Students' political homogeneity results in lack of action and smug attitudes

On Second thought: Kristof and Riley debate proves underwhelming

Well, you can’t fault them for trying.
And we must commend President Clayton Rose and the council of faculty, staff and students for organizing Monday night’s event, “Up For Discussion,” which brought Nicholas Kristof and Jason Riley to campus to discuss free speech and political correctness in higher education. Between this event and talks this fall by Dr. Noam Chomsky and Dinesh D’Souza, Bowdoin has clearly taken a step in the right direction towards ensuring that a wide range of political views get airtime on campus. This development, coupled with the absence of teeth-gnashing in response to any one speaker, warrants praise in itself.
Nevertheless, Monday’s discussion fell flat. And I was not alone in leaving Pickard Theater feeling, at best, underwhelmed. The discussion, moderated by Associate Professor of History and Environmental Studies Connie Y. Chiang, had the potential to turn fiery, yet it was anything but. On point after point, Kristof and Riley, rather than squaring off, simply agreed with one another. Hardly Lincoln-Douglas.
From trigger warnings to ideological diversity, Kristof and Riley, though at times disagreeing on the specifics, generally arrived at a consensus: inclusion must come second to academic seriousness; college campuses desperately need greater ideological diversity; discomfort is not sufficient grounds for silencing speech.
So, what went wrong? Kristof and Riley certainly disagree on something. Kristof, just this year, published a seven-part series in The New York Times called “When Whites Just Don’t Get It,” chronicling white Americans’ racial naiveté and its damaging effects on the African-American population. As for Riley, in his most recent work, “Please Stop Helping Us,” he blamed liberal economic policies for holding back the black population while simultaneously chastising that population for its lack of moral integrity, and claiming things like, “Black culture today not only condones delinquency and thuggery but celebrates it.”
For all their disagreements, how did Kristof and Riley remain so harmonious? To begin, the terms of the debate were poorly articulated. Political correctness, thus termed, has very few fervent supporters because the term itself has become derisive. Those who defend the practices and attitudes called politically correct defend them not as politically correct but rather as inclusive. Asking a proponent of safe spaces to defend political correctness is like asking a defender of income redistribution to defend state-sponsored theft. When thus framed, both disputants were able to skirt the issue. If asked to defend inclusion, neither would have gotten off so easy.
Secondly, by framing the debate between an avowed liberal and an outspoken conservative as between “political correctness and free speech,” the event coordinators insinuated that the cause of political correctness would be defended by the liberal, while that of free speech by the conservative. This division in itself is misleading; those charged with so-called political correctness tend to fall on the left, but political correctness is not necessarily an inherently liberal issue. And while some of the more vocal defenders of free speech fall on the right, freedom of speech is a truly bipartisan issue.
Yet more detrimentally, the whole debate relied on a flawed premise. To frame a debate as between political correctness and free speech assumes a degree of antagonism between the two. This could not be further from the truth. Certainly there are high-profile cases where the two come into conflict on college campuses. But arguably these instances are misapplications of both ideals. When a college chooses to disinvite a speaker or to implement Orwellian speech codes on the basis of inclusion, it is in fact electing to exclude persons or viewpoints. Some may claim that these measures are part of social justice work, but they in fact undermine the very end that social justice aims to promote: the protection of fundamental civil rights for all. The derisive tone behind the term, is fueled in part by an awareness of this contradiction. Conversely, when a proponent of free speech decries protests of a speaker as hostile to free speech rather than challenging those protests on substantive grounds, he undermines the principle underlying freedom of expression, that unfettered debate is the most reliable path to important truths.
The two principles, far from being opposed, are mutually supportive: proponents of inclusivity rely intimately on the freedom of expression for minority views to be heard; good-faith proponents of free speech defend that right for the very purpose of uplifting marginalized populations. As the American Civil Liberties Union writes on its website, “the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if they’re going to be preserved for everyone.” The protection of every citizen’s fundamental civil rights: this is true social justice work.
An ongoing lawsuit at the University of Kentucky illustrates how true social justice work and free-speech in practice go hand in hand. In August, the university, citing privacy concerns, filed a lawsuit against the student newspaper over documents obtained by the paper regarding an alleged sexual assault by a former professor. The paper is challenging the suit. Here, as is true in the abstract, the protection of free expression and the protection of marginalized populations—in this case, victims of sexual assault—are working in concert.
Now, there were certainly other issues with the debate at Bowdoin. Kristof, while leaning to the left, remains a vocal critic of the intellectual hegemony of academia. So while Kristof and Riley disagree on a great many things, campus politics appears not to be one. Additionally, neither disputant appeared to have taken the time to familiarize themselves with the specifics of the debate at Bowdoin, which has centered around the tequila and gangster parties. Lastly, Professor Chiang’s method of questioning seemed to manifest the very tendency towards tentativeness in racial discussions that both disputants openly criticized.
So by all means, keep the discussion flowing. But next time, let’s make sure it has somewhere to go.

