A Republican's Thanks

I have a secret for you: it is great being a Republican at Columbia.

Yes, I know I have done my fair share of complaining about it. Others have as well. And, to a certain extent, those complaints are true. The snide comments from some professors, the fear of being "outed" as a Republican (in front of those professors), and even the lack of a single balanced teach-in all are worthy of a complaint now or then. All in all, though, Republicans at Columbia survive. And if they come to college for an education that will challenge their views, make them think, and teach them to how to deal with those who hold different views and beliefs, then there would seem no better environment than Columbia.

This, of course, boils down to John Stuart Mill's description of a good liberal education. As Mill wrote in On Liberty, "Nor is it enough that [a student] should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them." For Republicans, then, Mill would suggest an education not led by Republicans but by liberals describing liberal arguments themselves. And who can defend liberal ideas better and more fully than Columbia's faculty?

Right-leaning students at Columbia learn about left-wing ideas firsthand and are forced to consider and debate them. Sometimes, Republicans on campus may be persuaded; we all know how persuasive President Bollinger and Provost Brinkley can be. At other times, though, they will not. Their views will be challenged and perhaps will evolve. But if their ideas survive the challenge unscathed, Republicans will be more confident in them. They will better understand the arguments against their ideas and know how to refute those arguments as well. As the proverb goes, "You must know your enemy to destroy it." And you wonder why some Republicans relish reading The Communist Manifesto?

In fact, this use of opposing ideas to strengthen your understanding of your own is exactly what Mill is getting at. He was not suggesting that one's views should change, but that they at least be tested and perhaps confirmed. As he notes, for "Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men, ... even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions ... their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves possess."

Sometimes I wonder, though, whether left-wing students are getting as good of a deal at Columbia. The best thing they may have to learn about opposing ideologies may be a column like mine. And if they are using a New York Republican's column to learn about what Republicans or conservatives are all about, Lord help them.

In my experience at Columbia, I have not encountered one skilled faculty advocate of conservative or Republican thought. That is fine by me, since I already know those arguments and have discussed them with fellow Republicans. It is not Republicans who hurt the most from Columbia's paucity of conservative and Republican faculty. For liberal students, however, Columbia's lack of a skilled conservative advocate would seem poor preparation for contact with the world outside Columbia's gates.

Perhaps most Columbia students and faculty find it easy to shrug off Republican and conservative ideas as worthless, and are happy enough to dismiss them for their greater "truths." Mill, however, would scold them for this view. Believing a balanced presentation of all views is important, after all, he notes, "So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skillful devil's advocate can conjure up."

It is very easy to dismiss Republican and conservative ideas at Columbia. In the world outside of academia, though, there are a good many people to whom those ideas have appealed, including a majority of voters in the last election. If Democrats are to win such people back to their side, they will actually have to deal with and refute those ideas head-on. Perhaps the poor experience at elite universities of actually debating conservative ideas has led to the current inability of liberals to reach back and pull people over that divide.

Perhaps that's another reason why Republicans should be thankful to Columbia.