or telos, of the chair – do we find understanding.  Broadly speaking, a chair is meant for people to sit on.  Grasping what a chair is depends upon recognizing its purpose. 

Like a chair or any other created thing, understanding The Irish Rover demands a similar story.  Physically, it is twelve pages of newsprint with more than 15,000 words in every issue.  Its existence is the result of Notre Dame students toiling hours upon hours with the support of alumni, professors and others within the Notre Dame community; it is a good campus newspaper because it is a readable source that reports on issues and events pertaining to its audience. 

Yet a limited description of this sort seems to ignore the question ‘Why, given the prior existence of multiple student publications, does The Rover exist?’  The answer rests in the telos of The Rover, the Greek word that embodies the ultimate end of a thing, that which a thing is meant for – which gives its existence meaning.

At this point there are many who think they recognize the telos of The Rover.  “It is a rag dispensed by members of the Republican National Committee that seeks to make everyone a card carrying member.”  “It is a group of orthodox Catholics trying to shove the Church’s teaching down our throats.” Each of these false purposes attempts to categorize The Rover in a certain light.  They have labeled The Rover in an erroneous manner similar to a person who says a chair is meant to be looked at, broken, or set on fire. Readers (and in many cases non-readers) of The Rover at times commit similar offenses; in some form, these people have chosen to misconstrue one part of The Rover and have determined that it embodies the whole.

The Rover must be taken as a comprehensive whole. As Editor-in-Chief, I can say that the staff of The Irish Rover remains committed to facilitating part of what the University’s mission statement desires in its community:  “a forum where through free inquiry and open discussion the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity.”  The Rover earnestly desires the University to uphold its Roman Catholic faith and dam the rushing waters of university endorsed secularism.  The Rover espouses a commitment to the liberal arts tradition within a college education, and in doing this, it provides viewpoints from a conservative perspective that often go unseen or are deemed untenable within the classroom environment.  These are the tenets of The Rover’s telos.

Purposes can fail when a thing does not do what it should.  A chair may break, for instance.  Likewise, The Rover may at times do something it purports not to do.  Yet these shortcomings and frailties merely reveal our imperfections; they do not alter the underlying telos of our fortnightly publication.

The Rover does not exist to replace other campus news sources; instead, it has its own place.  The Rover is neither a reformed Observer nor a converted Scholastic.  It is The Rover, seeking to fulfill the telos for which it was created.

Contact Jon at jchristm@nd.edu.  He wishes to inform all The Rover’s contributors, readers, subscribers, advisors, alumni and friends that it has been both an honor and a privilege to serve as Editor-in-Chief.