Northwestern Will Survive Without the Keg (Or: Actions Have Consequences)

[Snark Warning]

The Northwestern community is abuzz this week with the news that the Keg, Evanston’s trashiest, craziest, collegiest bar, has had its liquor license revoked for continually allowing underage drinking. The loss of the license means that the Keg can no longer sell alcohol, meaning that its demise is probably imminent.

Naturally, Northwestern students (many of whom admit to never even having visited the Keg) are enraged. They see the license revocation not only as the end of a place they like to frequent (“like” being used only in the vaguest sense here), but as yet another tyrannical attempt by the city government to disrupt the Northwestern way of life.

I must admit that if my life revolved around drinking, I might see some sense in that view. But then again, I might not, given how many bars, frats, and off-campus apartments there are around me–and the latter two usually don’t even charge, let alone card.

In a perfect world, the Keg wouldn’t be closing. Why? Because the legal drinking age would be 18, just like the age of consent, enfranchisement, and conscription. In that perfect world, our culture would pay enough attention to mental health that people wouldn’t need alcohol to relax or socialize, meaning that binge drinking would be much less common.

But, clearly, we don’t live in that world yet, and for now, as in the future, we are obligated to follow the laws created by our elected government. The Keg’s ownership has proven over and over that it does not take the issue of underage drinking seriously, and it should not be permitted to flagrantly violate the law as it currently stands.

In one of the very few intelligent responses to this news that I have seen from NU students, my fellow columnist at the Daily Northwestern points out that closing the Keg will not stop underage drinking. That is correct. Nothing can stop underage drinking among college students aside from lowering the drinking age.

However, not revoking the Keg’s liquor license despite its violations of federal law send the message that we value profit and fun over law enforcement. Nowhere in the Constitution are we guaranteed the right to drink alcohol without any reasonable limits. What we are guaranteed, however, is a government with the power to make and enforce laws.

(My friend and fellow blogger Michael also writes about why revoking the Keg’s liquor license is not the evil tyrannical anti-capitalist move that some students seem to think it is.)

Furthermore, while closing the Keg will not prevent underage drinking, neither will ticketing speeders prevent speeding, or cleaning up litter prevent littering. yet both must be done for the sake of a fair and orderly society.

Many NU students, of course, don’t look at it this way and have no desire to. They react like a toddler reaching for her fifth piece of candy and having it taken away. In fact, they reacted by creating a fake Twitter account for Evanston mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl. Read it and weep.

(The fake Twitter account is partially a nod to the fact that the Keg’s “unofficial” Twitter was, according to students, the reason for its untimely demise, as Tisdahl pointed out the references to underage drinking in the satirical tweets. However, students who pretend that the Keg is closing due to a fake Twitter account are creating a straw man. It’s closing because of constant, documented violations of the law.)

Anyway, one of the writers over at the blog Sherman Ave responds to the attacks on Tisdahl with much more punch than I could ever muster:

Also, if you are attacking Mayor Tisdahl you are an idiot. You may not think you are an idiot, but you are. I’m sorry, but anyone who scapegoats an elected official for enforcing the law deserves the title of idiot. And that’s that.

For what it’s worth, I applaud Tisdahl for doing something “uncool,” since that’s something that many Northwestern students are apparently incapable of.

I’ve also seen a lot of comments from other students bemoaning the fact that the Keg’s closing means that their social lives are, for all intents and purposes, dead. I don’t know how many of these are “ironic” as opposed to genuine, but I do know that “irony” is a defense frequently trotted out by people who have been caught saying something idiotic.

If any of those comments do have any truth to them, I have only this to say–if your entire social life consists of getting wasted in a grimy bar, that is really sad.

Finally, and perhaps most irritatingly, many students are reacting to the closure of the Keg as though some irrevocable, unique part of Northwestern culture is gone. An article to this effect was even published at North by Northwestern.

People. Seriously. Seedy bars where you can get piss-drunk are a dime a dozen. Go to any college town in the country and you’ll see that.

