Tuesday’s SDS-sponsored forum dealt with a subject that should concern all students. Surely, there is a wide variety of opinion about what our campus’s relationship is with Middletown. And yet the only students who showed up were those convinced that Wesleyan needs to make more of its resources available to its neighbors. The advertised purpose of the event was to initiate a dialogue between students, but it failed, because only one viewpoint was represented.
The state of discourse on this campus is a serious problem. Whenever we disagree in a serious way, we condemn each other in anonymous comments on Wesleying or the ACB, or in grandiloquent Wespeaks that are intended to irritate rather than instigate. While this trend is unproductive and embarrassing when people are arguing about the Israel-Palestine conflict or Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package—issues we are unlikely to have much an impact on—it is downright disastrous when it results in students failing to discuss campus issues. While SDS plans to proceed with a campaign to make the campus more open, it will now do so with little input from more moderate potential allies. SDS made a good faith effort to hear outside opinion, but few wanted to talk.
Of course, activists themselves often fail to engage in honest open discourse. The students who pushed for divestment, or to replace the Bank of America ATM, failed at least in part because they neglected to effectively and calmly make their case to the student body, and thus never recruited more than a small cadre of supporters.
There are a host of serious problems facing students right now. How do you feel about the new exam schedule? How do you feel about the increase in the size of the student body? Do you think enough was done in response to Fountain? If we do not discuss these issues, we cannot hope to see them resolved satisfactorily. Our fear of public argument is paralyzing our ability to act. We may find that it is worth disagreeing with our peers face-to-face if it allows students to have a voice.
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