radicalism

When I am asked who my favorite historical figure is, I cannot help but say Prince Klemens von Metternich. Throughout my life, the majority of the responses I’ve gotten to this have been incredulous. Most people have no reason to know who Metternich is, and the majority of those who do scoff at the idea that an 18th-century Austrian aristocrat who is most often remembered for his repressive conservatism is a fitting exemplar, let alone one relevant in the 21st century. Well, I beg to differ.

To engage in radical politics is to risk estrangement from the very community which that politics is devoted to serving. Here at Columbia, use of the word "radical" conjures images of wild-eyed liberals acting on whims rather than principles, taking over administrative buildings, and ignoring reason in the face of overwhelming evidence. At best, these caricatures are based on sustained misunderstandings. At worst, they are distortions meant to demonize and alienate those who are labeled as or self-identify as radical.

Try this. Imagine the whole world. Think about the way things are. Everything, everywhere. Here, in Harlem, in Mongolia, Hawaii, Bolivia, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Greece. Everywhere. That's a lot to think about, but you go to Columbia, you should have some cognitive volume. So try. And now try this. Imagine everything being different. Completely different. I'm not telling you what kind of different. I'm not telling you to imagine a world where everyone has access to food, salt, and clean water. Or a world where nobody is afraid to walk down a street or take the subway or travel alone because of the way they look. I'm not even telling you to imagine a world where there is no concept of equality, because inequality doesn't exist. But you can if you want to. You can imagine anything you want to. But what's the point of imagining, anyway. Our parents did that. They imagined all kinds of worlds, and they asked all kinds of questions. They debated and smoked and yelled and marched in the streets. They had speak-outs and sit-ins and lots of revolutionary ideas. And for all their questions, they might even have found some answers. Some things changed in some places. Segregation is officially a thing of the past. Women vote in a lot of countries. Unfortunately, war is still as popular as ever. Slavery still exists, and so does poverty. Patriarchy dominates. And the green on this planet shrinks while carbon dioxide levels grow. In the end, all the radical revolutions have failed, fizzled out or reformed to some sort of semi-convenient system. Following in the wake of the generation that set out to change the world, we're led to believe that the way things are is probably the least of all possible evils. So we try to change some of the things that are wrong with this world, rather than attempt to make a new one. Reform rather than revolution. All the experimentation has narrowed down the options to the point that our generation, globally, sees only two options: McWorld or fanatic religious fundamentalism. If you don't like one, you're stuck with the other. But you're free to choose both. So what do we do? We live our lives as fully as possible. We do what we can to make ourselves and those around us happy and healthy and entertained. We think global and act local. We recycle. And that's it. Those are the parameters in which we, with our Ivy League education, our dedication, motivation, and humanitarian ideals get to influence—"change" is a little too radical—our world. Sure, we're allowed to think outside the box, but why would we? There's no hard and fast way to the top of the cloud on a castle. Idealism is naive, and ultimately makes you look really dumb, when someone drops some witty academic cynicism on you. Meanwhile our military kills civilians in Iraq, our sneakers were made by exploitation abroad, and women are systematically raped and harassed in this country. Can we reform all that? This is what we think: It is our public responsibility as the young to be idealistic. As college students, we have the privilege of gaining access to a world of ideas, and it is our duty to society to challenge those ideas, to challenge the previous generation and to challenge ourselves to challenge the status quo in every respect. We don't really like McWorld. Living in it and knowing that our life supports it, whether we want it to or not, makes us feel kind of dirty. And we sure as hell don't like religious fundamentalism. Of any creed. We want something else. Does that sound radical? So let's imagine. Let's imagine and talk and think. This is our world, our generation, our responsibility to examine different viewpoints and perspectives. We're figuring out what we think and believe, and we think that the things Raymond Lotta and the other communists are saying should be a part of that process. Because they break the box and compel imaginings. We already hear a lot of arguments about how to change things while leaving the system intact. But we want to hear an argument about a whole different social and economic system, too. If it's controversial, all the better, because controversy needs to be part of the discourse, if college is going to be a place where people can imagine and discuss philosophy and history, big ideas and revolutions. It might not be communism that we want. We might not be able to stand behind communist ideas and ideals, but we stand firmly behind people doing their civic duty by marching in the streets, yelling from soap boxes and doing everything they can to create options besides a rock and a hard place. This Thursday, April 8, at 7 p.m. in the Altschul Auditorium (IAB), the revolutionary communist Raymond Lotta will speak about where the option of communism stands in our world today. Come hear the talk, because it's important that you do. It is important because it's our world and our country that are at the center of so many of these problems, and it's up to us to take responsibility. The authors are Barnard College first-years.