For people like me, who observe what most call “college life” only from the sidelines, the Keg’s imminent closure is both a cause of celebration and, well, of consternation. The former for obvious reasons, and the latter because it’s quite disappointing to see one’s fellow students ranting and raving over the closing of some dumb bar as though they’ve just gotten rejected from their favorite country club or something.

For now, though, I’ll leave you with this hilarious take on the Keg’s closure from Sherman Ave. Don’t watch if you’re easily offended.

Northwestern Will Survive Without the Keg (Or: Actions Have Consequences)
{advertisement}

Islamophobia Does Not "Cause" Riots

So I was reading the current issue of Utne Reader (great magazine, by the way) and came across an article about Islamophobia, reprinted from Intelligence Report.

At was a good article, at least up until the third paragraph. There, I saw something that made my eyes want to pop out of my head, migrate to the author’s place of residence, and slap him in the face:

Recent news reports strongly suggest a spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes. In May 2010, for example, a bomb exploded at an Islamic center in Jacksonville, Florida. In August, a man slashed the neck and face of a New York taxi driver after finding out he was a Muslim. Four days later, someone set fire to construction equipment at the future site of an Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In March 2011, a radical Christian pastor burned a Koran in Gainesville, Florida, leading to deadly riots in Afghanistan that left at least 20 people dead. [emphasis mine]

No. No no no. First of all, unlike the first three incidents, burning a Koran is not an “anti-Muslim hate crime.” Last I checked, in America that counts as free speech, heinous as it may be. Second, Islamophobia may have caused the first three incidents, but it did not cause the fourth one. That one was caused by morons who chose to respond to a provocation in a violent way.

One of my biggest issues with liberal discourse on societal problems is its proclivity to diminish or erase entirely the concept of human agency. (Some) liberals talk as though society just makes people do things without them actually processing information and deciding how to act on it.

(Among more radical liberals, this lends itself to the belief that violent response to injustice is not only inevitable, but morally justified, even if innocent people are injured or killed in the process. See: Hamas apologists.)

Leaving aside the morality of the rioters’ actions, it nevertheless takes quite a few conceptual steps to get from American Islamophobia to Muslims killing people in Afghanistan. While one could reasonably assume that Islamophobia (along with a number of other factors, such as having a violent disposition) caused people to do things like bomb mosques, stab Muslim taxi drivers, and burn Korans, one cannot then jump from that to “Islamophobia causes people in Afghanistan to riot and kill people.” Just, no.

I should hope that it’s quite clear that moderating variables must be at play here. (Case in point: Jews have been subject to as much [if not more] racism and discrimination throughout history as Muslims have, but if we rioted and killed each other every time somebody did something anti-Semitic, there’d be none of us left. Do a Google search on “burning Israeli flag” and you’ll see how common this is, and don’t tell me nobody ever burns Bibles, either.) For whatever reason, the rioters in question chose not to respond to this incident by starting an initiative to educate Westerners about Islam, by simply ranting about it to family and friends, or by shrugging and moving on.

Instead, they chose to respond to a no-name dipshit burning a Koran thousands of miles away by killing 20 innocent people.

Clearly, the vast, vast majority of Muslims in the world did not react this way, just like most teenagers who happen to come into possession of a loaded gun do not immediately go shoot up a school. The few who do go shoot up schools have serious issues that go way beyond the fact that they have access to a gun.

Islamophobia is a serious problem and should not be swept under the rug. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. All humans have agency, and we should assign the same level of responsibility to the Muslims who rioted as to the Americans who provoked them.

Islamophobia Does Not "Cause" Riots

Obama the Patriarch

I usually stay away from commenting on Obama’s presidency because, to be honest, I was just a kid during all the previous presidencies I’ve lived through and really have no comparison to make.

