Letters to the Editor

Taking time to 'do the reading': Improving the 'intellectualism' of the editorial page

I am writing in response to the two Op-Ed pieces that appeared in the Nov. 26 edition of the 'Prince,' Eric Harkleroad's "Stats Exaggerate U.S. Gun Violence" and Aileen Neilsen's "Protecting freedom of the press." I found both of these pieces extremely troubling, especially in light of the current debate on campus intellectualism — a topic that has been often addressed in recent weeks on the very same page.

In both pieces, the authors comment on issues which they clearly have made virtually no effort to understand. In Mr. Harkleroad's assault on the firearm homicide statistics used by Michael Moore in his film "Bowling for Columbine," he refers not to the film itself, but to the film' s trailer which is available online. If he had actually seen the film, he might find some answers as to where these "mysterious, unexplained figures" come from. You see, in a trailer it is permissible to use such numbers for "shock value." It is a way of getting people to see the film.

Mr. Harkleroad's own statistical analysis — which he bases on Interpol statistics available online — leads him to conclude that Mr. Moore "falsified" the numbers in order to further his liberal agenda, "make the U.S. look bad," and to deprive me of the right to brandish a pistol outside of Mr. Harkleroad's dorm room window. I have no doubt that statistics like these are extremely subjective, and can be taken from a wide range of sources, whether credible or not. The point is that even after his own analysis, Mr. Harkleroad concludes that "gun violence is a problem in the U.S." That, I think, is all that Moore is trying to say.

Ms. Neilsen's piece is similarly troubling. She addresses the issue of whether campus publications like the Tory should be denied funding at the request of students who are offended by the material they print. However, she is quick to admit that "I didn't read the Tory and don't know what the article they objected to was about." Furthermore, her basic point that people should be able to distinguish between what they disagree with and what they are truly offended by is undermined by the fact that she herself fails to do just that — she felt compelled to complain, publicly, about students who want the Tory's funding taken away (without ever having read the Tory or even the specific piece that prompted the ordeal) but doesn't adequately explain why she finds this behavior so upsetting. By her circular logic, which places freedom of expression above all else and yet insists that it be measured and reasonable in response to the opinions of others, the students who complained about the Tory were doing the right thing. If they weren't, then she has no right to criticize their criticism of others. And so on.

The point is this: If you want others to take your opinions seriously, it requires more than merely opening your mouth and seeing what emerges. In a healthy intellectual climate, people take the time to analyze ALL of the relevant viewpoints before offering their own. In fact, I would argue that this is what distinguishes "intellectualism" from its antithesis. These two authors boldly offer their own views on the issues they address, but without more than a nod towards the subject they are addressing. This is symptomatic of an extremely poor intellectual environment — one in which everyone has something to say, but no one actually takes the time to "do the reading." I happen to be disgusted by many of the things written in the Tory, but I never comment on them without actually doing the reading. It is something we all must do if we want to be taken seriously outside of our own immediate world. John McGill '04