On Second thought: Alternative forms of activism given the inefficacy of protesting

In this column two weeks ago, I discussed a tendency within 21st-century American liberalism toward self-satisfied smugness. I argued that this smugness, aside from being intellectually lazy, actually stands in the way of pursuing a serious liberal agenda by coaxing those on the left into a cozy haze of cerebral self-righteousness rather than encouraging them to take concrete action in the political sphere. It is this passive aloofness that remains the target of President Donald Trump’s frequent censures of “empty talk.”
I was encouraged by the feedback that I received in response to this piece, and not only because I now know that at least someone reads these things. A fair number of my peers enthusiastically agreed with my sentiment, commenting that they, too, are frustrated by the smugness and inaction on campus. This response in itself, along with the remarkably large attendance at the discussion of ideological diversity on Feburary 3 moderated by Professor of Government Paul Franco, raises a number of interesting questions about political diversity on our campus.
Another handful of readers approached me to ask what would qualify as meaningful forms of political action on campus. What about protests, walkouts, petitions and the like? These questions got me thinking, and I figured they warranted a proper response.
At the end of my previous column, I encouraged students who feel dismayed at the lack of socioeconomic diversity to apply for a summer internship in the Office of Admissions. I hope that the importance of this type of action was not lost behind the rhetorical flourish. On a small, geographically isolated campus like our own, involvement within the College is a tremendously important mode of political engagement. The opportunities for student engagement within the infrastructure of the College are vast and, I fear, underutilized. Run for Bowdoin Student Government. Work as an assistant in an administrative office. Conduct policy-focused research with a professor. The opportunities are myriad.
Outside of the strict purview of the College, we should take greater advantage of our extracurricular organizations. Political groups like the College Republicans and Democrats are a good place to start, especially in election years that focus on get-out-the-vote efforts and campaigning. Additionally, the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good lists 28 student-led service organizations on its website. Imagine the political effect on the College if every single Bowdoin student were involved in one of these 28 organizations.
The same goes for life as a private citizen. Instead of interning at Bain and Company over the summer, respond to constituent mail in your congressperson’s district office. Go canvas during an election. Hell, run for public office. How many recent Bowdoin graduates do you know who are public servants compared to, say, financial consultants?
The big question, especially as of late, hovers over protests. What are the role of mass protests in the emerging political milieu? What makes for an “effective” protest? Considering that college students continue to both populate and organize protests, this question intimately concerns us.
In my mind, we ought to recognize protests as, at best, a double-edged sword. As David Frum recently observed in the Atlantic, “With the rarest exceptions—and perhaps the January 21 demonstration will prove to be one—left-liberal demonstrations are exercises in catharsis, the release of emotions. Their operating principle is self-expression, not persuasion.” In this cathartic capacity, protests promote the smug inaction that I addressed in my last column.
Beyond simple catharsis, protests can draw attention to a cause. But attention on its own rarely translates into action. In an article in New York Magazine, Fabio Rojas, a professor of sociology at the University of Indiana is quoted saying, “There are some people that think that protests solve everything; you just have a protest, it’s going to make everything change...That’s not true—it is a tool that does a very specific thing, and you have to understand that when you start out.”
These objections represent fairly standard critiques of protests. But elsewhere, Frum has offered a more insightful and pressing concern, arguing that short of being simply ineffective, protests might be counterproductive in the Trump era. Frum writes, “Civil unrest will not be a problem for the Trump presidency. It will be a resource. Trump will likely want not to repress it, but to publicize it … Immigration protesters marching with Mexican flags; Black Lives Matter demonstrators bearing anti-police slogans—these are the images of the opposition that Trump will wish his supporters to see. The more offensively the protesters behave, the more pleased Trump will be.”
Frum’s observation is important to bear in mind, especially on college campuses. I vigorously support opposition to any policy of the Trump administration that infringes upon the civil liberties and rights of Americans, but students should think twice about the role of public protests in today’s political atmosphere. We ought to be weary of the self-fulfilling prophecy: the right lampoons the liberal and academic elite for being snobbish and out of touch, and in turn we protest to urge our college president to meet a list of demands that the College has already been meeting. Trump and the press in turn point to these protests as proof of academia’s snobbery and isolation, and the cycle continues.
Although vocal opposition to public protests has long been a favorite in the playbook of the reactionary right, desperate times call for desperate measures, and the left would be wise to be more hesitant before taking to the street. So while we should encourage opposition to Trump’s unconstitutional measures in as many forms as possible, we should think twice before picking up the megaphone.