However, a recent statement by Obama has caused me to come out of my apolitical cave and rage. After the FDA made a recommendation that Plan B One-Step, a form of emergency birth control that is available over the counter to anyone over 17, be available to girls under 17 without a prescription as well, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s secretary of health and human services, overruled the FDA’s recommendation. This is disappointing enough as is, but then Obama came out in support of her and said the following:

“I will say this, as the father of two daughters: I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine….And as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going into a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could end up having an adverse effect.  And I think most parents would probably feel the same way.”

As usual when I write about women’s issues, I literally don’t even know where to start with this. First, and perhaps most obviously, I don’t understand why we’re having all this conversation about 10- and 11-year-olds. The change would have applied to all girls under 17, and the majority of teenage girls who might need to buy Plan B are not 10 and 11. Try 15 and 16. If Obama and Sebelius are that concerned about 10- and 11-year-olds specifically, they could’ve asked the FDA to recommend allowing only girls 12 and over to get Plan B without a prescription.

Second, and also very tellingly, if the FDA has deemed Plan B safe for over-the-counter use, who are Sebelius and Obama to assume they know better? Sebelius has a BA in political science and an master’s in public administration; Obama has a BA in political science and a law degree. Unlike many cynics, I don’t necessarily doubt that these two have the knowledge and ability to perform their respective jobs, but I would not trust them over the doctors and researchers who staff the FDA when it comes to medical issues.

Third, Obama immediately reveals what this is really about when he says, “as the father of two daughters…” Understandably, Obama would be worried for his two daughters if they were ever in a position to need Plan B. However, for all of the battling that Obama has had to do with the Far Right of this country, he clearly doesn’t seem to realize that many girls don’t have daddies like Obama who would care for them, be able to afford doctors’ appointments, support their right to get an abortion, and guide them through a decision. For many girls, it would be a choice between obtaining Plan B on their own or being shamed, abused, disowned, and/or forced to carry a baby to term.

Finally, I’m disturbed by the ageist and patriarchal notion that young women are somehow incapable of making their own decisions about sexual health. Yes, children need and should have access to guidance from adults. In a perfect world, every girl would be able to go to her parents for help with something like this. But that’s not the world we live in, and we must make do accordingly. Not only has the FDA already determined that Plan B is safe, but, unlike many medications that are available over the counter to children, you can’t overdose on it or otherwise fuck it up–when you buy it, you only get one.

Furthermore, there are other ways to make sure young teens know what they’re doing when it comes to emergency birth control. For instance, mandate pharmacists to provide an option for girls to privately ask them questions about how to use Plan B. Pharmacists know a lot. Why not use them as a resource?

Much has been made of Obama’s failure (or lack thereof) to support women’s rights, and it’s a debate I don’t normally follow because one can really spin it either way. On this issue, however, I would argue that Obama has definitively failed to support women and girls. Instead, he has promoted the antiquated notion that beliefs trump science when it comes to reproductive rights.

Obama the Patriarch

Difficult ≠ Impossible

I’m going to come out of my cave and write about something that pisses me off. (OK, so I could start any blog post this way, but whatever.)

Here’s something that I consider one of the most glaring cultural problems in America today–it’s the idea that just because something is difficult, it is impossible and not worth trying. Our culture has become a deeply pessimistic one, and the message that it sends these days is “Oh, forget it, we could never change that anyway.”

Don’t believe me? Well, you should, because I’m right. There’s a reason that the issues that land on the political agenda are fairly simple–go to war, or not go to war. Allow gay marriage, or not allow gay marriage. Raise the debt ceiling, or don’t raise it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these issues aren’t fraught with difficulties of their own. But they are very simple–yes or no. Right or wrong. Do, or don’t.

The issues that don’t really get talked about much are the complex ones. How to fix our education system. How to achieve equality between women and men, and between whites and people of color. How to create a more just and sustainable food system. How to end our addiction to oil. How to end the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. How to encourage democracy to take root in other parts of the world without shoving it down people’s throats.

