Truth to Power

About three years ago, I sent an angry e-mail to the editors of the California Patriot. At a school like UC Berkeley, I argued, a student should anticipate a vigorous challenge to all of his or her preconceived political notions. Since I am a left-leaning student, I expected the Patriot to provide that challenge. Generally speaking, it did not. I received a pretty generic, dismissive response.

Fast-forward to the present. The latest Patriot features one article that earnestly compares Berkeley to Moscow, one arguing that Stanford is actually more liberal than Berkeley and one that is shocked-shocked!-at the open discussion of sex on campus. And I'm just picking these out at random.

I think that, of all these, my favorite is the Stanford article. Its lead-in is: "I hate trees (and other conservative reasons I'm glad I don't go to Stanfurd)." Hard to know where to begin with this one. I'll leave the title alone.

The article rests on the fact that there are more Berkeley students who identify themselves as "conservative" or "very conservative" on theFacebook.com, a Friendster clone based around college campus networks. First of all, Zogby polling this is not. Secondly, did it ever occur to the author of this article that maybe, just maybe, there are simply more total students at Cal? I mean, come on, guys, think a little.

In general, I wish that the Patriot had more interest in serious thinking on the right. They seem to think that their position as embattled conservatives on campus is enough to provide the moral justification to say any deliberately offensive thing that springs to mind.

Patriot folk: If you're looking to persuade people with your point of view, this is not a very effective or creative way to go about it.

When I read thinkers on the right, such as Andrew Sullivan, David Brooks or William Kristol, it's often the case that I disagree with their opinions. However, it's rare that I am put off by the manner in which these writers express themselves.

At the risk of repeating my original e-mail, if the Patriot were to mix a more reasonable tone with more intelligent analysis, it might not read as such a hysterical pro-Republican rag.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note at this point that I am an editor for the Berkeley Political Review. However, I would also like to mention that I joined the Review because it is the only nonpartisan political journal on campus. I believe that it is also the most levelheaded, and that these two points are not unconnected.

In the interest of fairness, I would like to extend the general request that I sent to the Patriot to all political publications on campus. Our entire level of discourse needs to come up several notches. Editors, if I can correctly guess what your magazine is going to say before I even pick it up, then you have failed.

In general, life has a habit of being more complicated than any single method for understanding it. Given this, people should make a greater effort to bend their personal ideology to fit the facts-and not vice versa. Intelligent people have a special problem with this; they think their facility at manipulating ideas can substitute for contact with different beliefs.

However, one of the reasons that a campus like Berkeley is awesome is because it is a giant petri dish for differing viewpoints, none of which are ever completely accurate. The socialist groups on campus are correct at least part of the time. So are the Cal Democrats. God bless ‘em, even the Patriot gets things right every once in a while. The same goes for any political group on campus. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth.

I just wish that the various debates were less polarized on a campus that is so obviously filled with smart people. Cliche should be a natural enemy to anybody who takes writing seriously; it should be all but nonexistent at Berkeley. Let's take some first steps to rub it out, and while we're at it, let's be more civil in our delivery as well.

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