Several astute readers of my columns have observed that my opinions often waver between antithetical positions. I have argued in favor of affirmative action, as well as against it. Some of my columns have extolled life based on contemplation, while others have glorified materialistic, unexamined life. This past term, I wrote a piece chastising Clinton's foreign policy from a conventional realist perspective -- a perspective I ridiculed last year when discussing the United Nations' follies.
My mercurial nature stems from my desire to discuss issues on which I have yet to establish a definitive viewpoint. For me, writing for The Dartmouth has been an excellent intellectual exercise to practice formulating arguments for different perspectives. Of course, I also always "spiced up" my language, as does economist Paul Krugman, who asserts that an editorial should upset the uncontemplative masses and provoke debate. Thus, to whom I have only been a nuisance, I apologize.
Nonetheless, having frequently witnessed constructive debates sparked by my columns, I cannot sympathize with readers who have treated many of my columns as simply insults targeted at them. In fact, I am convinced that every open-minded individual should have discerned the significance of the issues I have addressed and that those who dismiss me are only letting dogmatism and personal circumstances interfere with their reading ability.
The angry responses to my column "Higher Education for the Leisure Class" [The Dartmouth, March 2] attest to the pervasiveness of close-mindedness. Most criticizers of this column, which supported curtailing federal financial support for college students, failed to see that every redistributive public policy involves a zero sum game. However much we celebrate class diversity at Dartmouth, we should not forget that students who are here with the help of government financing are spending wealth that could be allocated to other parties, be they the elderly in need of social security checks or the unemployed in search of vocational training. Thus, it is essential to ponder whether the gains from this redistribution sufficiently outweigh the losses by testing its worth against two standards.
First, we must see if a basic human "right" may be violated without this redistribution. It is according to this standard, for example, that we ensure minimum material welfare as a basic right, since most of us agree that one should not have to starve from destitution. But a suggestion that a right to university education exists is almost as preposterous as a suggestion that the government should support one's purchase of, say, a BMW, as the state has no reason to cater to its citizens' demands for luxury goods, including university education.
Second, we must examine if university education has externalities -- or returns that students who pay for it cannot entirely claim -- that result in sub-optimal levels of investment. We know, for instance, that government financing of the police is essential because, otherwise, one would tend to free-ride on other people's money. Another example of this nature is public education, which is critical not only for labor training, but also for moral education. Since students would assess public education's benefits only in terms of increases in their own income-potential, they would tend to underinvest in it. They would fail to see its external benefits like the building of what political scientist Robert Putnam calls "trust," our ability to engage in associations like labor unions or private businesses -- an ability that contributes to, among other things, crime reduction, improvement in voting behavior and efficient government.
Even from this perspective, one can hardly defend redistribution for university education. Most econometric studies conclude that a university diploma merely signals its possessor's skills in labor markets, and one's moral education ends years before entering a university, according to research in psychology. In other words, most of us are here, essentially, only to satisfy our intellectual curiosity, a pursuit that carries no moral or pragmatic value, particularly in light of universities' inordinate costs.
I do not doubt that this argument is unpalatable especially for financial aid students. However, I urge you to tackle, and not dismiss, such disturbing ideas, for ideas that involve your personal loss may provide the necessary grounds for societal justice. Without citizens' engagement in thought that goes beyond their private spheres, this nation's public-spiritedness, which is the intellectual bedrock of a successful liberal democracy, will continue to erode.
As we race into another millennium, when explosive progress in information technology and genetic engineering will confront us with profound ethical challenges, Rousseau's notion of the "general will" has become more important than ever. Whether or not our future will be that of Plato's Atlantis, a civilization raped by rampant abuses of technology, or of Bacon's New Atlantis, a technological utopia attained with man's virtuous conquest of nature, hinges on our relentless endeavor to restore our sense of Aristotelian friendship.
