A Place for All (Who Agree with Me)

I read several articles this week about San Francisco, where some now wish to boycott all firms associated with the border wall. According to officials in an interview with KTVU, the justification for this is that these companies’ actions would be divisive and not in accordance with San Francisco’s values: “basic principles of compassion and dedication to human rights.” This sounds reasonable, but I have a few problems with it.

First of all, I fail to see what makes San Francisco so compassionate. Are we now imputing values to a city? A city with a murder rate, rape rate, burglary rate, and so on? Obviously, the entire city isn’t pristine, nor is every individual in the city. What we’re really talking about is the opinion of the group of people pushing the legislation–and I’m not sure why their interpretation of values should take precedence over everyone else’s.

Secondly, why is a border wall a rejection of compassion or human rights? It’s a security measure. Are metal detectors in stores a rejection of compassion and human rights? I mean, yes, it displays a certain level of cynicism, and we can discuss whether it’s an effective policy measure, but in no way does it seem blatantly immoral to me. I grew up nearly 200 miles from the border, and we still had problems with undocumented immigrants trespassing on people’s property. We can argue over immigration laws at a later date, but it in no way seems wrong to me to enforce the laws that we have—and no one can do that but the government. Private charity and “compassion” can’t solve this particular problem.

That’s not what really bothers me about this issue. There seems to be a much more glaring problem here. These people have decided that their city will not do business with those who violate their moral code. I take some issue with this because I’m not sure a public institution can have a moral code, but my larger issue is that this seems to be an even stronger version of the argument made by some Christians who don’t wish to participate professionally in gay weddings or provide their employees with contraceptives and abortion funding due to their moral convictions.

When Christians do this, they are “prejudiced” and “intolerant,” and when the people of San Francisco do it, they are heroic and progressive. When the same argument is accepted for one group of people and rejected for another, I think we have license to assume that what is at stake is not the argument itself. The divide seems to be that whoever agrees with the people in charge has the right to act and do business according to their beliefs, and whoever does not agree with the people in charge does not have that right. And this trend, if allowed to go far, becomes very disturbing.

So much for the West Coast; let’s go east. Last year, we at Harvard received an email from University President Drew G. Faust concerning unrecognized single-gender social organizations. The email stated that such groups encouraged practices that were “unwise” and “unenlightened,” and worked against “core institutional values.” Thus, anyone participating in such a group could neither hold leadership positions in College-recognized groups or athletic teams nor receive endorsement for certain fellowships.

This is upsetting for a lot of reasons. First, it is social engineering: the move is described as “culture change.” The leadership of Harvard doesn’t like the morals of its students and has decided to leverage its control over their resumes to change this. Because apparently, despite being adults in an institution designed to help us forge our own paths and discover new ways of thinking, we can still be penalized for hanging out with the wrong friends. It’s also funny that the “Harvard community’s” values apparently clash with those of a significant number of students.

Saint Augustine wrote that for years he prayed “Lord, make me chaste,” then secretly added “but not yet.” I would submit that today we declare “we welcome everyone,” then secretly add “but not them.” This coercion of values is especially disturbing when the only values that anyone seems to care about are tolerance and non-discrimination. In the articles and the email, these words came up over and over again as “core values.” No other values merited a mention: truth, integrity, honor, prudence, temperance, justice—all forgotten.

Our country was founded on the belief that freedom of thought and respect for the free exchange of ideas are not worth giving up in the name of comfort or security. Are we now willing to give these things up in the name of a tolerance that extends only to those who agree with whoever is making the rules? In other words, tolerance in name only?

Lauren R. Mandaville ’17 is a joint Philosophy and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations concentrator living in Pforzheimer House.