The Art of Making People Think

Assuming the role of Emily Post for campus discourse, Evan P. Cucci advanced his view of what constitutes responsible intellectual discussion in a recent editorial. He was joined in his critique by Miss Manners for the campus press, Tehshik P. Yoon, in an editorial one month later. Yoon argued that the intellectual level of campus debate has sunk to the level of Beavis-and-Butthead ridicule.

I will respond to their arguments in an intelligent and deathly serious manner. Given that this is not the way I normally work as an editorialist, dear reader, I hope you will appreciate my sacrifice.

Before proceeding, I would like to put my remarks in context. My differences with Cucci and Yoon represent legitimate differences in our conceptions of what campus opinion writing should be.

As mere college students, the serious points we have to make on philosophical issues and policy issues are really unimportant in the overall scheme of things. If I want to read a sophisticated, well-reasoned opinion on U.S. policy towards China, I will turn to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times--not to The Crimson or any campus journal of opinion.

What this means is that there is little incentive to read campus opinion about national or world events. If you want real analysis, turn to the Times or The New Republic. For college students to assume that they have something valuable to say about something as complex as health care financing is incredibly pretentious.

I read reason: for students' views on Harvard issues (since these aren't covered extensively in the outside press), and for entertainment purposes. These are also the goals I keep in mind when I write. I want students to actually read my editorials--no small feat for campus editorialists. I also want my readers to be entertained, provoked, or both.

In his editorial, Cucci calls on opinion-makers to "make points and counter-points based on reason," to discuss what is being said--rather than to attack who happens to be saying it. "[I]nsult and accusations usually do not really advance one's position. Instead, such hostility alienates friends and foes alike," Cucci writes.

It is difficult to accept an exhortation to "pass up the opportunity to offend" from the author of "Developing the Student Body." This editorial about physical education began with this ever-so tactful line: "There are too many fat students at Harvard." It is difficult to think of a better example of a line designed to incite or upset the students body. Clearly Cucci does not live up to his own code.

Perhaps this is a good thing, because Cucci's set of rules ignores several basic facts. First, ad hominem attacks have been, and always will be, a part of human discourse. Cucci's idealistic vision of a community of scholars who make amazing arguments based on reason and never let personality come between them is nothing more than an impossible dream. We could turn Cucci's argument into a very good Beatles song, however; "Imagine all the students/Talking about issues in peace, woo hoo..."

Furthermore, sometimes it is crucial for us to know who is articulating a given opinion. Certainly it is true that rational arguments are rational arguments, and who is saying a given argument shouldn't detract from or add to its validity. But the context out of which an opinion emerges is an important factor in determining whether the rational part of the argument is the result of a careful thought process or nothing more than ex post facto justification for personal prejudices.

For example, take affirmative action. There are many rational arguments against it; those arguments are rational no matter who says them. But I would look very differently on those same arguments if they were presented by a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan rather than by Shelby Steele.

Perhaps it might be nice if people could evaluate all arguments in a vacuum. But this is entirely irrelevant, because it will never happen. In the structure of human discourse, messenger and message are inextricably linked, for better or for worse.

Yoon's editorial is entitled "Beavis Is No Bill Safire," and it was quite a revelation for me (I thought Beavis and Safire were the same person). Yoon writes, "Campus opinion has been brought down to the level of name-calling and ridicule. In short, Beavis is invading the written word."

Yoon demonstrates his failure to understand the different functions of different modes of discourse. He also shows a lack of understanding about the theoretical bases of the popular culture that Beavis and Butthead epitomize.

One example Yoon cites to support his point is my editorial on Harvard-Radcliffe Students for Choice, pointing out that I spent a significant part of my article attacking the egregious typographical errors in their newsletter.

Yoon first failed to see the sophisticated argument taking place behind this parody; it was a kind of "meta-editorial," if you will. He also failed to recognize that my parody was an embodiment of the laughter of the Bakhtinian carnivalesque, a laughter which observes few limits (as Bakhtin scholars Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson have pointed out). In fact, this irreverent Bakhtinian laughter is what our good friends Beavis and Butthead draw on so liberally.

Yoon's call for serious intellectual debate is nothing more than a call for didactic and patronizing writing. Instead of allowing editorialists to make complicated arguments in creative ways, Yoon wants us all to reject satire, wit and the fine traditions of Swift, Pope and Rabelais. Simply because he does not (or cannot) grasp more difficult genres doesn't mean that all writers must do away with them, however.

Yoon then urges editorialists to engage in self-censorship, to try as much as possible to avoid offending anyone. He claims that writers usually write offensive articles for the sheer purpose of offending people. Clearly this is wrong and intellectually irresponsible. But Yoon gives no concrete evidence for his accusation.

Yoon writes, "rational, well-argued editorials typically generate little mail and even less interest." No, Tehshik, you've confused them with the boring editorials. In this sentence, Yoon attempts to conflate the editorial that gets no mail with the "good" editorial. Yoon sets up a false dichotomy between "well-argued" editorials and funny editorials--failing to recognize that editorials can be both.

Yoon pathetically attempts to turn receiving no reader mail into a badge of merit. I see things differently. Getting no mail doesn't mean you persuaded everyone of your point; it means that nobody bothered to read your piece. Your words now sit in the fireplace of someone's common room, in a somewhat altered form.

Yoon states that the job of the editorialist is to "persuade, not to ridicule." As a member of the parliamentary debate team, if I have learned any thing, it's that ridiculing weak logic is one of the best ways to expose its flaws. I have a different vision of the editorialist's role in the intellectual community. Harvard students are so opinionated that persuasion is not only an extremely presumptuous goal for a writer, it's also an impossible one.

The editorialist's goals are to be read and to make people think about why they hold the beliefs they do. We may often say things which upset or offend people. We should have no regrets because we are simply saying what we believe--such is our right in a democracy and intellectual community. If we get a strong response and many letters, we have done our job. By forcing people to put their principles into writing, we have made them think about and perhaps even reconsider their values.

In an epigram contained in Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche writes, "Objections, digressions, gay mistrust, the delight in mockery are signs of health: everything unconditional belongs in pathology." In her most recent appearance at Harvard, controversial scholar Camille Paglia stated unequivocally that "Offensiveness is an American right."

The points made by Nietzsche and Paglia are well-taken. Satire, wit and ad hominem attacks have been and always will be essential to healthy, honest and vital discourse. Just because the people who don't excel in these areas want us to have pity on them doesn't mean we must give up the treasured rhetorical devices which make campus debate not only intelligent, but also entertaining--and therefore worth reading.