the hillsdale forum december 2013

5/19/2018 The Hillsdale Forum December 2013

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the hillsdale frum

Interview with ShortStory Contest winner

Ian AthertonPage 21

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 3

Like on Facebook, follow us on Twitter! @thehillsdaleforum

To attend Hillsdale isto choose an academ

vocationPage 8

Hillsdale needs morestudent self-government

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Cntents Staff

Cnservative Features4 The Need for Self-Government at Hillsdale Luke AdamsAre you a student fed up with the awesome power of Central Hall? Adams istoo. He writes that self-government requires the student body to administerjustice amongst itself.6 The Insufcency of Convention

Sarah AlbersRussell Kirk is a beloved gure in the conservative movement, but hisintellectual problems came from the Cold War. Albers questions Kirks

relevance in ghting todays liberalism.8 The Obligation of PerfectionMicah MeadowcroftAs we approach Christmas Vacation, Meadowcroft reminds us that to be astudent is a vocation all year round.10 Polanyi and Spontaneous Order Devin CreedWhen Creed argues that a chemistry professors understanding ofspontaneous order is better than Hayeks, he does not Polanyiones leg.12 A Discourse on DiscourseJames InwoodIn the modern world, people bemoan the mudslinging of politics and thevitriol of the internet. Inwood notes that such rhetoric has been around forcenturies.

Campus Features14 Campus Smackdown: Caffeine Lorynn CruzA coffee addict and a tea snob clash over their favorite vice: caffeinateddrinks.16 Short Story Contest WinnerIan AthertonLemons are the topic of the second short story contest winners epic Saga.Read his interview with The Forumfollowing the story.21 Tragically HipSarah AlbersAlbers shares albums yove never heard of and hands out tips on uping yoursnark game.22 Spotlight On: Shooting Lorryn CruzHillsdale students like cameras and rearms. Cruz talks to two shooters andsomeone who gets shot (with a camera).23 From the Records of the Admissions OfceAndy ReussReuss is a fairly delinquent Student Ambassador for Hillsdale. In this satirepiece, he mocks both his former self and a distressing tendency of thehumanities.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Wes Wright

MANAGING EDITOR

Chris McCaffery

HEAD DESIGNER

Lauren Wierenga

FEATUREDESSAYISTS

Micah MeadowcrofLuke AdamsJames InwoodDevin Creed

Brett Wierenga

STAFF WRITERS

Lorryn Cruz

Sarah AlbersAndy Reuss

EDITORS

Chelsey Schmid

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Laurie BarnesCaroline GreenOlivia File

LAYOUT AIDES

Grace DeSandroMeg Prom

BUSINESS MANAGER

Ryne Bessemer

Vlume III, Iue 2December 2013

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Letter fro the Editr

T

ime for questions and answers can be avaluable part of public lectures, allowing

the speaker to clarify his message or morebroadly apply his argument. In Hillsdales Center forConstructive Alternatives, however, Q&A sessions areoften tedious and unenlightening. Too many studentsand donors ask long-winded questions that do notapply to the topic, derailing quality discussion. Inmost instances, this problem stems from Hillsdalestwin selves.

Hillsdales intellectual community is its primaryself. It is late-night discussions, our house culture,camaraderie with professors, the Donnybrook. It is

monarchists and libertarians, homeschoolers andclassical schoolers, Catholics and Calvinists. It ispursuit of transcendent Truth among students andprofessors who take joy in learning. Yes, it is isolatedbut, like Mont St. Michel, its seclusion is sanctuaryfrom everyday concerns that would distract us frompursuit of the higher.

Hillsdales second self is its reputation as the lastbastion of the Right. Advertisements on certain radioprograms and some rhetorical ourishes from CentralHall create an alternate image in which every lastHillsdale studentfrom theatre major to chemistmarches from Hillsdale equipped to turn back thetide of Progressivism and restore Americas gloriousRepublican government. These ads are nanciallylucrative, but they attract an unseemly cadre: politicsmajors.

Politics majors is an epithet that refers to students(of any academic discipline) who are more interestedin D.C. oneupsmanship than they are in study of thehigher things. Easy to spot, they announce themselves

with that classic icebreaker, You see what Obamadid the other day? They are the sort of people who,at another school, would have no misgivings aboutmajoring in political science.

