Before I begin, let me provide a statement of credibility: I voted for Bernie in the primary, I voted for Hillary in the election, and I have a “label GMO’s NOW!” sticker on my laptop—I am a card carrying liberal. I have to say this because I know that without such a shameful appeal to the Leftist totalitarianism of us-vs-them, my thoughts will be cast aside as those of conservative and therefore dead on arrival. So let it be said.
Our campus erupted in anger last week over the scheduled visit of Charles Murray, a political scientist and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute whose ideas are anathema to the liberal, idyllic conception of the world that many students, faculty and staff here at Middlebury hold deeply. I know about Murray as much as most of you do, which is to say, next to nothing. What information I have gathered has come from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a very reputable and respectable organization, but one—like our campus—with a definite bias. I have not read any of Murray’s books or articles, haven’t listened to even a single interview with him. Instead, I’ve had my knowledge of him filtered through an ideology, one I happen to mostly agree with, but an ideology nonetheless.
My point here is to say that we don’t really know what Murray believes or what he will say when he speaks in Dana Auditorium. I don’t doubt that he has proposed perverted ideas before, and I don’t doubt that whatever he says will have some amount of inflammatory effect on our parochially progressive minds. This does not change the fact that he’s a well-educated and, dare I say, likely intelligent thinker with a point of view. Even if he was not well-educated or likely intelligent, he would remain a person, a citizen with a perspective. I am in no way defending his ideas, which, again, I know next to nothing about. I am defending his voice and our obligation as life-long students to hear that voice, consider it, and use our own to question what we find incorrect, inexcusable and hateful.
Let me here ask a question. What are we afraid of? What are we so angry about? Is it that we are afraid that we might be converted to ideas we find repulsive in the span of an hour long talk? This is an ill-founded fear; Middlebury is filled with strong minds and strong hearts, strong enough to remain stout in the beliefs of inclusivity, equity and progress. Are we angry that various Middlebury departments and administrative organs are giving a platform for ideas we don’t consider valid? This is a misplaced sentiment; the role of our educators is, in fact, to educate us. This does not mean justifying and confirming our own beliefs day in and day out but rather to expose us to discomfort. If you haven’t heard of the Hegelian dialectic before, consider your education as follows: you hold a thesis, you are presented with an antithesis, and you must do battle to extract what truth you can from the clashing of the two in order to elevate the concept and yourself to a higher truth. It is a renewal process, one that depends entirely on confronting the very things you cannot stand. When Middlebury brings speakers to campus that we don’t like, it is doing its job.
My personal belief is that we are both afraid and angry that we will be offended. And to take it a step further, we are excited about this opportunity for fear and anger because it gives us a way to enter a social catharsis—to enter a groupthink where we can purge our ire and virtue signal through it, like a giant human conductor of indignation. This is neither ill-founded or misplaced; it is deplorable. As I said earlier, we are here to learn. Much of what we do at Middlebury is not learning but mental masturbation. We agree and shout and pat ourselves on the back, engaging in a form of self-righteousness not unlike that of the most abhorrent movements in the world. Moreover, this self-righteousness is leveraged on the backs of huge numbers of humans whose ideas we hate and whose character we then chalk up to significant flaw.
The hard reality is that there are many people who disagree with us and their opinions are just as legitimate coming from history, experience and context as they are. If we want to learn, we can’t build picket fences around our perfect beliefs. If we want to change things, we must actively seek out those fences everywhere we can find them and smash them to smithereens. We must confront the repugnant ideas of the individuals we’ve been degrading with our piety; we must talk. Murray’s lecture presents a perfect occasion to practice this. Go, sit, listen, think. Think hard. Think up the most pressing and honest question you can and ask it. Start a conversation.
Joanna Satterwhite ‘17.5 writes in about Charles Murray’s 3/2 talk.