To be sure, our government does things to try and ameliorate these issues somewhat, but they’re always band-aid solutions to broken-bone problems. For instance, George W. Bush tried to “fix” our schools with No Child Left Behind. President Obama issued empty threats to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop settlement building, with no regard for the religious and political complexities that the settlement issue dredges up. Then there’s that little Iraq thing. As for our screwed-up food system, racial justice, and ditching the oil habit, I don’t think anything’s being done at all.

Try coming up to an older person (by which I mean, someone old enough to have their own kids) and talking to them about these issues. About education, about food, about the racism still embedded deep within our society. Ten bucks says they tell you something like, “Yeah, it’d be great if that could get fixed, but face it–it’s never gonna happen.”

Why? Why the hell not?

Well, because it’s hard.

People think that these things are never gonna get fixed because it’s so hard to fix them. And by hard, I mean like when you’re trying to do a math problem and you don’t even know where to start. You’re completely stuck. Nothing you’ve ever learned is going to help you here.

The stuff that gets in the news, like gay marriage, the debt ceiling, and all of that sort of stuff, is different from these issues because, despite our disagreement on them, we know what to do. We either vote yes, or no. But you can’t vote “yes” or “no” on education reform or on ending racism, because you have to figure out what the hell to actually do about it.

Note what a clusterfuck occurs when our government actually tries to take on a complex and nuanced issue–for instance, healthcare reform. It nearly stops functioning. Our culture is terrified of complexity.

Usually when young people like me talk about fixing some of these complicated problems, older people call us “idealists.” (And that’s at best–sometimes they use less charitable labels.) To me, all that’s saying is that we’re willing to think about and talk about things that are hard, and “realistic” people are not.

Well, realism is dooming this country. Realists are people who don’t think we can stop global warming, who don’t think we can have just and efficient healthcare, education, and food systems, who don’t think we can ever achieve equality between sexes, races, socioeconomic classes, or sexual orientations.

And guess what? If you tell yourself you can’t do something, it’s not going to get done.

And anyway, isn’t that a terribly demoralizing thing to say? I think we’re selling ourselves short when we say that we can’t solve complex problems like these. After all, the human race invented democracy, finance and agriculture, created the Mona Lisa, painted the Sistine Chapel, put a man on the moon, eradicated polio, and set up the Internet. Do our accomplishments really end there?

Just because something is difficult does not mean it’s impossible. Things that are impossible, at least with our current knowledge and technology, are traveling through time, sprouting wings and flying, curing cancer, and turning lead into gold. But things that are merely difficult? Well, that’s just about everything else.

Difficult ≠ Impossible

Why I Oppose Banning Burqas

This is not the problem.

And no, my reasoning has nothing to do with racism or any other ism!

Belgian lawmakers recently passed a bill that, if approved in their senate, would make it illegal to wear burqas in public. This comes on the heels of France’s

When justifying banning burqas or similar Islamic garments, people typically make two points–one, that burqas represent and facilitate the oppression of women, and two, that they pose a security risk.

I’ll address the oppression issue first. Some women do indeed wear burqas because they’ve been pressured into it by their culture or by specific men in their lives. But other women do it out of a genuine desire to observe their religion in that way. Some even see it as an empowering gesture. It is fundamentally unjust to oppress the latter group in the name of protecting the former.

But even if I’m being completely naive, and even if not a single Muslim woman willingly chooses to wear a burqa, I conveniently have a second argument. For those women who are being oppressed by the burqa, would banning it really help? The obvious answer, I should hope, is no. In this case, banning the burqa is the legal equivalent of slapping a band-aid over a knife wound–and of treating the symptoms rather than the disease. The disease being, of course, large-scale societal oppression of women. Not something that can be fixed with a single magical law. To use an analogy that’s even closer to my personal experience, banning burqas to promote feminism is like banning suicide to promote mental health.

Not only would banning it not help, but it would probably backfire. If these women’s husbands or fathers are pressuring them into wearing the burqa, they would probably keep right on doing it despite the new law, thus placing these women in a prime position for facing charges, jail time, or plain ol’ harassment by the police. After all, they would be the ones paying the price for breaking the law, not men.