These politics majors rush to Hillsdale after hearingabout it on an AM station, gung-ho to attack the liberalmedia and government. They apply conservativeprinciples to the nances of student government.They ask Anthony Esolenin front of their peers!

about the state of the worldand what we, as college

students, can do aboutit. They bring thetrivial, ephemeral,and distractingconcerns of jockeyingpoliticians into ourcontemplative bubble.

There is hope. Manyof these budding KentSorensons convert during theirtime at Hillsdale, changing to a history major or addin

a philosophy minor. Our own Andy Reuss added anEnglish major (he satirizes himself in this issueSome continue with politics but adopt the broademindset of Hillsdales primary self. Some contributto The Hillsdale Forum and other publications ointerdisciplinary discourse.

You could too. The Forum is always looking to helpolitics majors broaden their interests by writinthoughtful opinion pieces on conservatism and thliberal arts. We also need photographers, editors, andesigners; send us an email at hillsdaleforum@gmaicom if you are interested, and we will respond to yoshortly.

In the meantime, ask a lecturer about his topic. Yomay learn something.

Missin StatementThe Hillsdale Forumis the independent, student-ruconservative magazine at Hillsdale College. The Forumin support of the mission statement of Hillsdale College

exists to promote a return to limited governmenas outlined in the Declaration of Independence anthe Constitution. We publish conservative opinioneditorials, and campus features. The Forumis a vehiclto bring the discussion and thought of the intelligenstudents and professors at the heart of the conservativ

movement beyond the classroom.


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The Need fr FurtherSelf-Gvernance at HllsdaleBY LUKE ADAMS

Modern civil government has two essentialparts. The rst part is the collection anddisbursement of state funds to support the

government and any additional causes the publicdeems worthy. The second part is the enforcementof laws and regulations. Hillsdale College seeksto instill the virtue of self-government in thestudent body, but it does not implement a full

understanding of this idea. We have a StudentFederation that allocates an impressive sum ofstudent activity fees, yet all disciplinary action ishandled solely by the administration. This situationcan be improved, and it would serve the campusbetter were students to more fully self-govern.

One of the main reasons prospectives chooseHillsdale College is our like-minded community.While there is certainly intellectual diversity oncampus, Hillsdales spectrum is far narrowerthan that of other colleges. Due to both of these

factors, reaching consensus on an acceptable codeof conduct, though minor exceptions will almostcertainly arise, should not be impossibly dicult.

In addition to a shared understanding of properconduct, the students here are rather concernedabout campus: club participation is high, and theelections for Student Federation (at least this year)were hotly contested, and dorm loyalty is strong.Rare is he who merely attends classes and has noallegiances to a single group at the college. The

students possess a broad understanding that we areall here to make our education as good as it canbe, and with this understanding comes a deeplyfelt social responsibility. Who, for example, hasseen litter on the grounds for any length of time?Most Hillsdale students take pride in their schooland their communitypride that fosters respect.

Why, then, does the administration inhibitself-government? Surely, out of all of the

colleges in the country, we students would beamong the most t to fulll the second part ofgovernment. Our Honor Code, which everystudent is required to sign, states: Througheducation the student rises to self-government.Notably, it does not state what kind of self-government; the quality of self-government ingeneral is expected of each and every student.Perhaps the argument could be made that self-government in this context is really only meant tobe applied at the individual level. Maybe so, but ifthis is the standard to which we are all held, wouldwe not be even more capable of handling campus-wide disciplinary action on our own?

Then again, perhaps I am simply makingmountains out of molehills (or philosophersout of philosophy majors), and the actual effect

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of any expanded responsibilities on the partof the students would be miniscule. After all,students arent going to gain any police powers,so this discussion is not of incredible import.Nevertheless, one cannot help but questionwhether a recent incident involving a certainhead RA would not have been better receivedor more justly resolved, perhapshad studentsmeted out justice, not the administration. Putplainly, the students would respond positively toincentives such as being held responsible to oneanother for missteps.

Admittedly, it does seem odd to allow thedemographic stereotypically known for itsunrestrained excess to judge itself. Yet on this

point Hillsdale is different. Each student isrequired to sign an honor code. Students arenot handed a packet of rules that they are not tobreak, although the administration has certainlymade clear those instances that are less thanobvious. The administration gives the studentbody the overarching principle and expects itapply it to its own circumstances. There is littlearbitrariness about what the Honor Code means,so it would not be dicult to decidewhether the

accuseds conductfell within its bounds.

