Tuesday, January 27, 2004
The State of Our Discourse
This is an article that I wrote for the Chicago Weekly News. I plan on writing for one of the campus newspapers regularly from now on.
What better place than The University of Chicago to watch the State of the Union address, right? One can sit down in the lounge of the dorm, prop the legs up, and partake in the glories of our democracy with fellows of similar experience and intellectual ability. Then, one can engage in vigorous discourse about the various points and policies articulated in the speech with one’s academic comrades-in-arms. The “Life of the Mind” as official propaganda would put it, and all that. Yeah, right. What actually occurred in my part of campus was quite far from such an ideal.
Let me briefly recount some of the stand-out features of my experience watching the President’s address. There was much shouting and yelling, with such well-articulated, vigorous invectives as “Die!” and “You suck!”; there was a constant volley of rolled up socks hurled at the television whenever Bush, or a notable member of his cabinet such as Rumsfeld, appeared on screen or a new point was made by the President that disagreed with the segments of the audience so armed. Requests for fewer interjections were mostly ignored, and one of the two Republicans in the room was driven out in disgust at what he felt was extreme disrespect for the President (full disclosure: I was the other Republican).
I could now launch into a critique of the liberal rage that until Dean’s meltdown (summed up by one utterance: “Yeeeaaarrrrgggghhhh!”) filled his stump speeches and drove his supporters on, or explain fundamental defects in liberal ideology and political strategy, at which the frustration that was at base of my classmates own meltdown is perhaps directed. While I think the latter might prove to be an interesting discussion, one that would be filled with an explanation that even liberals feel that Bush is currently in a strong political position (did you see the glazed look in Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton’s eyes last Tuesday? Or looked at the Gallup polls that state that Bush has a sizable lead over an unnamed democratic challenger?) and likely to win re-election, and thus may only let their frustration out in displays of emotion, won’t go into either. The real issue that seems to jump out at me after watching the State of the Union in such a colorful atmosphere is one of discourse.
I tend to agree with my fellow Republican mentioned above that certain aspects of my fellows’ behavior Tuesday were a little over the top (such as the flung footwear); however, in my opinion all could be forgiven if such vigor was also directed at debating the merits of the issues. But, it wasn’t. After the speech ended the socks were gathered, the crowd dispersed, and not one point was argued.
In my opinion one of the greatest benefits of going to the UofC is the great conversations. However, the general nature of the conversations is not political. In fact, when conversations flow in such a direction, they are usually curtailed by an impulse not to offend. Even I, when expressing a political point of view that is generally conservative, now put all sorts of qualifiers on it so that people won’t look at me funny (for any more reasons than they already have); trying to have a meaningful discussion of religion and God from an evangelical point of view is quite difficult, to say the least. To do so is to risk being branded with a negative label. Judging from the poor turnout at Campus Crusade, it seems that God is in the closet. Such a state of affairs makes expressing a socially conservative point of view difficult, since many reasons for holding such a view are religiously motivated.
It used to be the stereotype that college campuses were liberal; however as recent Gallup and Harvard polls have shown, many campuses have shifted right. Such changes don’t seem to have occurred at elite colleges, as one Stanford student newspaper reports last year. This seems to be the case here at the UofC as well. While one may say that Chicago has a large fiscally conservative voice, as pioneered by Milton Friedman and continued by much of the economics department, social liberalism still is imbedded in much of the institution. This may be due simply to the fact that many professors attended college and cut their political teeth during the social changes of the 1960’s and 70’s; whether such social views are deeply imbedded or are more temporary and will change when the faculty rolls over to a younger generation remains to be seen. The reaction to the State of the Union here at the UofC seems to point to a possible split in the beliefs of college students, depending on whether they attend an elite institution many less notorious universities. What such a split would mean in terms of the academic and political leanings of a future generation of professors remains in the realm of speculation.
The war of ideas is far from over, especially in a nation that is characterized as “50/50” by international news sources such as The Economist, but this war doesn’t seem to be quite what one would think. It seems to be one in which once a side is chosen, little crossover occurs. It seems to be a war in which loud, venomous emotion is displayed, but little material struggle occurs. A phony war, perhaps? What the reaction to the State of the Union that I saw seems to beg is a reexamination of one’s views. Have you recently considered the merits of a point of view you disagree with greatly? Have you even examined the merits of your own side recently? Such interplay and discourse would be to the benefit of all political actors, and the direction of the nation.