As for the whole security issue, I don’t have too much to say about that because I’m honestly not an expert on the subject, but I’ll say this–Israel has no burqa ban, or any sort of ban on Islamic head coverings, and yet has an incredible security force that manages to stop virtually all potential terrorists within the country’s borders. They don’t release these statistics to the public, but all the time in the Jerusalem Post, you see another story about security guards catching a would-be terrorist. Maybe the security authorities in these European countries should have a big pow-wow with Israeli ones and see what they’ve been missing.

I think it’s very tempting for people (and governments) to believe that issues like the oppression of women by organized religion can be fixed by something as simple as a law banning burqas. But ultimately, you can never really know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. What looks like oppression to us may not feel that way to the women in question. Or maybe it does. In any case, banning burqas won’t help.

I’ll leave you with my favorite cartoon on this subject:

Why I Oppose Banning Burqas

Civil Disobedience Gone Horribly Wrong

Anyone who’s been at an airport lately probably agrees that those new TSA bodyscans/patdowns suck. One woman, however, apparently reserves some very special wrath for this procedure, because it infuriated her so much that she assaulted a female TSA officer. Not in the usual shoving/punching way, though:

TSA staff said Mihamae refused to be go through passenger screening and became argumentative before she squeezed and twisted the agent’s breast with both hands. Police said Mihamae admitted to the crime and was arrested on a felony count of sexual abuse.

Just in case this isn’t bad enough, there is now some sort of movement to keep Miyamae (that’s the actual spelling of her name; the media outlets got it wrong) from being prosecuted to the full extent of the law. It’s a Facebook page called “Acquit Yukari Mihamae” and it has currently been liked by 4,694 (and rapidly counting) people.

That’s a lot of people who think that physically assaulting someone is a fair response to a policy they dislike.

Here are some of the comments I found on the page:

“I love the story about this those disgusting TSA pigs need a taste of their own putrid medicine. I hope everything goes well I will offer all the support possible. NO PARA-MILITARY a.k.a TSA”

“GOOD JOB!!!! you should have twisted those bad boys right off!!!! show them punk asses a case of trading places… they think this is bad wait till they push us so far into a corner that the only option left for us is to revolt!!!!!!!!!!!”

“THANK YOU, Yukari for standing up to the TSA and for doing what I have always wanted to do!! You are a true hero and you show that resistance ios NOT futile!! I hope everyone will learn from your example and resist the senseless groping. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your courage and bravery!!”

“Thank you Yukari for your courage. You are the modern day Rosa Parks”

“Well, if somebody doesn’t stands up as Yukari did ,the world will be destroyed already… kudos for you!”

“TSA is to the United States as The Gestapo was to Nazi Germany!!”

“I live in Australia and was thinking of vacationing in the US. Until TSA follows the Inquisition and the Stasi into the dumpster of History, I’ll go elsewhere.”

“Keep twisting Yukari-san.”

Perhaps nothing disturbs me more than the comparisons of Miyamae to Rosa Parks and of the TSA to the Gestapo, the Stasi, and the Inquisition.

As for the suggestion that what Miyamae did is somehow equivalent to what the TSA does, that’s preposterous. Whether or not you agree with the actual method, the TSA has been charged with keeping airline flights safe. They’re not scanning/patting people down in order to make them uncomfortable, molest them, or embarrass them. They’re doing it because they’re trying to stop potential terrorists.

Furthermore, last I checked, we don’t do “an eye for an eye” here in America. We don’t rob convicted burglars, we don’t rape convicted rapists, we don’t punch kids that we catch fighting with classmates.

It seems that people have, as usual, fallen victim to black-and-white thinking. To them, the TSA’s screenings are “bad.” Therefore, anyone who resists them in any way must be “good.” Even if that resistance takes the form of an assault on someone’s body.

The supporters of Miyamae, particularly the ones who compare her to Rosa Parks, also seem to neglect the fact that real civil disobedience is powerful precisely because it harms no one. The image of Rosa Parks quietly sitting on the bus and refusing to stand is completely different from that of Miyamae forcefully grabbing and twisting the breast of another woman, a woman who is simply doing her job and trying to make a living.

