Not that there's anything wrong with that

Cluefon
    By Dan Dudis

Andrew Sullivan, in a widely read and extensively commented upon piece in The New York Times Magazine, argued that the Right's morality crusade has led the Republican Party astray. Far from carrying the party to the electoral Holy Land, Ken Starr's sex-obsessed investigation of the President, the right wing's continued demonization of non-Christians and gays, and the party's assault on women's reproductive rights have left Republicans wandering somewhere in the political noman's land of Central Anatolia. In collapsing Lee Atwater's now-famous "big tent" (if in fact it was ever erected in the first place), Republicans are putting themselves in the awkward position of having turned their party from an internationalist and free-market-oriented one into something more akin to a church revival, complete with requisite fire and brimstone. The party's message is now angry, exclusionary, and scolding; such a message is sure to leave many voters cold.

This feeling is as cold as the icy stares with which most Yalies reward the latest white-faced social justice protester. It seems that Yale's liberal activists and the Christian Coalition are, however improbably, reading out of the same playbook. Yale is an overwhelmingly liberal campus, one where affirmative action enjoys broad student support--and yet rallies to save it barely register on campus. Ditto for tenure reform. Attendance at such rallies is almost always completely pathetic.

I suspect that most Yalies stay away from social justice events because of the strident, scolding tone[[exclamdown]] in which they are conducted. An almost religious, us-against-them fervor pervades each and every one of these rallies. Mistakes and dissension are neither acknowledged or tolerated. The same core of people organizes each event, whether it is to support the Zapatistas, tenure reform, affirmative action, farm workers, or third-world laborers. From their point of view, you cannot support the Mexican government's Chiapas policy and simultaneously favor tenure reform. It's all or nothing.

A parallel story can be told about the Right. A few leaders, including Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer, preach a gospel which, although diametrically opposed to social justice dogma, is delivered with the same zealous fervor. Again, while the Right's message energizes a few, it succeeds far more in turning off the many, including those who agree with part of the message but are repulsed by the messengers.

It is ironic and sad that Yale's social justice liberals play the same game as the Christian Coalition. Some of the hallmarks of modern liberalism are its benevolent emphasis on tolerance and its defense of dissent and dissenters. How unfortunate it is that the Yale liberal activist community has decided to imitate the radical Right and embrace an unforgiving, rabid ideology of its own.

Three years ago, I supported Locals 34 and 35 in their strike against the University because I felt that Yale should do more to help its employees. I support making teaching ability a more significant factor in the tenure-granting process, not because of the percentages that are scrawled on the flagstones, but because it seems like the right thing to do to improve the quality of a Yale education. Despite these areas of agreement, I would never go to a social justice rally. After all, I'm not a true believer. That, and the way opponents of the cause are vilified, keeps me and most of a largely even more sympathetic Yale away. We just don't feel comfortable attending such rallies and protests, so we ignore them as we walk by. We then gossip over dinner in the dining halls about the offensive in-your-face style of the latest protest or resort to speculating about when some of the most recognizable protest leaders last succumbed to Procter & Gamble and took a bath.

Seinfeld was responsible for greatly expanding our popular lexicon. One of the most memorable phrases to come out of the show was the line "Not that there's any-thing wrong with that," originally spoken in reference to homosexuality. Yale's liberal-activist community would do well to examine its ideology in light of this little phrase. An unforgiving ideology delivered in strident tones by rabidly zealous messengers may be fine for the Religious Right's message of intolerance and exclusion, but it is by definition illiberal.

Liberals should be able to tolerate dissenting viewpoints. It's time that Yale's activists recognize that most people have a more complicated and nuanced set of beliefs than any petty ideology can accommodate. There are people on this campus and in this nation who write checks to the National Abortion Rights Action League, and, at the same time, savor strawberries from Guatemala, and eagerly consume items made in the sweatshops of Bangladesh. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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