We know it looks crazy to you. We know you probably didn't even notice the new spat of fliers. But the ferment over university silence—at Columbia, universities nationwide, and a fair number of institutions across the pond—on issues of Palestinian academic freedom is worth your attention. Everyone has already been through the Stages of Student Politics (STUPIT) with regard to our friends downtown: 1. Recognition—"Did you see on Bwog..." 2. Self-Righteous Indignation—"What a bunch of turdblossoms. Good thing I'm not a turdblossom." 3. Dissemination of Self-Righteous Indignation—"Did you see that there are a bunch of turdblossoms at NYU?" 4. Forgetting—"Whoa, did you hear about that exorcism?" And this pattern is to some degree understandable. We aren't all riveted by student politics and the cool kids are more interested in Wwoof-ing and tongue-tripping berry parties. At the same time, it's useful to point out how radical student actions, like those recently taken at New York University and frequently seen at Columbia, may have great utilitarian value for progressives of all stripes. Now, our first reaction to news of the NYU occupation was not especially favorable. A number of the demands were spot-on, and we have no doubt that NYU is the unfeeling corporate behemoth that the students claim it to be, but occupying a building seemed both childish and anachronistic. Any effort toward policy change requires organizing and educating the student body—to fail to build a base of support and still insist on radical action demonstrates (1) less respect for "the people" than leftist politics would imply and (2) a self-indulgent desire to relive student protests of yore. Nonetheless, without the protest, the particular issues at NYU involving tuition and investment would never have been shoved under our noses. The momentum from the New School and NYU occupations ensured that growing student resentment over issues of college administration and Palestinian affairs was featured front and center in student discussions and city media, in a way that fliering for the zillionth time would not have. Successful examples from the past abound. Consider the divestment campaign against apartheid in South Africa, when Columbia stood at the forefront of progressive action. As the New York Times reported on May 7, 1978, the University Senate voted to sell "stocks in corporations with South African holdings if the corporations showed 'indifference' to the country's apartheid politics." Meanwhile, 300 students "protested loudly outside" the senate proceedings in support of divestment. Together, the student activists, senators, and trustees set the tone for a morally responsible investment. The action taken by Columbia swept the country, and is credited with helping swing the pendulum that eventually ended white supremacist rule in South Africa. The lessons to extract from the drama currently unfolding are easy to pick out. As the New York Times dutifully reported, both radical students and Senate functionaries contributed to the effort. What the Times did not cover was the hours of meeting, talking, mobilizing, and demonstrating by students in favor of more radical action that created political space in which the senate could act. The students had wanted the school to sell stocks from all companies that would not remove South African holdings, and by pressuring the administration with extreme actions, the students shifted the terms of the debate leftward to the point where senate action seemed moderate. We can do the same. Instead of belittling the genuine efforts of groups like the Columbia Palestine Forum, we should appreciate the space their actions create for progressive change. Let's give these groups credit for raising important issues on campus. Before we slip straight into Stage 2—Self-Righteous Indignation—remember that without student groups, we may not have considered these issues at all. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing to recommend that the trustees divest from arms manufacturers. The spirit is aligned with the activists' demands, but the recommendation might succeed because it avoids taking a political stance on the world's most controversial conflict. It bears mentioning that we at Shock and Awe don't think there is an easy, punchy way to address all the issues at stake here. Radicals may be offended by the implication that their goals are unattainable, and more moderate progressives may resent being asked to consider the merits of extremism. In some sense we are stuck between fundamental sympathy for leftist positions and a hesitancy to approach them from a unilateral cadre. The best we can do is to turn off the gut reactions and seriously consider what motivates our peers. Sarah Leonard is a Columbia College junior majoring in history. Kate Redburn is a Columbia College junior majoring in history and African studies. Shock and Awe runs alternate Fridays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com.

