President Wright delivered his annual Convocation speech on Tuesday. He used this opportunity to berate a political and media culture that seems to focus on trivial subjects at the cost of intelligent discussion of substantive issues. Wright made two important points on this subject, and both add value to the current national political contest and the continuing development of the College.
The first is that ideas need to be constantly challenged to avoid stagnation. In the political arena, this means that we should end the recriminations over the war in Iraq -- not to mention the Vietnam War -- and ask the candidates to tell us where they plan to go from here. Surely it is important that President Bush seems not to have planned for the pockets of chaos and terror which still grip Iraq. Likewise, Senator Kerry's frequent revisions of his Iraq policy could pass as mere clarifications only to his more ardent supporters. But self-justification is a poor excuse for leadership. We need a campaign focused less on the candidates than on the republic which they aspire to lead. Wright's observations, inasmuch as they call for debate about issues and not personalities, is right on the money.
The second aspect of vigorous debate is that it needs to take place in an open forum that allows broad participation. Here at Dartmouth, nurturing such a environment has been difficult. In the past, this administration has had difficulty holding itself to a policy of open discussion of ideas. Only two years ago, Dean of the College James Larimore patronized students protesting the swim team debacle by telling us he respected their "strong feelings" on the subject. Since then, the administration has become somewhat better at realizing that we have more than feelings, we have ideas and arguments as well. Hopefully, Wright's address is meant to herald continued efforts on the part of the administration to open up the decision-making process to incorporate the reasoned opinion of the student body.
