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Volume CXXXII, Number 21 |
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A circus of inane discussion
SARAH RAMEY
COLUMNIST
"Craig Kielberger is such a tool." Honk, quack!, meehhhhhh, hee-HAW.
"Dude, Tony Kushner is full of…" Grrrr, ROAR, ee ee ee ooh ah ah ah!, moooo, buck buck buck buCAAAAAWK.
Discourse at this school is like a freaking circus. A circus overrun with farm and zoo animals, zooming around in clown cars, jumping through fiery hoops, and juggling eight hens and a rabbit while riding a unicycle.
In the past two weeks, we have had the good fortune of hosting two bright, eloquent, impassioned, and uncompromising speakers, and in a time when I can barely turn on the TV for fear of seeing my president patronizing me with two-minute, dumbed-down, sound-bites about "freedom" and "democracy," in a time when I no longer look forward to receiving Time magazine because it might have Saddam's face crossed by a bloodied X, in a time when all of my professors have decided to only talk about talking about the war…in times like these, a girl gets a hankering for someone to stand up and give a bright, eloquent, impassioned and uncompromising speech.
And so one would think that a girl would be fat and happy, well fed by the recent speeches of Kielberger and Kushner, two very smart people who have wandered into our midst and given us two excellent models of how to go about righting some very serious wrongs in this world. But some students' reaction was to hem and haw, stamp and snort, and wait to forget. And it is this display of intellectual prodigality that confirms my suspicions that the liberal left is not only too fragmented, but too impatient and confused to get anything done.
The snorting and huffpuffling that took place after Craig Kielberger, in my experience, was a pure, unadulterated form of idiocy. An alarming number of people refused to go because his picture on the poster made him look like a "tool," and/or a "douche" (excuse me for that). Now. I don't just find this stupid. And mark, I do see the comedic value in such statements. I mean, I saw the poster, I have the book…Craig does have that 'Hidey-ho kidaroos, let's go and save the world, wheeee!!" look about him. But that we are not intelligent and perceptive enough to suck up our own childish tendencies and at least listen to a boy who has genuinely made a HUGE impact on the world for the better…well this is just sad. And moreover, if all some of us can do is name call and cluck and roar when someone comes to us with such a peaceful, hopeful message...then I would have to say that we are doing something wrong.
And this is a skill that I learned from my good man Tony Kushner, who reminded me that it is OK to think that someone else is wrong. We are truly crippled by the pressures of being politically correct and we have been rendered useless in the arena of political debate. This is not to say being PC has no place, but it certainly cannot be used as a swooshing red cape to divert attention from the actuality of our own apathy.
We, the Inadequate Matadors see a bull charging towards us and we think "Well, I may not understand this bull's need to skewer me on his horrible horns, but who am I to say what this bull should think, what this bull should do?" But instead I say, quit your fancy, ineffective cape-work and draw your intellectual swords! Stand your ground! We are intelligent students and we sell ourselves short by feeling the need to validate every freaking opinion in this wide world. Some people are wrong. And you have the right and duty to battle that person to the end of your cerebral wits. You are wasting this education if you don't.
But beware. Speaking your mind does not entail spouting snippets of Zen wisdom or citing statistics vaguely remembered from CNN ticker tape. Nor is it appropriate to say you liked or didn't like a speaker as provocative as the ones we have seen and then move on. There is another thing that Tony Kushner taught me that is more important than realizing another person might be wrong. He taught me that you have to do your research. If you disagree, you better be able to articulate why. If you are moved by a speaker, you need to go out and learn more. If think they are dead wrong, you need to formulate a convincing argument beyond the three minute "discussions" some of us have at this school after a speaker that go something like this:
"You bought that, man?"
"I mean, yeah. Dude was smart."
"Oh, whatever. Did you see his tie?"
"Huh huh…yeah…fair enough. Is the pub open?"
HeeeeeeHAAAAAWWWWW.
We pay for more than this. We are so privileged, we pay so much money for these people to come speak, and we piss it away with inane discussion. I'm sorry to sound so angry…I'm not angry…it's a beautiful day outside (actually, when I started this article it was a beautiful day…now, April 16, it is a cold a horrifying throwback to the frozen tundra of a Maine winter). But the point is, we have brilliant people coming to speak, brilliant professors giving lectures, and brilliant peers all around. But when we let ourselves riot around on our unicycles with our hens and rabbits, snorting and squawking, all that brilliance goes up in a glittering, clown-colored ball of smoke.
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