Friends of mine who go to other colleges sometimes ask me, "Don't you hate it there? It must be so hard." They are, of course, referring to the infamous legacy of left-wing radicalism at Columbia that is so antithetical to my own political views. break Many outsiders only associate Columbia with incidents like the Minutemen protest, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit, or the ban on ROTC. I didn't exactly do a lot of research into where I wanted to go to college when I was a senior in high school. I had a good feeling in my gut when I walked onto Barnard's campus for a tour my senior year, and based my decision mostly off of that feeling. Often in my life, I find myself drawn to creations of those whose political ideologies I vehemently oppose. On the first day of conducting class this semester, the maestro read out loud the most beautifully written passage by a nineteenth century composer about the role of a conductor. "Do you know who wrote that?" my conductor asked. "Brahms?" I hoped. "It was Wagner," my conductor said. Wagner? Oh no. How could I possibly ever like something he wrote? Richard Wagner was one of the most notable composers of the nineteenth century. Born in Leipzig, Germany in 1813, Wagner had a strong influence on the art of opera with works such as Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Although the average person in our time might not recognize his name, he or she would most likely recognize the proud trumpet theme from Walkürenritt (Ride of the Valkyries). But Wagner considered himself a philosopher first and a composer second. Considering that he was a well-known anti-Semite, I was uncomfortable that I was so moved by his words. In "Deutsche Kunst und Deutsche Politik," Wagner wrote of the "harmful influence of Jewry on the morality of the nation." In his essay "Judaism in Music," he criticized music written by Jewish composers like Mendelssohn as trivial and passionless. Jews were a "swarming colony of worms in the dead body of art." He added, "Only one thing can redeem you from the burden of your curse: the redemption of Ahasuerus — going under!" But even if his writings exhibited strong anti-Semitic sentiments, his music must be free from such tendencies, right? Listening to my favorite Wagner overture, from Die Meistersinger, I'm unable to hear any anti-Semitic undertones. All I can hear are the deep dramatic chords and a beautiful thickness of sound. Some quick research disputed my original instinct. While not overtly anti-Semitic, some of his operas are intensely nationalistic and perhaps foreshadowing of a dark future to come. Written by Wagner himself in Die Meistersinger are the lines: "I beg of you: honor your German masters, thus you will ban disasters!" Wagner died in 1883, years before the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Socialism, but his influence is widely noted in establishing extreme German nationalism. Hitler famously said, "whoever wants to understand National Socialist Germany must know Wagner." In Mein Kampf, Hitler called Wagner one of "the great warriors in this world who, though not understood by the present, are nevertheless prepared to carry the fight for their ideas and ideals to their end." Wagner coined the terms "Jewish problem" and "final solution." Hitler even dedicated a memorial to his favorite composer. Recently, I began studying a flute transcription of Aram Khachaturian's Violin Concerto in D minor. After hearing a recording of this work almost ten years ago, I always aspired to play it myself. Last week, I wanted to find out more about the origin of the flute transcription and did a quick Google search. To my surprise, I found out that Khachaturian was a proud member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I went back and listened to his concerto. Could there be a hidden communist agenda in the energetic melody I knew so well? Evil collectivism trying to influence my selfish capitalist mindset? A secret musical code paying tribute to Joseph Stalin? I listened again and found no signs of such ideas. I still loved the third movement as much as I did before discovering he was a Communist. Similarly, I was not aware of the long history of left wing radicalism at Columbia until I arrived on campus as a first-year. I had never heard of the 1968 occupation of Low or of the still-present ban on ROTC until a month into classes, when I had already met some of my best friends and favorite professors. Had my gut feeling betrayed me? It's impossible for me to undo my original feelings for Wagner, Khachaturian, or Columbia—nor would I want to. I fell in love with the music of Wagner and Khachaturian as soon as I heard a few measures of their work, before I knew their political ideologies, just like I fell in love with this school the moment I walked onto its campus. Political sentiments don't change my love for our school any more than the anti-Semitism of Wagner's writings or Khachaturian's membership in the Communist Party change my long-standing admiration of their musical works. It's possible to love someone's creation while loathing his or her ideology, and it's equally possible to disapprove of parts of Columbia and its history while still loving the institution as a whole. Lauren Salz is a Barnard College sophomore. She is the executive director of the College Republicans and the Communications Coordinator of the Columbia Political Union. Check Your Premises runs alternate Wednesdays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com

