Cornell Review #11: Last Issue

9 thoughts on “Cornell Review #11: Last Issue”

1. Great job on the last issue guys. I would like to say a few things about Lucas Policastro’s (I love that last name) piece however. I love the basic critiques that he brings forth in his article, but they are presented in an oddly disingenuous nature. That is, his main critique of both liberalism and libertarianism is that they exude a sense of superiority, which I interpret as a quality defined from an exerted infallibility of morals, position, and so on. However, he then goes on to say a variety of things which seem to exude that same characteristic of the conservative doctrine. For example, in the third to last paragraph, he writes, “Evenings with grass-tasting friends begets (sic?) indifference over the legality of marijuana. Life in the fast lane begets indifference over abortion. Traditionally, conservatives defend these issues because they grow into adults, have children, and realize that the world is bent on undermining their children’s character and destroying their pride as parents.” This may be a misreading of the work, but I interpret this as “liberals/libertarians only want to legalize marijuana because they smoke it themselves, liberals/libertarians only want to legalize abortion because they ‘get around’ a lot, and as such grown up adults are conservatives.” If this reading is correct, it sounds a lot like a statement put forth by Keith Olbermann that this publication had a deservedly bad reaction to. Liberals/libertarians only support abortion rights because they have a lot of sex sounds a lot like conservatives are only conservative because they are stupid. Even beyond this point, however, is the fact that the conservative party has so utterly claimed the infallibility of God and Patriotism and incorporated that into their doctrines, that it seems disingenuous to me to critique others for claims of superiority without making an equal critique of the republican party itself. What I am not saying is that his critique is not valid; it certainly is. But to belittle that critique with the use of such vague, untrue, and, quite frankly, insulting generalizations, juxtaposed against the conspicuous absence of easily applicable examples of this on the right as well as affirmations to the contrary, is a move that undermines the argument as it is made. He both highlights the problem and is guilty of it all at once. I am not saying that the left and the libertarians are not guilty in some senses of what he asserts that they are, just that if it is really the goal to move discussions forward rather than to mudsling everyone else, it behooves the writer to encourage everyone to cultivate his or her own garden, rather than to throw mud over the fence and call theirs dirty.

   Best,
   Dalton Vieira

2. Sorry to not include this in the first post, but just another example. If you are going to say that conservatives do do things such as shout expletives over hydrofracking, it is going to make things very hard later in when confronted with scenes like this.

   Better to condemn universally than turn a blind eye introspectively.

3. “don’t do”

4. Dalton, thanks for reading. I think your criticism comes from overgeneralizing what I wrote. In the last part where I call for conservatives to realize the importance of character, I was speaking only to conservatives. Specifically, I was talking to college conservatives who drift from traditional positions precisely because they require more leniency in their own lives. Let me be clear: one can certainly take a pro-pot or pro-abortion stance without personally engaging in NSFW activities. I do not mean to say that all liberals and libertarians are that kind of person. Many derive their positions on social issues from real facts and academic studies, and these people (I’m sure you’re one of them) contribute positively to the debate. They are not childish to take such positions. I don’t quite understand why you’re insulted– you ask for examples on the right, yet essentially the entire piece was targeted AT conservatives and their failures. I was indeed talking to my own cadre of “gardeners”, the conservatives, not our neighbors.

   I did, however, very much mean it when I said “one’s politics are a direct reflection of his standards”. Now, frankly, I am unconcerned with the moral lives of non-conservatives; I said that because I believe conservatives must bring the personal realm into the political realm. Libertarians, on the other hand, try to build a wall between them. That is what I call “childish.” I believe that ultimately, our politicking must work toward a goal of building a refined, but free, society — moral principles are central to this, and so I reserve the right to condemn anyone who fails to see their importance. I hope liberals and libertarians will consider those principles just as much as social conservatives do.

   So to summarize, of course not all liberals and libertarians are immoral people, but to shrug off one’s principles, no matter your political orientation, is unwise. I don’t really see your claim that I wrote something Olbermann-esque.

5. And do conservatives make fools of themselves and curse in public – of course. Perhaps I was wrong to make a comparison with liberals who do that sort of thing, even though many of our liberal readers do not. I didn’t say all liberals do that. (The fact remains that liberals do it more, and here on campus, I have never seen conservatives or libertarians do it.) The point of the text was to note that some conservatives may take pride in registering low on the asshole meter, yet they are no good in their private lives.

