A constructive alternative to inter-publication bickering

Dissent among campus publications is a hallmark of the prose, opinion and editorial scene at Princeton. We’ve all seen it: a “Princewatch” column in the Nassau Weekly here, a “Tory-watch” column in the Princeton Progressive there, and calls to arms asking publications to “duke it out” more frequently. We’ve all heard the justifications, too: stimulating, cogent and fiery debate is the cornerstone to healthy intellectual life on campus. If we are to learn as much as possible from our time here and keep the quality of on-campus discussions as high as possible, many argue, we need to be willing to tackle the ideas of our peers head-on.

However, here’s what I’ve found: by publishing critiques of certain pieces in certain publications in other tangential publications, all we’re doing is talking past each other.

Let me explain: I’ve got a little experience with on-campus criticism. I’ve published a rebuttal to an article in the Princeton Tory in these very pages. The most recent “Princewatch” published by the Nass targeted one of my own columns, to which I wrote a 2000-odd-word response.

After thousands of words of criticism and criticism of criticism and all that nonsense, this is what I’ve concluded: inter-publication and interpersonal bickering set in print is some of the least effective “constructive debate” available on this campus. At no point during any of the cross-publication sniping I’ve witnessed — whether that sniping involved me or not — have I seen any of the pertinent students’ opinions change. It’s a perfect example of all relevant parties blustering as loudly as they can without pausing to take in any of the other side’s story. If you’re writing for a larger campus audience rather than a particular person, that person can — and does, most of the time — ignore you with impunity.

Of course, this culture is the culture of the Internet at large. A corollary to the laws of “outrage culture” that have taken place is this: a publication, despite what the article might say on the tin, almost always publishes for the largest possible reader base. When a publication is trying to stoke flames of rage, they’re not doing it for the benefit or edification of their target — they’re doing it for the readers. When Jezebel publishes an article with the lede “Losing presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich is an asshole, and he’s worked tirelessly to build that reputation from the ground up,” they’re not doing it so that Kasich — or any of his supporters, for that matter — will change his ways. They’re doing it so that readers who could be angry at Kasich’s remarks will get pissed, which means more clicks (and therefore money) for the site.

To be honest, I’m not sure why publications on this campus dig into other publications with the ferocity that they do. People have their own reasons, and there isn’t one overarching driving force behind every column. I know that I published my response to the Tory piece because I had a column due in two days and needed a topic. I’ve heard students mention the artistic integrity of the Nass as well as the simple joy of bashing things when justifying Princewatch columns.

What I do know is that when a publication pushes out a piece slagging the words of another student on campus, it’s not for clicks. There are very few paid editorial positions on this campus, especially paid editorial positions that allow for unsheathed claws. When I write, I do it for the joy of writing — for free. Same with writers at the Nass, at Tiger Mag, at the Progressive, at the Tory, at Nass Lit. There’s no tangible benefit to doing this stuff other than the satisfaction derived from a decently constructed argument (and, arguably, the resulting resume boost, but in my experience, those who write just to build their resume drop the publication within a year or two). We do it because we love expressing our opinions, ideas, and wit loudly, for everyone to hear, because we’re narcissistic or believe we’re doing a public good or just want to have fun. Point is, writing on this campus is a passion project, much like most exchanges of ideological currency. As such, this entire campus is very different than most of the Internet blogs and journals that so love to hate.

Since we have such a different approach to writing than that of the Internet at large, we are at liberty to treat differently the way we respond to content we deem retrograde or questionable. We’re not boxed into turning a profit and establishing our own publication’s dominance over the market — we’re a campus where the exchange of ideas (especially cross-cultural and cross-personal ones) still reigns supreme.

Moreover, we’re a campus within which a lot of students are still coming to terms with how they’ll approach the world as a whole. We shouldn’t have concretely-set ideas yet, even if we’re allowed to express those beliefs that we do feel are worth expressing, and we should be willing to engage on a direct, personal level with others in order to change and be changed. Talking past each other by means of indirect contact is one of the worst things we can do if we are to actually convince the other that what they’ve said isn’t appropriate for whatever reason. As such, I’d like to suggest something to do in lieu of a public, published complaint:

Take the person you’d like to critique out to lunch. This is almost certainly the best way to get others to listen to you, and almost certainly the best way to make them understand the full force of their words. Immediately after sending in my response to the Princewatch article for publication, I emailed the author of the original column and invited her to lunch with me. I’m not sure how much of an impact it had on her — she was a senior and the ex-editor-in-chief of the Nass, I was but a lowly frosh — but I think that after I explained to her in person how I thought she misinterpreted my column and discussed her further qualms with her, she left feeling a little less sure of her article’s backbone.

If you are to explain to a student what, exactly, their article did wrong, a mealtime meeting is especially effective for three reasons. First, it forces them to listen to you. If you’re skipping the middleman of another publication, you’re giving them your ideas as viscerally as possible. It forces them to adjust to you in the moment, and it forces you to adjust to them, which makes for far more effective communication than asynchronous text could ever be. Second, it defuses a potentially tense situation a little bit. If you can mollify your words in person in a way that you wouldn’t on a Word document, that’s more effective communication.

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Third, and probably most importantly, it forces you (and the other party) to realize that there is a living, breathing person behind the ideas expressed on a page. It’s easy to forget that almost all ideas expressed come from a valid place no matter how hateful or backwards they might seem, and that if we are to change the way we think as a society, we have to take the assumptions of everybody around us into account, too. We can’t change the world around us if we can’t speak at the world’s level first, and having an interpersonal, verbal interaction achieves that gap-crossing miles better than any other approach does.

After all, as much as it may be difficult to embody this at times, we’re all on this campus together. We all have ideas that are sound and correct about certain things and that are unsound and harmful about others, and it’s up to those among us who are willing to shoulder the burden of educating our peers (which should be all of us) to better the state of campus discourse as a whole. And, to do that, we need to be able to hold each other personally accountable for whatever beliefs of ours might be unsound — emphasis on “personally,” within which the impersonality of exterior campus publications is not included.

None of us is perfect, and we’re bound to say some stupid things during our time at Princeton. However, talking past the person saying the stupid thing is just as bad as not saying anything at all — which is why, in order to truly embody that spirit of healthy debate we crave so deeply, we need to cut out the middleman of inter-publication bickering.

Will Rivitz is a sophomore from Brookline, Mass. He can be reached at wrivitz@princeton.edu.