Civil Disobedience Gone Horribly Wrong

America: Still a Puritan Country

An apology that shouldn't be necessary.

Among the many things that disgust me about American culture, such as the spectacle of parents shoving McNuggets down their kids’ throats and of people desperately trying to get famous by releasing moronic YouTube videos or starring on any one of numerous TV shows meant just for this purpose, one thing that always gets me is the image of a politician or athlete standing in front of a microphone in a room full of reporters and apologizing for his (or her, but it’s almost always a man) personal sexual choices.

I don’t understand this about American culture. I’ve lived here for twelve years now, and I still don’t understand it. Why is it that someone we value for his contributions to politics (or sports or acting or whatever) must also be a pinnacle of human achievement and morality in every possible regard? Why can’t we realize that people are never perfect?

I am completely shocked by the fact that people are now calling for Rep. Weiner’s resignation. Does his sex life affect his ability to make laws? No? Then there’s no reason for him to resign.

Cheating is “bad.” But so is, arguably, driving SUVs, yelling at family members, and being a Buckeyes fan, for instance. Granted, these things are less “bad” then cheating. So how do we decide what’s bad enough to warrant asking someone to resign from their position?

One argument that I hear a lot is that prominent figures are “role models” for our nation’s children and should therefore be held responsible for their personal misdeeds. Well, with Weiner, this may not exactly be relevant, but it certainly applies to other notables whose sex life has become a matter of public record, such as Tiger Woods. As much as I doubt that a little kid who loves sports and strives to imitate Tiger’s dedication to his game would also choose to mimic his dalliances with strippers or whatever they were, I do think this can be a teachable moment. A parent could explain to their kid that sometimes people who are really great at some things make mistakes when it comes to other things, or that sometimes being really talented and famous makes people do bad things. Can we move on now?

Another argument I hear is that the problem isn’t necessarily the sexting thing, but the fact that he lied about it. Well, why shouldn’t he? It’s his business. Saying “no comment” amounts to admitting it’s true, so the only option is to lie. If I did something that I know my friends would disapprove of, and they start asking me if I did that thing or not, I would undoubtedly say no. Because it’s my business.

When it comes to apologies, there is only one person that Weiner should apologize to–his wife. The rest of America should not require an apology from him for something that’s none of their business. I don’t need his apology.

If nothing else, the reaction to the Weiner scandal–actually, the fact that it was even a scandal to begin with–shows that the Puritans who founded this country must be smiling down upon us from heaven, because we’ve proudly continued on their legacy. In this country, if you’re a prominent figure and you do one bad thing, you are a Bad Person, and you must apologize to the entire nation, resign from your position, and live out the rest of your days in quiet solitude, pondering your sins.

If Weiner resigns, I know that I personally will be extremely disappointed. Not only because we’ve lost a member of government who might’ve done some good, but because this sets a precedent–a person who broke no laws and committed no crimes can be forced to lose his job just because we don’t consider him “moral” enough.

America: Still a Puritan Country

Why I Criticize Liberals and Not Conservatives

For someone who identifies as liberal and progressive, I certainly spend an odd amount of time criticizing fellow liberals and progressives. Unlike other bloggers of my general type, I don’t do all those muckraking-type posts detailing the latest scandalous Fox News segment or hypocritical Republican politician’s speech. Instead, I prefer to rip on people that I mostly agree with. Why is this?

Several reasons. First of all, getting my panties in a wad over some stupid conservative comment takes very little intelligence, and I prefer to utilize my intelligence as much as I can. The typical liberal kvetch-post usually goes something like this: “Well surprise surprise! [Insert Republican candidate here] gave a speech in [insert small conservative town here] yesterday and claimed that ‘good Christians’ should not allow gay couples to go to prom! It never ceases to amaze me how vile these Republicans are!” Or: “Last night [insert Fox News talk show host here] claimed on his show that people on welfare are ‘dirty rats pilfering our hard-earned money.’ Perhaps he should try living on welfare for a while!”

