Brown is frequently dubbed the liberal Ivy. Whether in response to Fox News’ disturbing intrusion on campus, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s supposedly fascist lecture or the Corporation’s flat denial of the demands of Brown Divest Coal, Brown students never miss an opportunity to reinforce our hard-earned liberal activist stereotype.
We thrive on that stereotype. It is a source of great pride. We like to think of ourselves as somehow more political, more radical and more enlightened than our peers. In reality, that radicalism lacks any substance behind its thin veneer of face value trickery. It is an illusion designed and perpetuated to create a political climate of strong left-wing politics that gives us that empowering sense of “better-than” and “holier-than-thou.”
But there is no true left wing at Brown, and there certainly is no true right wing. We are a university of centrists and left-leaning moderates who thrive on the momentary rush of radicalism that consistently fails to be anything more than self-serving and vain. This artificiality of university activism is a symptom of a much greater disease. Brown stands infected with the well-known affliction of unrepresentative government. There are fundamentally undemocratic principles at work that push us toward radicalism. The futility of our political movements is a harsh reality that motivates further radical action as we constantly struggle to dispel the looming realization that all the marches and rallies in the world will not achieve the victories we so desperately desire.
The fault behind this unfortunate state of affairs lies not with us, but with our leadership that marginalizes the will of the student body. At the center of this problem are the Corporation, the administration and the Undergraduate Council of Students, all of which grossly fail in their duty to adequately represent the student body. Powerless in representation, we are forced into radical political action to gain a semblance of a voice in University politics.
I grant that there are small sects on campus that would maintain their radical political ideology regardless of the state of student democracy. The Brown Spectator consistently delivers strong conservative views in a political climate that detests conservatism in all its forms. Despite getting drowned out by the incessant wave of left-wing activism, there are legitimately conservative voices at Brown. The true left wing is represented by Brown’s International Socialist Organization. It is a fledgling group of diehards scraping and clawing for the rest of Brown to renounce their blind Obama-loving liberalism and organize to fight for truly progressive causes: workers’ rights, anti-war policies, racial equality, etc. Instead, the majority of Brown’s politically minded students organize empty rallies that do little to advance their faux-liberal causes. In the process, an illusion is formed, and that illusion creates the lens through which the rest of the world views Brown. It is an illusion of radically liberal freedom fighters out to change the world. On closer review, the mirage dissipates. We lie to ourselves to feel better about the futility of our political movements.
The source of this problem stems from our unique position as top-tier college students without an outlet to unleash our talents and passions. So we use politics — and middle-of-the-road politics are not enough to get our blood pumping. We exaggerate our beliefs and push movements further than necessary in an attempt to alleviate residual teenage angst.
We are capable and intelligent, but in the confines of the Brown bubble, we are powerless. So when a cocky right-wing reporter comes to town, we preemptively strike back by making a viral video. When Ray Kelly is invited to speak, we stage a fiery protest and kick him out. And when divestment is rejected, we hunker down and grow even bolder than before. Struggling in the face of supreme helplessness, we retreat into the empowerment of radicalism.
The video attacking Fox News garnered national coverage, but to what end? It made us feel superior to the incompetent fools at Fox but accomplished little else. The Kelly protests succeeded in stopping the lecture. A small minority gained immense solace in the act, but for everyone else, we lost a chance at legitimate civil discourse. And the coal divestment movement, while honorable and impressive, is a fool’s errand. The Corporation has spoken — for now — and any further action is the result of our unbreakable anti-establishment habit.
This is not to say activism should be avoided. Political action is a necessary and vital part of the University. We need the passion of idealists to enact real change. But let’s not deceive ourselves any longer. After we leave Brown, we the radicals will settle into the real world and adopt our true left-leaning centrist political views. Our days of youthful revolution are numbered. Post-Brown, the crippling sense of powerlessness will fade along with our radicalism.
But as long as we’re still here, we should channel our profound idealism to fight for student democracy so that future classes need not resort to the baseless radicalism we see today. Instead of borderline violent protests and meaningless confrontations that fail to get results, we could be democratically represented in a civilized manner. In the place of never-ending conflicts fraught with extreme dissent, we can have cooperation through legitimate political discourse. With the realization of student democracy, we can shed the need to fruitlessly resort to the radical liberal activism that so defines Brown University.
Sam Hillestad ’15 genuinely welcomes all questions and comments. He can be reached at samuel_hillestad@brown.edu.
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