Therefore, the creation of either a committeeof the Student Federation or a free-standingjudicial council to enforce the honor code is theobvious choice of action. Instead of having thedean of men or women decide behind closeddoors how to handle each situation, bring

transparencyand a littlemore respectfor thestudents tothe process.Self-governanceis a longstandingprinciple of HillsdaleCollege: it is one of the central ideas that driveseach and every aspect of our education here.It is the way our college deals with the federalgovernment. The Honor Code is one of thedifferentiating features of the college. Studentsalready spend the massive student fees budget;

why not extend this authority to the next logicalstep?The leadership of the college makes much

of the quality of the student body of here. Weare told from Freshman Convocation on thatwe are a cut above. If the administration reallybelieves what they tell us, if they really wantto improve education at Hillsdale College, thenit only makes sense to change the disciplinary

structure. Clearly, as evidenced bythe existence

of the

StudentFederation, the

administration trusts the students. Further, this

action would not require total autonomy from theadministration -- advice and oversight from thedeans would be welcomed. It is foolish to rejectthe insight of those with more experience, butit would be still more foolish to fail to bring theHonor Code culmination. F

the creation of either a committee of theStudent Federation or a free-standing judicial council toenforce the honor code is the obvious choice of action.


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Two fundamental beliefs guideconservative thought. Namely, thathuman nature is immutable and that

one may distill the precepts of natural law byobservation of this permanent nature. Earlyprogressives began by moving away fromthe idea of natural law, then nally deniedthe permanence of human nature altogether.Man, in the eyes of liberalism, is an organismfully integrated into society. He is a resultof circumstance, his nature determined byelements not inherent but imposed.

On one side, law reects justicein an unqualied and universalsense: namely, justice as setdown by natural law. On the

other, law reects justiceonly in a qualied sense:justice as it is determinedby the society to which it isapplied. Man has the power

to create his own law. Byextension, modern liberals seehistory not as an act of providence,but as a providential force unto itself. Manis his own god, the maker of both his historyand his future.

Sexuality, morality, and justice accordingto modern liberalism are all subject to changeaccording to the needs of the individual.They would have conventional law as theonly law: what is just is what society says

is so. Conservatives form principles basedon observation of what human nature is.Liberals have formed principles based onwhat they wish human nature could be.

Liberalism is, put simply, the perfunctoryrejection of all that conservatism holdsdear. It is not the abstract nature of theirbeliefs that is fundamentally irreconcilablewith conservatism, but the fact that their

beliefs are utterly unaccountableto the world as it is. The tenetsof liberalism are unmitigated byreality, untempered by practicality,unfettered by the need to reconcilewhat is with what they think shouldbe. It has stripped men of all thatmakes them most enduringlyhuman, replacing what is lost witha series of egalitarian platitudesand meaningless gestures toward

utopian worlds to come.Though we maybe unable to

thwart liberald e g en e r a t i o nby means ofprecedent, wemay yet returnto our principles.

This nation was

founded upona few self-evident

truths and may perhapsbe saved by them. In one famous

line, the Founders set forth therst of a series of principles bywhich all Americans may guidetheir argument: We hold thesetruths to be self evident, that allmen are created equal, that theyare endowed by their Creator with

certain unalienable Rights, thatamong these are Life, Liberty andthe pursuit of Happiness. It is tothese fundamental beliefs that wemust turn in order to confrontthe ravaging inuence of modernliberalism.

Russell Kirk is consideredby many to be the father of

[Kirk]was utterly

unafraid to chalkup the events ofhistory to Godswork and let

them be.

The Insufficiency f CnventinBY SARAH ALBERS

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modern conservative thought. When Kirk wrote TheConservative Mind in 1953, it was for a very specicpurpose: to give strength and coherence to the post-

World War II conservativeargument, which had longbeen in a state of populardecline and was nallybrought to its knees with thebroad public acceptance ofliberal internationalism afterthe war. He strove to validateconservative philosophyby producing a catalogof conservative thinkersthrough history, giving hiscontemporaries precedents

from which to draw. FromThe American Cause,published in 1957: We[Americans] have maintaineda degree of order and justiceand freedom very rare inhistory. And behind theseoutward marks of success liecertain enduring principlesof thought and action which,in very considerable part,

have created and protectedour national life. Certainconcepts in Americansminds are responsible forour private rights, oursound government, and ourworldly prosperity (TAC5-6).

Kirk went straight tothe roots of American

tradition for his argument.He approached historyas a narrative, pluckingseemingly incoherentrepresentatives from itsdepths and using his ownperspective to weave themtogether. His imagination

was heavily inuenced by asense of providential order.

