Among the features of the Wesleyan experience that we students like to gloat about is our unwavering dedication to truth, tolerance and open-mindedness. Wesleyan is supposed to be an institution where the “weird” among us are free to express themselves, to feel safe and engage their peers in intellectual and civilized debates on the issues—politics, gender, sexuality, religion, morality, art, etc. That sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Oh, if only it were true! This past weekend, I was at a birthday party for a friend at this person’s house. I was there for no more than ten minutes when I was accosted by two people who tapped me on the shoulder and then, after a brief hesitation, told me that they thought I should leave the party. Confused, I asked why. I was told that these two folks were “not comfortable” in my presence, due to their various disagreements with the philosophy I have painstakingly expressed at times in the Argus. Of course, I was with friends at a friendly gathering and was not discussing such issues at the time of the party, nor have I ever done so— to my knowledge—in these people’s presence ever. I didn’t know them, thankfully. So imagine my surprise at being asked to leave a party merely because of the ideas which I represented in my prior Wespeaks.
It wasn’t the fact that I had to leave the party that I was deservedly irate—I don’t particularly care for the standard house parties which are all too common on the Wesleyan social scene. I was more frustrated by the obvious attempt by these two to remove an “outsider” from their presence. For all the talk that people do on this campus about toleration and accepting those with “differences,” the fact that I was asked to leave the party because of how I think was revolting. Are students really so threatened and intimidated by me (of all people!) that, as 18- to 22-year-old college students, they cannot even have peace of mind while in close proximity to someone who does not buy the Party Line? Open-mindedness indeed!
The point of this piece is not to accuse these two people. I won’t bother to mention their names—they are a dime a dozen, and their sensibilities and “comfort” don’t mean a damn to anyone who is mature enough to be able to interact with people of differing philosophies. Instead, my point is to expose the colossal hypocrisy in the Wesleyan mission statement: that Wesleyan students are dedicated to diversity and integration of ideas and people. How dare these fools clamor that homosexuals and other minorities are not “accepted” on this campus when they throw out the one true minority that actually does exist here. It is easy to join a leftist cult with 2,500 other “free-thinking” members and then point to me and say, “We accept everyone, but not you!” and then to call me intolerant and closed-minded. Does it never occur to these people how hard it is to actually express a differing opinion around here? The ad hominem attacks alone are enough to drive a brother to madness. Are there homosexuals at Wesleyan who are thrown out of parties for expressing their minority sexuality? Are there Muslims at Wesleyan who are unable to practice their religion in peace? Are there politically active students at Wesleyan who have a hard time voting for Democrats for fear that it may be socially unacceptable?
Of course anyone with a brain in the ON position can see right through this. For the same reason that women were kept from voting for 140 years in this country, for the same reason that blacks were moved to the backs of buses, for the same reason libertarian candidates are excluded wholesale from televised political debates, for the same reason ignorant backwater rednecks want to keep gays from getting married and for the same reason that Ayn Rand will never ever be discussed in any Women’s Studies class, these two people asked me to leave a party: we question the Party Line (and therefore threaten it) with our ability to express ourselves and not be intimidated by a room, a university or a country filled with people we disagree with, though they try so hard to exclude us. We threaten to expose the generally accepted mentality as weak, inconsistent, racist or immoral (or all of the above). A free-thinker is never desired in a community that has only one way of thinking. I don’t want to come off as a martyr for my own cause, but rather to point out that for all the fighting they do for “the little guy” and for all their clamoring about dialogues and debates, they certainly don’t give a rat’s ass about the little guy, nor do they seek to talk with him.
Cowardice is to be expected from people who have no reason to think what they think (or, as most of you put it, “feel”), and who hide behind a school filled with like-minded students and administrators. But this absurd and constant cry that we at Wesleyan really do love “weirdness” and “individuality” is a horrible lie. We do not. It’s like saying “Sure, you have freedom of speech…. freedom of OUR speech.”
As my disclaimer, I will say that not nearly everyone at Wes is as petty and cowardly as those two people at that party. My friends—many of whom think I’m just as loony as the rest of you think I am—are able to coexist with me in my presence, and have the ability to see human beings as a totality of opinions and actions and character. There are others out there, too. They’d probably speak out were it not for the fear of getting constantly singled out by pissant leftists foaming at the mouth with tirades about how their precious “feelings were hurt.” I own what I say, and expect to take the consequences (just or unjust) for what I write publicly, and I don’t require nor expect anyone to agree with me. It absolutely reflects my character, and for that I’m very proud. And while the bulk of these immature actions towards me and other intellectual minorities will largely go unstated at Wesleyan and elsewhere, it is important that the perpetrators know that their schtick is transparent to anyone who really matters in the world. You know who you are.
Many thanks to the guest of honor of the event, who had a rockin’ birthday party, despite the undesirable guest list.
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