At the risk of generalizing, everyone on this campus seems to have an opinion about something; you can’t throw a stone around here without hitting (accidentally, we’ll assume for the sake of this tired metaphor) a leftist or a feminist or a crazy vegetarian or one of those lost-looking college republicans. I suspect that even members of the more apolitical campus organizations may also have opinions.My problem (which I’m trying to make your problem) is that, even with all these different opinions, students on this campus rarely find themselves in ideological conflict with one another. Instead, we tend to surround ourselves with people who agree with us so that we can sit around agreeing and feeling very smart indeed.
I’m not making an appeal for consensus on this campus. I want just the opposite: a battle royal of ideas. The problem is that, at present, there’s no suitable battleground, no public forum where people can present arguments and try to refute one another.
Letters to the editor aside, the Lawrentian’s primary duty is reportage, not discussion. The One Minute Left is obviously partisan and unlikely toprint diatribes from all points on the political spectrum.
That leaves what?
Downersucks.com?
It’s clear that this campus needs an apolitical newspaper, a paper that exists, not to perpetuate a particular point of view, but rather to provide a forum for all points of view, no matter how wrong and crazy some of those views may be. We need someone who is willing to found such a paper, a man or woman of vision, of determination.
I am not such a man. I am, in fact, incurably lazy and relentlessly wishy-washy. But I am willing to help, even willing-should it come down to it-to run such a paper, if I can find other students who would also contribute to the cause every two weeks or so.
You don’t have to be right, you just have to be opinionated. It would help a great deal if you could be logical as well.
I invite any student or organization interested in what I’m saying to email me at daniel.l.holbrook@lawrence.edu so that I can make the first tentative steps towards founding such a paper.
Dan Holbrook
President, CollegeWishy-Washy Moderates