6. Thanks for the reply! It just seems like so much of what I get out of your article doesn’t fit with your response. I see at the beginning and peppers throughout your article the theme of a call to return to principals, but you do it against the following background. I quote, “For Stein, being a Republican ‘means standing up against the majority that suppresses logic with mudslinging…due in large part to a grandiose sense of superiority.’ He’s on to something. Liberalism results from a prideful overassuredness that utopia is possible after enough deficit spending and marginalization of freedoms.” And as such you lay the basis on your call to a return to principals (a noble one), at the feet of a sweeping generalization that liberals feel as if their ideals are superior. This seems, in itself, a step which works against the very characteristics you mean to assert/reinforce. But anyways, moving on, of course everyone feels that their ideals are superior, or they wouldn’t argue them. What I assume, then, that you mean by superiority/’overassuredness’ is a characteristic of the person/ideology to rebuff criticisms of their view with dismissal rather than measured consideration. This is a valid critique in itself, one that I wholeheartedly agree with. However, it is undeniably disingenuous of you to assert this as a critique of which liberalism or libertarianism is uniquely guilty or of which conservatism is uniquely innocent at its base. This point is characterized by your utter dismissal of libertarians throughout the latter half of your piece. You utterly rebuff libertarians in a variety of utterly dismissive ways (and I emphasize that you do not say “some” libertarians, but rather, “the” libertarians. You go on to say that Libertarians are simply conservatives who use the social liberal aspect of the doctrine to excuse/indulge in clandestine, hedonistic indulgences such as smoking marijuana (I point to the passages I have quoted previously). This is so clear a violation of the very basis of your argument that I could not help but post what I did above. To you (not to generalize, but on the basis of your article) libertarianism is not a valid doctrine, it is simply conservatism doctored in an ad hoc manner to allow certain practices. Rather, it seems clear to me, as a liberal looking at the libertarian perspective, that their doctrine is not subject to this criticism, but rather is entirely coherent. They say “keep the government our of my pocket and my business practices,” as you do, but they also say “keep the government out of my uterus, body, personal business, etc.” They believe in limited government of all forms, whereas the conservative doctrine does not, rather preferring to use government to legislate (mostly religious) morality. In summation, I stand by my original critique, for I do not feel that it was based upon an over-generalization or misreading. You base your argument in the rejection of liberal superiority, and then proceed to utterly dismiss and entire section of your audience as “a la carte conservatives,” assert the conservative doctrine to have arisen out of higher personal standards (read, superior personal standards), assert that conservatives do not act so vulgarly as do liberals in their public demonstrations, and so on and so forth. And so I say, let us all reject any sense of superiority or privilege of ideals. This is at the heart of your article, and it is a beautiful message, but it is a standard which you at once put forth and violate.

7. Well, I simply think that my “beautiful message” cannot be stated in a less offensive way. I do believe that certain standards are “superior”. You have actually now made me realize that the “superiority” argument is not a good one to use passingly, since we all see ourselves as superior. I understand that it seems disingenuous to deride the self-proclaimed superiority of others. Let me write an after-the-fact clarification of my argument. In this world, the only “superior” things are these: empirical facts, and love-based morals. In saying that liberals and libertarians have an obnoxious sense of superiority, I’m saying that they lack one or both of these “superior” elements in their speech and actions. To qualify as a real thinker, you need to balance both. I’m calling for conservatives not lose sight of this. So no, I don’t speak of “a characteristic of the person/ideology to rebuff criticisms of their view with dismissal rather than measured consideration”. I’m saying an outright rejection of morals nullifies one’s claim to superiority. Thus, my politics–my conservative chi–includes a moral sense.

   I claim that libertarians should be entirely folded into conservatism. You mention correctly that the libertarian and conservative messages are not simpatico. In my ideal world, they actually are. What pushes libertarians toward totally limited government is an ignorance of the moral sense which I just spoke of. They are “at best naive, at worst groundless” because they at best do not consider morals due to perhaps atheism etc., and at worst outright reject them due to hedonism. You may call me a mudslinger, but hear this: it is dangerous to embark on your “rejection of any sense of superiority or privilege of ideals”. To do this is to welcome moral relativism, which is nothing but a lie.

8. I would hardly think this the venue for me to push you on your claims about the interaction of atheism and morality. I do, on the other hand, if I may borrow the phrase from your crowd, “take you at your word” as to the intended meaning of the article. I will simply appeal to the fairmindedness of anyone who reads both your article this discussion as to whether my interpretation of the actual words written were appropriate or not. As you your idea of folding libertarianism into conservatism, that would take a lot of work and compromise on both sides, but I think a fundamental starting point for that would be full recognition by each side of the legitimate logical claims of the other. I, however, am neither a libertarian or a republican, so I think that discussion is best left to another.

   I do think you have struck a chord that I wholly appeal to you to take with you in your future columns however, and that is “love-based morals.” In the future, when you hear that yet another LGBT young person has been tortured via bullying until they take their own life, when you hear that an homosexual person was not able to stand by their lover’s death bed in intensive care because they were not married, when you hear that a young person will be tossed into the prison system for years of their life for a nonviolent drug offence, when you hear that the drug war on the border has claimed yet another life, when you hear that an innocent person has been killed by U.S. arms overseas, when you hear all these things, let your reactions truly be guided by a set of morals that is guided wholly by love of man. And lastly, in future columns, remember that you have in your words the power to sway the mind of another and, be they libertarian, or liberal, or atheist, or gay, you will not reach them if you alienate them.

   And with that, I wish you the utter best of luck with this publication moving forward. The Cornell Review is one of my favorite publications on campus, and there is hardly an issue that has gone by sense I’ve discovered it that I have not read every word of.

   Best,
   Dalton Vieira

9. Dalton, thank you for your candidness, your support, and your wise words. It is true that a writer’s intentions matter little if his words are understood some other way. I hope you will stick around and stimulate more discussion on things in the paper and blog.

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