Debating controversy

Our generation is apathetic, American campuses are dead, and we're more interested in career fairs and free T-shirts than poverty or politics. This common refrain gets some things right and a lot of things wrong.

What's right about that picture is that some students are too busy polishing their resumes to be advocates for anything at all, much less epoch-making protesters like the campus activists of the '60s. Caught in the frenzy of papers, exams, clubs, job applications, plays and performances, Princeton students often resemble the soma-ridden denizens of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," too exhaustedly happy to be discontent, too busy to be contemplative and too worldly to be visionaries.

At the same time, students at Princeton and elsewhere are more engaged than we're given credit for, somehow finding the time to protest meat-eating or abortion and attend panel discussions and controversial lectures. So when you hear that American students are out of touch, don't believe the hype.

We need to ask ourselves, however, whether we are engaged in the right way, whether the actions we take are sensible and effective or foolish and fruitless. Do we change minds by posing as bloody meat products, for instance, or comparing animal treatment to slavery, or planting flags to symbolize members of the freshman class that "didn't make it"? Though graphically powerful, these displays are no substitute for reasoned arguments; they are only valuable as invitations to more meaningful discussions.

What about when we get riled up at the invitation of a controversial speaker to campus, as if it were an affront to our dignity that someone with views different from ours should set foot on our sacrosanct campus and dare to voice opinions we find unsettling? This is the most pitiful excuse for student activism. College is not a time for complacency; it is a time when students should find their preconceptions upheaved and then take it upon themselves to put the pieces back together, to discover what is tenable and what is not, and to become responsible and mature thinkers.

So when Stanford students take to the streets to protest the appointment of Donald Rumsfeld '54 to the Hoover Institution despite his obvious expertise in a number of important subjects, or when Princeton students decry conservative David Horowitz after his lecture about so-called "Islamo-fascism," what gives? Activism should be about making your voice heard not by shouting loud enough to drown out your opponents, but rather by diagnosing your opponents' mistakes and demonstrating the superiority of your own view through calm, collected argumentation. If you don't think Horowitz adhered to these ideals, that is no excuse for failing to adhere to them yourself.

I suggest that student groups invite a wide spectrum of speakers to campus, not just to give lectures, but also to participate in debates, so that both sides are challenged to articulate and defend their respective views. This desire for a broad range of opinions on campus must be balanced by a sense of caution; genuinely inflammatory hate speech and ad hominem arguments should not be given platforms, but we should be careful lest we call hateful or inflammatory what is merely controversial or polarizing.

To my mind, properly moderated debates allow controversial speakers to voice their opinions without it appearing that anyone endorses those opinions. Thus debates are the answer to the dilemma that beset Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University: Inviting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seemed to be an endorsement of his views, and giving him a withering introduction seemed to be a petty display of superiority. Bollinger could have solved this dilemma by having a suitable Columbia professor debate Ahmadinejad. Likewise, we could have solved the Horowitz dilemma by having someone from the Muslim Students Association debate Horowitz. Though some speakers may not be willing to take part in such debates, we should still encourage anyone interested to participate.

Debates are the heart and soul of the intellectual enterprise, from peer-reviewed journals to the hallways of academic buildings, from Lincoln and Douglas to Kennedy and Nixon. Do you want real activism? Then let us cautiously cultivate controversy and never condemn it prematurely — because sometimes the other guy is right. Matt Hoberg is a philosophy major from Kennett Square, Pa. He can be reached at mhoberg@princeton.edu.