The Ad Hoc Question: Wherefore Spectator?

Columbia, we're saved!

After all, there is a new publication on the block called AdHoc. To its founders, Alex Jung and Kristen Loveland, CC '06, its creation was spurred when, "In the midst of four controversies last year-MEALAC, ROTC, the Graduate Student Protests, and Manhattanville expansion-it became obvious that there was no campus magazine that could effectively analyze the intricacy of these issues." Citing a need for "a campus publication that thoughtfully critiques the status quo," AdHoc was created.

Yet before celebrating the birth of a real forum to effectively analyze the intricacy of campus issues, it is important to address the magazine's self-appointed label as "Columbia University's Progressive Magazine." At its basic, this label runs counter to the magazine's aforementioned mission, and should cause us to question AdHoc's real nature as a forum for "intricate analysis" of campus issues as compared to the more independent, and less ideological, Columbia Spectator.

Jung and Loveland deal with the issue of AdHoc as a progressive magazine right away. As they write, "When creating the first issue of 'Columbia University's Progressive Magazine' the one question we constantly grappled with was 'What is Progressive?' For us, as well as for 'progressives' in the United States, this idea is still not clearly defined." Ironically, a page later, AdHoc contributor Lindsey Weinstock, CC '06, helps Jung and Loveland a bit more with explaining the term, declaring that "[a]s progressives, we believe in public benefits, environmental regulations, and other social welfare policies." In its first two pages, then, the magazine goes from lacking a clear definition of what progressive means to having a distinct set of progressive beliefs. Now that's progressive!

More important, however, is the audience Weinstock addresses, and whom she defines as the "others" to whom progressives are opposed. "As progressives, we..." she begins one paragraph, acknowledging that she, and by connection, the magazine as well, is speaking completely from and presumably mostly to those who consider themselves progressive on campus.

Weinstock is not incorrect to make such assumptions. Indeed, the term "progressive" does not just exist in a definition-less vacuum. Instead, it has a very real meaning in American history and political discourse. As our beloved Wikipedia notes, for instance, "Progressives in the US were strong in the early parts of the 20th century. Today it is equated to movements on the left ranging from liberal to democratic socialist." Which begs the question: how can any magazine claim to "effectively analyze the intricacy of" campus issues while excluding everyone who consider themselves libertarian, conservative, or even moderate and who, thereby, eschew the progressive label?

Jung and Loveland might answer this, of course, by referring back to their introduction. "For us," they claim, "being progressive means focusing on issues rather than politics, facts rather than rhetoric, and above all giving a voice to those who often do not have one." Who is it, though, that lacks a voice on this campus and on what issues? To answer this, one might well look to AdHoc's first edition.

First are two articles on eminent domain and Manhattanville, subjects described in over a hundred past Spectator articles, according to online archives. Beyond these two related issues, the rest of AdHoc progressed to include versions of "Why Conservatives Do Not Deserve Handouts at Columbia" and "Why Columbia's sex column might be ruining your (sex) life." Both are pressing social issues to Columbia students, I am sure.

There may be a use for a distinctly progressive publication on campus. As Weinstock's piece demonstrates, that purpose might well be to serve as a forum for debate and discussion among progressives just as the Columbia Citadel currently serves as a forum for debate among conservatives. There, AdHoc may very well have its place. It should not, however, pretend to be something it is not-a forum for overall and complete campus discourse, for the voiceless downtrodden, or for those who have no other place to discuss issues important to campus. After all, you cannot really discuss substantial issues on campus by just including those of a certain "progressive" ideological bent. That does not intricate analysis make.

AdHoc can either choose to be a valuable voice for progressive dialogue or a genuinely independent forum to discuss all aspects of important Columbia issues. It cannot be both.

As Jung and Loveland assert, "We can no longer rely on the legacy of '68 to speak for students in the present." Speaking for the thousands of students that have graced this opinion page since 1968, none have ever just relied on "the legacy of '68" to speak for their concerns. Neither should AdHoc's progressives. MEALAC, ROTC, and Manhattanville expansion all deserve full discussion. Yet rather than in some forum that invites only "progressives" to the table, I encourage progressives to address more of their arguments to the student body through the traditional independent forum dedicated to printing all student opinions that are fit to print: the Columbia Daily Spectator.