Upon hearing that the Saints News Network (SNN) was providing an editorial section hoping to provide “clear, powerful, and thought-provoking opinion articles,” as I gathered from Editorial Editor Danny Huang. The pitch grabbed my curiosity, and I made my way onto the SNN website. At the bottom of the webpage, the goals of the SNN are stated as follows:
“The Saints’ News Network is a student-run newsroom dedicated to educating the community from a diverse set of news outlets and perspectives. The SNN will actively work to gather news across the political spectrum and work with a diverse group of writers to bring you quality news once a week.”
This led me to be excited for the future of the SNN, and specifically the editorial section, because the format of an online news site is a great way to engage community voices. As communicated by its biography, the SNN presents itself to be a stalwart of intellectual diversity, achieving understanding through the presentation of ideas, and allowing the reader to critically compare viewpoints to come to justified conclusions.
But after reading several articles, which mostly sported very centrist writings on modern politics, I was surprised given the precise goals of the SNN. Of course, this could mostly be because of the article depth in the “Newsroom” section, which seems to provide unbiased analysis on the recent newsfeed. This is paired with the young age of the SNN: not giving it enough time to develop into its end goal.
But I think that there is a third influence on this lack of ideological diversity outside of the SNN, and that is how the greater SAS community discusses world viewpoints. Most of my claims are based off of personal experience, which could be fairly accurate given our 300-person community, but also because there is truly no other way to measure this. In my experience so far at SAS, discussions on viewpoint diversity has almost entirely been contained within the “Left or the Right,” or more specifically “Liberal or Conservative.” Here I describe the Left as holding the “SAS Doctrine,” which espouses neoliberal positions with Christian virtues, and the Right, less outspoken than the left, tends to embody establishment conservative ideals.
This bilateral comparison is rooted into our thinking at SAS—whether it be specifically in the classroom or in the greater community. The fact that the Young Republicans club is the only civic group on campus is a great example of this culture on student life. In my freshman year History class, often we would observe history in a bipartisan view between the right and left, rarely viewing dissent and its influences. Even our shallow juxtaposition of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in search of viewpoint diversity shows how restricted we are to this two-voice narrative. If our end goal of diversity is to gain intellectual perception through inclusivity and open dialogue, then we are vastly failing this goal in the realm of ideas… and here is why.
I will use the common political compass to visualize this just because it is so popular, although I find its design to be overly simplistic.
On the plane to the left I placed “Liberal” to denote the left written about earlier in this article, and “Conservative” to describe the right. If you were to notice, I placed the SAS left on the right wing. In comparison to world ideas SAS conventional politics is mostly concerned with the Authoritarian Right. Both Liberals and Conservatives are concerned with international trade, corporatism, government intervention, and social politics. It is simply the nuances within these topics that lead us to define them as Right or Left. The problem here is that we are leaving three other quadrants of ideas out of our public dialogue as a school—and at length excluding opportunities for personal and communal intellectual development. But I think that this problem is one that can be fixed.
So far at SAS, I have had a dynamic set of conversations on dorm, in the dining hall, or anywhere else on campus with a diverse set of topics and speakers. Even if peers did not hold dissenting views, they would never neglect to explore contentious ideas with depth and perception. As I have observed, the average SAS student is vigorously open and embracing of different world views. That’s why I was surprised about this bipartisan culture at SAS because I feel that there is diversity of thought in the student body, but it is simply not vocal or highlighted to the broader community. I think that the question of pursuing open ideological diversity at SAS is not a question of whether SAS students hold a variety of beliefs, but rather about the opportunities that the community has to express them.
I think that this is an area to be optimistic about, because there have been recent efforts among the student and administrative body to create more chances to express ideas. The Student Diversity Committee has taken great initiative this year with a new “Diversity of Thought” campaign, allowing a community wide discussion on points of contention in the community. The new SNN Editorial Section should provide a yearlong opportunity for sharp dialogue on current issues, making a great alternative for the Cardinal which is published tri-annually. I am hoping that as individuals express their viewpoints to the community more people will find similarity, and more civic groups will be established on campus.
The more active of a discussion with diverse viewpoints helps us in the goal of creating more intellectually vibrant community at SAS. Part of education is confronting the conventions that we hold as truths, and strengthening our beliefs through addressing counterpoint, sometimes shifting to a new alternative. After SAS, this critical framework of challenging assumption and dissecting bad thinking is a necessary prerequisite for a functioning democracy. Because without out it, we all lay victim to ignorance.
BY: Harry Murphy