A tribute to small-mindedness

I grew up in the '90s, so I chuckled at the irony of hearing a Democratic perorate on the importance of fiscal responsibility during the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates. This sort of ideological flipflop happens often. Both parties are so willing to change their platforms for a few extra votes that neither party ever changes the nation itself.

And this is a good thing. Politicians unwilling to rock the boat for fear of the next election are centrists, and as a national policy, centrism seems to ensure domestic tranquility better than anything else. Naturally, we are all disgusted the small-mindedness of our leaders. Nonetheless, a government without a vision beyond its own reelection may be to our benefit.

A recent column in the 'Prince' contrasted Kerry's lack of poltiical imagination with Bush's "ability to conceive and construct political realities dramatically different from the present state of affairs." I wholeheartedly agree: Kerry is, as far as I can tell, an assembly line Democrat and a career politician. Three cheers for that! Kerry will address terrorism in an unimaginative way — by stepping up security and restructuring the intelligence community. This will keep us as safe from terrorism as stomping around the Middle East with guns drawn, and it is altogether less likely to precipitate a global crisis.

Not that I am suggesting moderation as an ideal. Indeed, it is precisely because no one can possibly believe in moderation as an ideal that it is so beneficial. No one ever stood up in Congress and delivered a filibuster about the Golden Mean. No one ever died for the sake of wishy-washiness. And no one ever killed for it either.

And believe it or not, this is why America is great. As E.M. Forster wrote in "Two Cheers for Democracy," "one of the minor merits of a democracy is that it does not encourage it, or produce that unmanageable type of citizen known as the Great Man." No national leader has ever been able to co-opt America's national identity. None of our presidents, however great, has been greater than the United States itself.

I am not opposed to dramatic visions and widespread change. On the contrary, dramatic idealism is the quintessential American virtue. But consider our history. The catalysts of most of the great social changes in our society were not politicians at all, but ordinary individuals: the abolitionists, the suffragettes and Martin Luther King all called for progress before they were represented in government. The few exceptions prove the rule. Franklin Roosevelt did great things for the United States, but we paid the price for it with a near-dictator who did with Congress as he pleased. Lincoln kept the Union together, but we paid for it with the blood of Americans spilled on American soil.

While moderation may be the best national policy, it is the worst personal policy. To live "in the nation's service, and in the service of all nations," you must sell out to a cause. My plea is only that whoever is a true visionary among us, whatever students will commit their lives entirely to a dream, should stay out of politics. Only when small minds are running the country again will we be safe.

Rejoinder to Angry Engineers

It seems I angered a few engineers with my last column, 'Death of the Princeton Renaissance Man.' To be perfectly clear, it was never my intention to imply that engineers as a whole are "musically impotent," or any less well-rounded than their AB counterparts. I am prepared to admit that many, or possibly all the engineers at Princeton appreciate Bach more than I do. I gather from on letter that the ELE department alone could staff a professional orchestra, save my life in the wilderness, and maybe run the country.

Perhaps I am guilty of exploiting a stereotype — I could just as easily have used an Anthropology major suffering through Math 201 — but my example happens to be a flesh-and-blood ELE major who has now dropped Music 234. Certainly I did not mean that scientific knowledge represents specialization while artistic knowledge represents the liberal arts, as another writer commented. I quite agree with the writer that students of the humanities would "benefit from a deeper technical understanding of the processes that govern our world." (Is it perhaps a mistaken identification of humanities with the liberal arts that has confused the column's meaning?)

It is the very distinction between "liberal arts students" and engineers that I dislike so much. Personally, I think the English majors I know should spend less time musing about trees and more time learning their classifications, while my ELE friend ought to try his pen at an ode to the silver Beech.