The conflation of academia with politics became a hot-button issue this Friday in a discussion led by conservative writer and activist David Horowitz, CC '59. In an appearance organized by the Columbia University College Republicans, Horowitz discussed his new book, One Party Classroom, and a chapter in it about Columbia called "Uptown Madrassa." Public Safety officers guarded the doors of the Roone Arledge Cinema as Horowitz addressed a crowd of about 30 students. He talked about "the disturbing intrusion of political influences on its [Columbia's] academic culture," which he attributed to "radical professors" bringing their agendas into the classroom. "I can't tell you how many students have told me about the most outrageous abuses in the classroom, but they won't say anything because they're afraid they'll be punished by their liberal professors," Horowitz said, discussing what he described as Columbia's "disdain for intellectual diversity." Horowitz particularly focused on Teachers College, saying that while it is regarded as the premier graduate school of education in the country, it is an institution where there is no distinction between teaching and politics. He said that the Teachers College mantra of "teaching for 'social justice' is just a mask for political agendas." Horowitz also discussed this phenomenon at the undergraduate level, specifically citing issues he has found in the women's studies department here and at other institutions across the country. Within this department, Horowitz said, the idea of the subordination of women has been considered a premise—not a question—which precludes the opportunity for discussion and the consideration of more conservative viewpoints. "I have no objection to a radical feminist, provided they are teaching students how to think, not teaching them what to think," Horowitz said. "That means when you present the theory, you inform students it's a theory, an opinion, and you present them with the opposing idea." He went on to talk about specific professors at Columbia who have entered the media limelight for their political statements, alluding to anthropology professor Nicholas DeGenova who was known for expressing his wish for "a million Mogadishus" on the U.S. military in March 2003. "Garbage! Intellectual garbage is what is being shoved down your throats here," Horowitz said, adding, "You guys pay $40,000 ... you should be enraged." But beyond the curriculum, according to Horowitz, Columbia's atmosphere at large is also one of intolerance. "I can't talk about Columbia without mentioning that it is a center of Jew hatred," Horowitz said. He cited Columbia's speaking invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom he described as spearheading "a global movement to complete the job Hitler didn't finish, to create a second Holocaust in the Middle East." At the same time, he acknowledged that Columbia as a whole remains a superlative institution with leading professors in their respective fields. "90 percent of the professors here are good professors," Horowitz said. "They are scholars and they bring into the classroom material in order to analyze it and dissect it." Students who attended gave the event mixed reviews. "I think he's right when he says that 90 percent of professors here are great, and teach their students how to think, not what to think, and there are just a few that are a problem," said College Republicans executive director Lauren Salz, BC '11, who is a Spectator columnist. "He correctly pointed out that students who don't get exposed to divergent ideas are the ones that are being most hurt by the lack of academic diversity on University faculty," she added. But others took issue with his speech, particularly his discussion of racism and religion. "What connection does he have with Israel?" Roxanne Moadel-Attie, BC '12, said. "I don't think he has any more than I would, since he's lived in this country for, like, clearly, generations." news@columbiaspectator.com

I feel frustrated. When I open the Spectator opinion section and read accusations that the Columbia community is racist, I feel frustrated. When I see students protest a 100-year-old Core Curriculum that they implicitly accepted when they chose to come to this University, I feel frustrated. When I witness a delusional subgroup withdraw from the realm of productive discourse and stage sensationalist stunts in order to further its own radical agenda, I feel frustrated. I am not a racist, I am not privileged, and for all of its faults, I am constantly grateful to be attending an institution as remarkable as Columbia. This is the opinion of the vast majority of Columbia students, and it is one that is too seldom heard in campus discourse.