I have been pleased by the recent accomplishments of Jon Heavey and his partners in the Student Assembly, all of whom have worked hard to regain much of the respect that the organization had lost during my first year at Dartmouth. While the administration has remained out of touch with its students by endorsing numerous preposterous projects geared toward fostering intellectualism on campus, Heavey has succeeded in conveying the real voice of the student body, as demonstrated by his latest feat in convincing the Trustees to allocate funds to the renovation of the weight room.
Nonetheless, I was compelled to write this rebuttal against Heavey's column "Hey Trustee Bosworth, I Hear Castro in Hiring" [The Dartmouth, April 2], for his argument reflected an egregious interpretation of the fundamental premise of an academic community like ours in educating the young. In stressing that the students have the right to vote in Trustee elections, Heavey establishes himself as a quintessential modern liberal -- one who blindly accepts the appetitive principle of equality as the universal truth. This perspective is manifest in Heavey's loaded conclusion at the end of his column, in conjunction with his past writings in The Dartmouth.
He claims in his most recent column: "Students deserve the right to vote for those who govern their lives. It is a simple, fundamental human right." In this passage lies an implicit assumption about justice; he apparently believes that the extent to which one should be able to influence the affairs of the Dartmouth community must reflect his or her explicit involvement in it. To Heavey, it is unjust that the student body -- which constitutes a large component of the community -- cannot formally voice its thoughts to trustees, while an individual who might have been enrolled in Dartmouth for a term and lacks any serious commitment to the school is granted the power to vote.
Thus, according to Heavey, an academic community ought to be a microcosmic democracy where every active member participates in the political process regardless of his or her ability as an overseer because such participation is simply a "right." This view reflects the dangerous proliferation of moral relativism that has come to prevail in contemporary society; that is, the belief that no perspective is more right than another, be it from an immature student or a wise technocrat, the latter of whom would clearly be more competent than the former in ruling a community.
On the other hand, an absolutist would be glad that Trustees do not regard highly the opinions of students, who deserve to be patronized. To me, for example, it is rather obvious that students, most of whom have barely reached the age of twenty, do not have the depth of foresight needed to propel Dartmouth in the right direction. Particularly in this age when relativism has completely undermined our appreciation for the classics, our grasp of some of the perennial characteristics of the human condition is so tenuous that we should not even think for a second that we can accurately perceive, in any degree, the historical teleology.
If you have been consistently reading Heavey's columns, you should know that he often pushes for a greater role of the students in the crucial decision-making of the College by equating the role of stockowners to that of Dartmouth students. According to him, just as those who contribute money to their corporation have the right to guide its activities, students whose tuition realizes the Dartmouth community must have the right to form its policies.
What is implied in this analogy is that the relationship among the members of our academic community is legitimized by their economic interdependence. Heavey's thoughts strongly resonate those of such modern liberals as Hobbes and Locke, who attempted to reduce human nature to one in terms of reason and appetite. According to these philosophers, humans can be brought together peacefully under a regime only if it satisfies their most basic sentiments, which were completely appetitive -- desires to live and to seek material comfort. The creation of this regime results in the establishment of equality, securing each individual's right to engage in materialistic pursuits as long as they do not hinder other humans' such pursuits.
But humans are more than such biological entities that simply use reason to fulfill their appetitive desires. We often deny ourselves of our economic well-being, even of our lives, in order to pursue goals that allow us to affirm the worth of our existence. I hope Heavey will reconsider his vision of Dartmouth and ponder the possibility that there may perhaps be a virtue in accepting ourselves as "second-rate citizens."
