Stuff Dartmouth Kids Like: Divide and Flounder
To say that the Freedom Budget proposal emailed out to campus last week sparked a mixed reaction would be an understatement. There have been multiple op-eds, countless conversations among friends and a packed-to-the-rafters meeting in response. As we all know, the proposal is a collection of policy proposals in support of a collection of moral positions. They have been written to address a collection of problems that the proposal’s writers feel have made Dartmouth a worse place to live and to learn than it otherwise could be.
There are generally three kinds of issues in the world. There are the issues that have one right answer, issues that have no room for shades of gray. Let’s call this Category A. There are the issues that are basically universally accepted to be problematic or beneficial but lend themselves to disagreement when we discuss how to address them – Category B. And finally, there is Category C – the issues that lack consensus in any regard, not because people haven’t caught up to morality or because we are too comfortable with the status quo to change, but because there aren’t right answers. There are arguments to be made for any side (any, not either, because it’s rare that these questions can be answered by “yes” or “no”), and which side you choose depends not on your capacity for rational thought or your decency as a human being, but by a knottier set of factors that define your worldview.
For better or for worse, most of the issues we will face in our lives will be Category C.
There have been many knee-jerk responses to the proposal – “I loved my time here, so I’m going to ignore those who didn’t.” “I’m a minority student and this document doesn’t speak for me.” “Dartmouth will not be a safe place unless all these points are addressed, and if you don’t think so, you don’t support making this school an inclusive place.” Arguments like these are not useful because they do not get to the heart of the issues that the proposal addresses.
Some of the demands in the proposal are Category A. But most are Category B and C. The spirit of the budget, no matter what you may think of specific line items, is to make Dartmouth a better and more inclusive place. That’s a goal you would be hard-pressed to find true opposition to.
The thing about Category B and C issues is that opposition to a proposed solution can often be perceived as dismissal of the issue itself. And it’s not. We are all emotional about these issues, and God knows we should be emotional because they are important. But feelings are not the same as solutions and feelings are not enough.
When people ask whether racial quotas are the best way to achieve diversity or how the College is going to pay to implement all the proposals, they are not trying to deflect from the real discussion. A logistical concern doesn’t trump a moral one, but a proposal suggesting that tuition be free for all would fail – not because it’s not a good enough idea, but because of logistics. Once we agree on an idea, nothing is more important than logistics. Change doesn’t happen just because people want it. Change happens because people did the hard work and thought about the nuts and bolts.
It has been said that consensus is not important. In some cases, this is true – who knows how long it would have taken America to abolish slavery if we had waited for a majority vote? If the proposals in the budget – the specific proposed items, not the spirit of the budget – were all Category A, we wouldn’t need to have a discussion. But they aren’t.
Divisive language and divisive behavior are dangerous, not because they make it harder to achieve a goal or because people’s feelings might be hurt. Divisiveness is dangerous because it alienates people who are already on your side who might belong to a group that is being attacked as the cause of a problem. Divisiveness is dangerous because it weakens the strength of an argument and it halts the conversation. When you demonize groups and communities in one fell swoop, it gives people a reason to stop listening. When you simplify issues into black and white, it raises doubt about your ability to truly understand nuanced issues. Divisive rhetoric is dangerous because it pulls us away from the real issues, and when they’re this important, we can’t afford to lose our way.
I am not trying to distract from the conversation with a call to placate the majority or soften language for the sake of others’ feelings. On the contrary, we desperately need to have a conversation. This is a call to focus on the issues instead of each other. We need to listen to each other instead of talking past one another, and though the offense a straight white man feels when he is cast as the enemy may not be the same as the pain that students who already feel marginalized experience when racist things are written on Bored at Baker or said to them in the street, we are all people and we all matter. I do not matter more than you and you do not matter more than me. Like it or not, we have to talk about the issues raised by the Freedom Budget proposal. Let’s do it respectfully.