Okay, I exaggerate, but hopefully you see my point. It’s just that it takes no mental energy whatsoever to criticize people and ideas that are so ludicrous. For instance, today in Salon: talk show host Sean Hannity thinks Sesame Street is an attack on “family values” (whatever the hell that means these days), and Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) apparently thinks that the US should support Israel so that the Jews can rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and Christ can return. Um, okay.

Now, what Salon (and the liberal blogosphere in general) does with their time and webspace is their own business, but one has to wonder why so many intelligent writers would would want to waste their energy railing against the likes of Hannity and Bachmann and the rest of that entire cadre of shockingly brainless people. Because, really, what is there to actually say about the two links I just mentioned, aside from the fact that they are really stupid?

Meanwhile, most of the intelligent conservative perspectives that I’ve encountered unfortunately involve economics. For instance, Northwestern’s president, Morton Schapiro, refuses to implement a living wage for workers in dining halls, housekeeping, and etc. because he thinks this idea is economically unsound–and he’s a well-known, respected economist. No matter how much I’d love to see a living wage on campus, I can respect his opinion.

However, one little problem–I know absolutely nothing about economics, and I am prevented from learning more by the fact that I find it insufferably boring. So not only am I completely unqualified to even try to argue with the likes of Dr. Shapiro, I also have little desire to do so. (Likewise, it seems, with most liberals. The Living Wage Campaign at Northwestern, for instance, has insisted on using passion and emotion to fuel its arguments, even though President Shapiro, when asked what would convince him to implement a living wage, answered, “Good arguments.” Meaning, of course, arguments that are evidence-based and rational.)

As for why criticizing liberals is a good idea, that should be self-evident. I care deeply about seeing the causes I care about succeed. Sometimes, however, I feel that people are going about them in the wrong ways. For instance:

Incidentally, there are just so many types of privilege now. White privilege, male privilege, class privilege, heterosexual privilege, cis privilege, abled privilege, thin privilege, even vanilla privilege! A veritable buffet of privileges. For the record, I do believe privilege exists, in a way. But I don’t think it’s worth talking about, because bitching and moaning about it and yelling at people you disagree with about how they can’t “see past their privilege” contributes nothing useful to the larger discourse on social justice. I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t. All it does is alienate people that you might have otherwise persuaded.

I’m getting really off-topic now, but another quick comment about privilege–although this is a matter of semantics, I think it’s much more useful to view non-privileged people as disadvantaged rather than viewing privileged people as “privileged.” After all, we don’t want everyone to lose privileges like not being accused of stealing, being paid fair wages, and being able to easily find the right hair care products. Rather, we want everyone to have these privileges. So rather than implying that it’s somehow “bad” that I, as a white woman rather than a black one, can walk into a store and not be followed by a salesperson, we should be implying that it’s completely wrong that a black woman would be followed while a white one would not. Different emphasis entirely. I know any progressive would agree with me on this, and yet they persist on using language that problematizes the privileges that some of us have rather than the disadvantages that others face. The privileges I have as a middle-class, cisgender white person are privileges everyone should have. The privileges that heterosexual men have are privileges that I should have. And so on.

Back to the point. This is why, in most of the posts where I’m explicitly criticizing something, I generally propose some alternatives–organizing a protest rather than personally boycotting a store, finding a healthy balance between work and love rather than sacrificing one for the other, and so on. I hope that by doing this I have shown that I do actually care about finding solutions rather than simply criticizing things. I get a lot of satisfaction from identifying ways that things are being done wrong and suggesting ways to do them better.

But bloggers who endlessly chronicle the bon mots of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh are doing absolutely nothing productive. I’ve always believed that a “good blog” is one that contributes something meaningful to the world rather than simply chronicling things that piss off its author.

Why I Criticize Liberals and Not Conservatives

The Value of Disagreement

A photo from an Obama-McCain debate in 2008. Just to add some requisite humor to this otherwise serious post.