What better place than The University of Chicago to watch the State of the Union address, right? One can sit down in the lounge of the dorm, prop the legs up, and partake in the glories of our democracy with fellows of similar experience and intellectual ability. Then, one can engage in vigorous discourse about the various points and policies articulated in the speech with one’s academic comrades-in-arms. The “Life of the Mind” as official propaganda would put it, and all that. Yeah, right. What actually occurred in my part of campus was quite far from such an ideal.
Let me briefly recount some of the stand-out features of my experience watching the President’s address. There was much shouting and yelling, with such well-articulated, vigorous invectives as “Die!” and “You suck!”; there was a constant volley of rolled up socks hurled at the television whenever Bush, or a notable member of his cabinet such as Rumsfeld, appeared on screen or a new point was made by the President that disagreed with the segments of the audience so armed. Requests for fewer interjections were mostly ignored, and one of the two Republicans in the room was driven out in disgust at what he felt was extreme disrespect for the President (full disclosure: I was the other Republican).
I could now launch into a critique of the liberal rage that until Dean’s meltdown (summed up by one utterance: “Yeeeaaarrrrgggghhhh!”) filled his stump speeches and drove his supporters on, or explain fundamental defects in liberal ideology and political strategy, at which the frustration that was at base of my classmates own meltdown is perhaps directed. While I think the latter might prove to be an interesting discussion, one that would be filled with an explanation that even liberals feel that Bush is currently in a strong political position (did you see the glazed look in Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton’s eyes last Tuesday? Or looked at the Gallup polls that state that Bush has a sizable lead over an unnamed democratic challenger?) and likely to win re-election, and thus may only let their frustration out in displays of emotion, won’t go into either. The real issue that seems to jump out at me after watching the State of the Union in such a colorful atmosphere is one of discourse.
I tend to agree with my fellow Republican mentioned above that certain aspects of my fellows’ behavior Tuesday were a little over the top (such as the flung footwear); however, in my opinion all could be forgiven if such vigor was also directed at debating the merits of the issues. But, it wasn’t. After the speech ended the socks were gathered, the crowd dispersed, and not one point was argued.
In my opinion one of the greatest benefits of going to the UofC is the great conversations. However, the general nature of the conversations is not political. In fact, when conversations flow in such a direction, they are usually curtailed by an impulse not to offend. Even I, when expressing a political point of view that is generally conservative, now put all sorts of qualifiers on it so that people won’t look at me funny (for any more reasons than they already have); trying to have a meaningful discussion of religion and God from an evangelical point of view is quite difficult, to say the least. To do so is to risk being branded with a negative label. Judging from the poor turnout at Campus Crusade, it seems that God is in the closet. Such a state of affairs makes expressing a socially conservative point of view difficult, since many reasons for holding such a view are religiously motivated.
It used to be the stereotype that college campuses were liberal; however as recent Gallup and Harvard polls have shown, many campuses have shifted right. Such changes don’t seem to have occurred at elite colleges, as one Stanford student newspaper reports last year. This seems to be the case here at the UofC as well. While one may say that Chicago has a large fiscally conservative voice, as pioneered by Milton Friedman and continued by much of the economics department, social liberalism still is imbedded in much of the institution. This may be due simply to the fact that many professors attended college and cut their political teeth during the social changes of the 1960’s and 70’s; whether such social views are deeply imbedded or are more temporary and will change when the faculty rolls over to a younger generation remains to be seen. The reaction to the State of the Union here at the UofC seems to point to a possible split in the beliefs of college students, depending on whether they attend an elite institution many less notorious universities. What such a split would mean in terms of the academic and political leanings of a future generation of professors remains in the realm of speculation.
The war of ideas is far from over, especially in a nation that is characterized as “50/50” by international news sources such as The Economist, but this war doesn’t seem to be quite what one would think. It seems to be one in which once a side is chosen, little crossover occurs. It seems to be a war in which loud, venomous emotion is displayed, but little material struggle occurs. A phony war, perhaps? What the reaction to the State of the Union that I saw seems to beg is a reexamination of one’s views. Have you recently considered the merits of a point of view you disagree with greatly? Have you even examined the merits of your own side recently? Such interplay and discourse would be to the benefit of all political actors, and the direction of the nation.
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