On Second thought

Students' political homogeneity results in lack of action and smug attitudes

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

February 3, 2017

“The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action,” declared our new commander in chief from the north end of the Capitol on January 20. This action-over-talk motif appears to be a favorite of President Trump, who, in his first week in office, has wasted no time in introducing a flurry of executive orders and then making a point of flaunting them on Twitter and in his speeches.

At first glance, Trump’s attack on “empty talk” is just another iteration of the age-old truism, found in numerous forms like “walk the walk, don’t talk the talk” or “actions speak louder than words.” Unreflectively, we all accept this prescription, holding others to their word and, with any luck, embodying truism ourselves.

Yet, this directive has taken on particular political force in the mouth of President Trump. It has struck an unusually resonant chord in the hearts and minds of American voters. Yes, politicians and pundits persistently peddle in platitudes; this much is not new. And as a disclaimer, I have absolutely no taste for our new president, as both an elected official and as a man. Nevertheless, it would do us well to take a moment to consider why some of these clichés assume greater force at particular moments in our nation’s history.

I would conjecture that the ascendency of the talk-is-cheap rhetoric is in part a reaction to a rather strong tendency in contemporary liberalism towards what Emmett Rensin bluntly labeled as “smug” in his strikingly prophetic piece “The smug style in American liberalism,” published on Vox on April 21, 2016.

Rensin’s piece is worth a read all the way through, so consider this my recommendation. But in short, Rensin argues that between 1964 and 1980, demographic shifts within the American Democratic Party—shifts away from the working class and towards the academic and coastal elite—have brought about a change in liberalism’s “intellectual center of gravity.” Unable to comprehend why the white working class so rapidly abandoned the Democratic Party—which, after all, was its ultimate champion—liberals cultivated “the theory that conservatism, and particularly the kind embraced by those out there in the country, was not a political ideology at all,” but rather sheer stupidity.

“Finding comfort in the notion that their former allies were disdainful, hapless rubes, smug liberals created a culture animated by that contempt,” Rensin writes. He rather aptly compares this dynamic to that of two recently separated lovers in the aftermath of a particularly nasty break-up.

The essence of this culture of contempt is “a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason,” and its primary symptom is knowing: “Knowing, for example, that the Founding Fathers were all secular deists. Knowing that you’re actually, like, 30 times more likely to shoot yourself than an intruder. Knowing that those fools out in Kansas are voting against their own self-interest and that the trouble is Kansas doesn’t know any better.” The Democratic Party, in its own eyes, abides by “a politics that insists it has no ideology at all, only facts. No moral convictions, only charts.”

Of course, when we know that we just know better than those misguided, unknowing hordes, we are wont to try to convince them of their wrongness—to plainly reason out, with no ideological spin whatsoever, why they are misguided. When they refuse to yield, they only cement their own stupidity.

I believe in the power of persuasion, and I believe that ideas matter. I would be a fool to write this column if I didn’t. Likewise, I shudder at the rise of “alternative facts,” and the prospect of a “post-factual world” seems like a terrible, terrible nightmare. Nevertheless, I am not enamored by the very-real smugness that pervades so much of liberal politics, even here (or, perhaps, especially here) on our campus.

The issue with smugness, aside from being intuitively repulsive, is that it makes us complacent. We content ourselves with knowing the facts, and tweeting about them, while doing little to realize our goals. There is a curious strand of gnosticism at play here, by means of which simply having superior knowledge lifts us above the fray of culpability and blame. So rather than enacting our ideal of virtue or descending into the political arena to work towards a solution, we sit back and virtue signal, waiting for the masses to finally come to their senses and “get woke.” Trump’s brand of action-without-thought populism is in part a reaction to this very attitude. Elite universities, especially rural liberal arts colleges like our own, are uniquely susceptible to the gravitational pull of smugness. Surrounded largely by like-minded students and isolated from national politics in any real sense, we spend four years immersed in ideas. This is a beautiful thing, and one of the most compelling and attractive aspects of our schooling. At the same time, it positions us to become terrifically smug.

“The smug recognize one another by their mutual knowing,” Rensin writes, and the knowing creeps up every so often at Bowdoin: when we know that Bowdoin needs to actively recruit more socioeconomic diversity, when we know that the College must divest from fossil fuels or when we know that “conservatism” is just a codeword for backward intolerance. The issue isn’t with having convictions but with thinking those convictions absolve you from action. A culture of gratitude might make us complacent, but a culture of knowing makes us contemptible.

Rensin acknowledges that liberalism was the “American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life,” and this is still true. But if liberalism in America is to continue to thrive in the 21st century, it must be rescued from its smuggest tendencies. To counter Trump’s doing-without-knowing, we must move beyond knowing-without-doing. So, having put down your copy of the Orient, do you feel acutely the injustice of the school’s socioeconomic homogeneity? Excellent, because I think the admissions office is seeking summer interns.

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