I am a liberal and I go to a liberal school. Sometimes this makes me feel happy and comfortable, because I have so much in common with others here in terms of politics. I can complain publicly about Americans’ lack of belief in climate change, or about something Glenn Beck said. I can ask my friends if they’ve seen the latest episode of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report. I can rant excitedly about some famous person coming out as gay, lesbian, bi, or trans. And I can do all this without worrying that I’m going to offend someone, or that someone is going to argue with me.

But two recent incidents made me ask myself if this is really such a good thing.

One was a conversation I had with a friend about a mutual friend of ours. We’re all really close and hang out a lot, but when I suggested to one that he go have a conversation with the other, he said that they don’t really have anything serious to talk about. I asked why, and he said that they always just agree on everything and there’s little to discuss.

The other was the killing of Osama Bin Laden. When this happened, my Facebook feed suddenly exploded with such a variety of opinions that I didn’t even know existed at Northwestern. Some people were screaming “USA! USA!” Others were really happy that Bin Laden was dead, but didn’t want to celebrate so gleefully. Others were ambivalent, wondering why this really mattered, or whether or not he should’ve been shot dead. Others still were furious that he’d been killed on the spot, arguing that he should’ve been tried by the American judicial system instead. Some were religious Jews or Christians, happy to have gained this victory against radical Islam. (Unfortunately, I don’t know many Muslims, but I would’ve loved to hear their perspectives.) Some were atheists or agnostics, wishing that we didn’t have these religious wars to begin with. And so on and so forth.

Immediately, tons of arguments and debates started up. I got into quite a few myself. As a result, I changed certain parts of my opinion, began to understand other parts more clearly, and generally started articulating my views a bit better. And, also, I learned a lot about many of my friends.

After that, I started to realize how much we’re missing here in terms of political dialogue. I used to be very conservative, but back then I lived in Ohio and everyone around me pretty much agreed. Now that I’m much more liberal, I’m once again surrounded by people who share my views on almost everything. Except for those times when my friends and I start getting bitchy and arguing minutiae, I rarely get to have a good political debate.

What to do about this? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how to get more conservative or libertarian students to attend Northwestern. Like it or not, this is a liberal campus.

One related issue, however, is a bit easier to solve, and that is the tendency of people to want to shut down those who disagree. (I addressed this briefly in the previous post.) The internet makes it much easier to do this because you can literally avoid “conservative” or “liberal” websites, but I see this in play even out in the real world. When I lived in Ohio, despite being conservative, I had the uncomfortable feeling that conservatives always wanted to shut liberals up. Luckily, I didn’t have to feel guilty for long, because when I came to Northwestern I found that liberals do the exact same thing. The way we respond to alternative viewpoints is often anything but respectful and curious–it’s snarky and dismissive.

For instance, when discussing people who oppose the right to abortion, liberals like to refer to them as “anti-choice” rather than “pro-life,” which is what they call themselves. This is, in my opinion, ridiculously disrespectful. Pro-lifers place the sanctity of life above the freedom of choice, but that doesn’t mean they oppose choice. It just means they value life (and they define life as beginning at conception) more than they value choice. I disagree with this position entirely, but I respect it and can see why some people would think that way.

Similarly, conservatives will purposefully refer to Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama” (to highlight his “Muslim” middle name) or as the “Obamination” or as any number of other highly disrespectful monikers. Why? Why talk like this about the President of the United States just because he is a liberal?

This needs to stop. From both sides. Silencing the opinions of others benefits nobody. If they’re wrong, they’re wrong. If they’re right, then you should know the truth. If they’re partially right and partially wrong, you should take this opportunity to fine-tune your own views.

In fact, in order to put my money where my mouth is, from now on I’m going to seek out intelligent conservative blogs and read them. If nothing else, it’ll help me learn how to defend my own views better. Unfortunately, I don’t hear many conservative opinions here on campus, so I’m going to look for them elsewhere.

The Value of Disagreement