Tilting at Windmills

POLITICAL demagogues, no matter what ideology they espouse, have a nasty habit of stereotyping their opponents as a single, unified force. Such groups define themselves by redefining--and even creating--an enemy group against which to fight. And anyone who doubts the effectiveness of such techniques need look no farther than the Harvard campus to see them in action.

In recent months, several conservative campus organizatrions, ranging from the Association Against Learning in the Absence of Religion and Morality (AALARM) to Peninsula to the executive board of the Harvard Republican Club, have launched a vocal campaign against what they describe as a single, univocal campus left. Concentrating their attacks on gay rights and women's rights, these groups have sought to portray themselves as embattled crusaders for morality in a spiritual wasteland. And the name they have given to their enemy is the "moral relativist."

What exactly is a "moral relativist?" According to these rambunctious rightists, the campus is literally crawling with them. And yet few on the Harvard campus, either on the left or on the right, would actually claim to be one. A very good reason exists for this discrepancy. Like the "secular humanist" who was so much in vogue a few years ago, the moral relativist is a creature called into being by an overzealous right wing in order to lend itself credibility.

What does a moral relativist do? If we are to take Peninsula as gospel, he--or more likely she--is a sneaky little character who has managed to worm into the Harvard bureaucracy with a detailed agenda. What precisely this agenda entails is not exactly clear, but it seems to somehow involve and effort to discredit "moral" values--i.e., those held by Peninsula, AALARM and their ilk.

Members of this extremist clique speak of "presenting a united front" when "combating the Left," as though Harvard were divided into two distinct camps, each poised at the other's throat. They speak of a single "Christian" ideology, ignoring the very real differences between Christian sects and invalidating the other religions practiced by some one-third of undergraduates.

In short, they twist the subtle disparities between individual strains of thought into a single strain of enemy ideology. In doing so, they undermine and misrepresent the ideas of Harvard's moderate Republicans, many of whom object to the obnoxious and intolerant agenda of these self-described truth-seekers.

The progenitors of this conservative cacaphony justify themselves by arguing that it is they, and not the campus's moderates or left-wingers, who truly represent the American "mainstream." Perhaps they are right; and yet this claim is not necessarily something to boast about. At one time, racism and sexism were mainstream American values, and many would argue that they are still pervasive.

To the extent that things have improved in this society, it is the result of the actions of men and women who dared to question the morality of an ethical system which enshrined these values. No doubt the founders of Peninsula, had they been contemporaries of these people, would have been quick to denounce them as "moral relativists," attacking the mainstream values of their day in order to establish their own political agenda. These dissenters stood for tolerance, equal opportunity and an end to discrimination, not "moral relativism."

Peninsula, AALARM and the executive board of the Republican Club have a right to say what they want and as loudly as they want. These groups thrive on publicity, and each new criticism of their actions inevitably brings with it a wave of smug denunciations. They viee each criticism as another proof of their paranoid claim that a hostile, unified left is out to get them.

But no one need by fooled by their rhetoric. All Peninsula & Co. have done is create a myth of a united opposition in order to advance their own limited agenda. There is no battle at Harvard between Truth and Relativism, simply a group of media-crazed loudmouths attempting to impose their bigoted values on the rest of the University.