Words Will Never Hurt You

Last year, my predecessor as editorial chair of The Harvard Crimson cited me as an example of the growing tide of conservatism on Harvard's campus. My ascension at The Crimson was deemed fairly revolutionary, because unlike every editorial chair in recent memory, I was a registered Republican.

Twenty-odd years ago, legend has it, The Crimson refused to elect one student its president because he failed to support Chairman Mao. Now, a conservative was gaining control of The Crimson's proud liberal editorial policy. It sent shivers down quite a few spines, and the owners of said spines were more than willing to tell me so.

I assured the shiverers that I was quite moderate, really, and that my views on campus issues were generally in synch with Crimson staff tradition. Usually, they were. But over the course of the year, every once in awhile, some would accuse me of "hurting the community" with staff editorials that went, at least according to my accuser, beyond the "acceptable" realm of staff policy.

The first reaction to such a charge ought to be flattery, I think. Community-wide impact is usually reserved for the likes of Harvey Mansfield.

But the second, far more important reaction is confusion. How can someone "hurt" others with her views? Views can anger you, bother you, please you, affirm you, but I can't imagine them harming you. An opinion barks--often loudly--but it generally has no bite.

The answer, of course, is that nobody's views hurt anyone. The worst an opinion can do is make someone else very, very angry. And the very notion that opinions hurt--and more specifically, that my opinions hurt--is a product of the campus bias against conservatives.

The kinds of issues that drew those accusations were generally opinions about free speech in the wake of various campus controversies. In general, I came into conflict with other members of the staff when I fought against the notion of abridging anyone's free speech, or the notion that "sensitivity" should not take precedence over the First Amendment. That's a fairly conservative view, in some cases, that may have offended the sensibilities of some more liberal students.

If I had endorsed a staff position about abortion rights--which I support--Catholic students on campus might have been angered. But few people I know would have accused me of hurting them. Few people I know would have thought about it.

In Katie Roiphe's date rape polemic, The Morning After, she pulls that typical trick of grouping all of her opponents together. She assumes that every feminist on every campus in the world thinks like Catharine MacKinnon, who believes that all social contact between men and women is tantamount to rape. Roiphe's arguments sound reasonable, but only if you really are speaking against a world of Catharine MacKinnons.

People tend to make the same mistake with conservatives on Harvard's campus--imagining that everyone right-of-center is a Peninsulite. Peninsula has a flair for making people very, very angry. But it certainly isn't the only voice of nonliberal thought. And just because Peninsula's Council Members and Guardians and Scribes and Serfs enjoy making noise, just because they enjoy making people angry, doesn't mean they don't believe in what they say.

Yet the incessant railing against Peninsula, in every publication, all over campus, doesn't earn the criticism of "hurting" conservatives. It's assumed that Peninsula's writers are thick-skinned enough to withstand some criticism, even if it's harsh, even if it might seem to "hurt." That's probably not the worst assumption. So why doesn't it apply to everyone?

At Harvard, conservatives are disparaged most often because, well, they're the most interesting people around. They tell us things we don't want to hear, and force us to react.

One of my biggest heroes on this campus is tried-and-true conservative Professor Mansfield, who always manages to elicit some steam with his sometimes-well-thought-out, sometimes-off-the-cuff statements. Of all of the campus figures I've known in my ephemeral time at Harvard, he's the one who's done the most to make students think. (Of course, second prize goes to "Toaster Tutor" Noel Ignatiev, who criticized an appliance and left hundreds of discussions in his wake. And he's a Marxist.)

Conservatives are noticed, and noticeable, because they're about the only ones making noise. When The Rag dropped off the earth, we lost the one consistently provocative voice on the campus left. Titillating in more than just the literal sense, The Rag challenged what people considered decorous, sensitive, tasteful. I miss The Rag, in the same way I'd miss Professor Mansfield if he went off to Chicago or New Haven or Hanover.

In the absence of a loud campus left, it certainly appears that Harvard is growing more conservative. In fact, I think it's only growing less politicized. When the Gulf War broke out three years ago this month, some of my relatives--the ones who had protested proudly during the '60s--wanted to know whether students here were staging rallies, organizing against the war.

Sure, a few students banded together to form SAWME (Students Against War in the Middle East). A few others created a group called SUDS (Students United for Desert Storm). Other than the use of particularly inane acronyms, what these groups had in common was their size: small. Most students didn't go out for the protests; they stayed home and watched the TV news. It wasn't that they didn't care. They just didn't have opinions.

There's a difference between being apathetic and being unopinionated. Lack of opinion indicates an interest, but lack of willingness to commit. It indicates a concern, but a lack of desire to fight, or to put yourself on a limb. Having no opinions is disturbingly safe.

In times like this, it's fortunate that there are a few people on campus, however dwindling their numbers, who know what they think and are willing to say it. Even if they risk strange accusations and false comparisons. As I end my year as Crimson Editorial Chair, I have just one piece of advice for this small few. As Jay Leno might put it, bark all you want; they'll think more.

Joanna M. Weiss '94 is the outgoing editorial chair of The Harvard Crimson.