Amherst College prides itself on diversity. We actively recruit students from across the planet — students endowed with unique modes of thinking and diverse opinions. Too often, however, our left-leaning majority seems to encourage an excessively narrow dialogue.
Of course, we are a liberal arts institution, and it is therefore understandable that our discourse exhibits a liberal bias. Prospective students who choose to apply here know this. Nevertheless, if we truly pride ourselves on diversity, we must promote it not only in our racial and cultural image but also in our intellectual rhetoric. Not long ago I supported what turned out to be the unpopular position in an online debate amongst a group of students. After spending time and exerting effort developing what I believed to be a persuasive case, I received two comments from my peers. Rather than providing thoughtful arguments to counter my own, these students dismissed me as unworthy of a response because I had taken what they viewed to be a culturally insensitive stance on this issue at hand.
One responded only with a repetition of the word “no”, while the other expressed his shock that anyone could support such an “idiotic” position with no actual discussion of my professed idiocy. This complete lack of constructive, scholarly validation was unfamiliar to me because I am usually amongst the majority in such discussions with my peers at the College. However, some students on our campus are all too familiar with aggressive dismissals of their thoughts and ideas.
This past spring, for example, one of my peers had the courage to write an article explaining what is on our campus the unpopular stance on the issue of abortion. Like most other students who read the article, I disagreed with nearly every point he made. Nonetheless, I was shocked by the relative absence of constructive criticism in the online responses to his article. While a few students did deliver intelligent, useful critiques, an unmistakable majority degenerated to labeling him a misogynist, a racist and an elitist without providing any actual connections to what he had written. In fact, it would not be far-fetched to suggest that some commentators had not read past the title of the article. These students deemed his view so completely reprehensible that he was not worthy of the few minutes it would have taken them to actually express and justify their own opinions in response to him. Although I felt some sympathy for my friend at the time, I don’t think I truly understood how this complete lack of intellectual validation must have made him feel prior to my own similar (although far less intense) experience. Well, it hurts. It hurts to be told that the beliefs you hold dear and the ideas you struggle to justify are too idiotic to warrant an honest rebuttal. This pain, I’m sure, has discouraged many students of the College from voicing their beliefs when doing so entails taking a position that is known to be unpopular on our campus. The resulting lack of intellectual variety has made our institution’s rhetoric programmed and one-dimensional. It has stifled our diversity.
I do not mean to whine about these experiences, and I hold no grudges against any of my peers. I am merely concerned for our students and for the future of our institution should we continue to interact in this way.
Upon leaving the College, we will continue to encounter diverse thinkers with unique views, ideas and beliefs; these are the people with whom we will have to somehow build our futures. In the real world, however, we will not be able to smother to death every opinion that does not fit neatly into the narrow mold of political correctness and cultural sensitivity that happens to dominate the bubble of our college campus.
So here is my suggestion: when one of your peers advocates for a position with which you disagree, by all means proactively and forcefully explain why it is that you feel differently. But first, listen to him/her objectively and allow your own opinion to be swayed slightly if he/she makes a point that you feel is valid. Then, take the time to explain your own views in the respectful, intelligent manner that validates him/her as an able thinker and a respectable human being.
Let us promote a more inclusive rhetoric on our campus and let us learn how to live with intellectual diversity now, while we are still allowed to make mistakes.
It seems that you were attacked because your view countered the consensus of those who are most active and adamant about their political views, I presume you had a conservative viewpoint. Are you so insecure and need of support from peers that you feel the need to express it and knowing the response you'll receive--you shrink from it? If you have the confidence and courage to publicly express your hurt, than have the confidence to intellectually stand by your idea. The viewpoint of others is usually irrelevant and when it comes to politics, the response will be emotional, rarely do people ever intellectually form their political opinions regardless of intelligence.
Good point. However, the unfortunate truth is that some left-leaning people regard the very act of defending some right-wing views to be a form of oppression itself. Most leftists won't openly admit this, and a great number don't even consciously believe this. I don'[t think you believe it either. But it seems to be the very foundation of leftist (cultural Marxist) thought if you actually uncover its origins - whether it be thought about feminism, racism, or about other forms of "structural oppression". The following quote is merely one example which doesn't seem out of place at all in a typical gender studies paper:
"In other words, feminist theory cannot be accurately regarded as a competing or rival account, diverging from patriarchal texts over what counts as true. It is not a true discourse, nor a more objective or scientific account. It could be appropriately seen, rather, as a strategy, a local, specific intervention with definite political, even if provisional, aims and goals. In the 1980s, feminist theory no longer seems to seek the status of unchangeable, trans-historical and trans-geographic truth in its hypotheses and propositions. Rather, it seeks effective forms of intervention into systems of power in order to subvert them and replace them with other more preferable. " (Elizabeth Grosz)
Ask any feminist if he/she agrees with the above statement. Despite being a fairly old quote, I don't think even so-called Third Wave feminists won't let up the opportunity to make statements similar in spirit to the above in an essay/paper. And Grosz is a fairly well-known feminist academic. But what are the implications? It is that feminism and feminist scholarship isn't about finding the "truth" - instead, the very act of dialogue and discourse is a form of activism, of fighting for power. Hence there is no true "debate", so to speak. By arguing against abortion, your friend wasn't merely expressing "wrong" or even "abhorrent" arguments - he was participating in the very act of oppressing himself, and as such deserves to be called an "idiot", "elitist", "misogynist", and any other shaming word in the left-liberal dictionary. In other words, there is no hope for the "inclusive rhetoric" you are calling for here, because at its very foundation, left-liberal thought doesn't think that debating is a value-neutral activity. I don't know if there is any equivalent in right wing thought.
John, first I'm not sure where in my article you derived the notion that I have "backed down" from the idea for which I was criticized. I have not. I defended Daniel Tosh-not for his comment on rape-but for the fact that his position as a comedian should allow him the freedom to be excused from hurtful, offensive comments IF he provides an adequate apology after the fact (which he did not). I stand by that opinion completely. And I am not advocating that people who advocate dissenting opinions on campus need their peers to "support" their positions in order to be intellectually validated; I state: "when one of your peers advocates for a position with which you disagree, by all means proactively and forcefully explain why it is that you feel differently." I want their peers to "respect" their opinions and "validate" the fact that those opinions are not so dumb to be 'considered'. They should absolutely not "support" those opinions, if they feel differently. I believe I made that very clear in the article. You are correct, that politics often evokes emotional rather than intelligent responses, but I don't see see this as an inevitable trap; I believe we can at least strive to be better than that because I have met plenty of people (on both sides of the political spectrum) who are better than that.
ZM, I agree that my friend "deserved" all those labels he received, based on the workings of feminist theory. Prior to your comment I was unaware of these workings which you have cited, and hence my article did not reflect the way feminism frames the debate over how best to convince pro-choice advocates to alter their position. I sincerely thank you for your insight and I accept this limitation to the convictions of my article. I do not think it is fair, however, that you proceed to generalize your point regarding (what is in my opinion "radical") feminism to left-liberal thought in general. I do not believe that most students on our campus are radical feminists (you yourself note at the beginning of your comment that only "some" are) and hence I do believe that a more inclusive form of dialogue is at least possible amongst those that who do not follow this radical line of theory. I sincerely appreciate your criticism and I would love it if you would expand on your opinion beyond our inability of establishing an inclusive rhetoric among feminists on campus, but limitations of establishing such a rhetoric among our less radical student body more generally. Thank you again for your criticism.