Condent that history, like the men acting within itwas ordered by Providence, Kirk appears to feel noscruples grounding abstract theory rmly withinconventional law. He was utterly unafraid to chalkup the events of history to Gods work and let thembe. Morgan Knull of The Imaginative Conservativwrites, At the heart of Kirkian piety is a historicaconsciousness, rooted in a sense of place and chastenedby labor and suffering, that locates our own strugglewithin a larger tradition of human pilgrimage.

Kirk could afford to draw upon mutually acceptedvalues and argue from a highly contextualizedperspective when defending conservatism becausthe majority of both conservative and liberal thinkerof post-World War II America accepted the tenets otraditional morality. American values were still seen

as things to be armed, accepted, and passed downto future generations. Kirks conclusions were inquestion, but the moral and traditional premises werestill widely accepted.

Todays liberal thought has rejected not only Kirkconclusions, but his premises as well. Kirk waaddressing an America that had yet retained its sensof self. His America had not yet rejected reality. Kirkargument that natural law is manifest in conventionalaw is no longer adequate. Tradition is no longersucient. We must reach past history and nd absolut

means by which to combat radically dehumanizedarguments.

Kirk, a man of immense genius, a man whosavored the beauty of subtle differentiation, can nolonger stand against the aggressive liberal ideologywith which we are confronted today. Liberalismreduces all men to absolute, inhuman equality. Idenies completely the grounds upon which Kirk restedhis arguments. It defaces history, relentlessly droninthe anthem of progress, mindlessly urging men pas

its complexities and vibrant nuances. There is noroom for individuality within the collective. There ino allowance for differentiation where all mankindis subsumed under the overwhelming tide of sociaevolution.

Liberalism wishes to reduce America to abstractnoncommittal notions of liberty, equality, and justiceIt is the duty of modern conservatism to hold themabsolutely accountable to reality, to remind them othe laws of nature and of natures God. F


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This article is adapted from a lecture given by Mr.

Meadowcroft to the Faireld Society.

You all have a vocation. Not just a futurecalling for future fulllment. You havea vocation now. And while you each

possess a unique vocation, one that youwill fail or succeed in fullling someday, now, in thistime and place, you share the call to be a student.Whatever your plans, hopes, and dreams, by becominga Hillsdale student you have committed yourself, for atime, to the intellectual life. Whatever Gods calling foryour future, his providence has placed you hear, now.Embrace that vocation and work it out with fear andtrembling before God.

A French Dominican and Thomistic scholar, A. GSertillanges wrote the 1946 book The Intellectual LifeIts Spirit, Conditions, Methods. A practical treatisfor those wishing to dedicate their lives to scholarlypursuits, those with a vocation to study beyond schoolThe Intellectual Life nonetheless contains in its texmuch applicable to the life of the student and invaluablfor their edication and encouragement. Read it. It ihard and convicting and will do you good. That book

pages contain too much meat to digest all of it here; iwould be a meal too rich and long for a single sittingLet us look at a single line of ten words and see whain them we may learn.

To have a vocation is to be obliged to perfection. The vocation to be a student may be a vocationof the moment, but it is as real in this moment aany career or call to follow. In setting out on the pathof collegiate study, whether called to it or arrivin

The Obligatin f PerfectinBY MICAH MEADOWCROFT

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by default, you have declared a goal. Avocation can be dened as, Ones ordinaryoccupation, business, or profession, and soclearly a student has made study his vocation.Yet, even disregarding this denition andconsidering the more providential, the fact

of being so called or directed towards aspecial work in life; natural tendency to, ortness for, such work, one may considerthat one is most t for the work that he ndsbefore himself. Rest content in your presentstate. As you are called student, so you arecalled to study. The vocation comes with an obligation. Youhave set before yourself a work to completeand an end to fulll. Proverbs 18:9 says,Whoever is slack in his work is a brother

to him who destroys. Here Solomon drawsthe connection between good work andcompletion. To work poorly to an end is tonever fulll it, for the end of a thing is inits perfecting. When one sets out to study,to be a student, he rests under an obligationto do his work well, for to not do so wouldnot bring his work to completion. The life ofa student bears responsibilities. Only in thestriving for perfection and mastery does a

student fulll her vocation.Yet that does not mean that students whofall short of what their professors have classied as theculmination and perfection of their scholastic worksfail to fulll the obligation of their vocation. The endof the student is study, that is, learning and mastery.Grades fulll an ordering role in that process,measuring the performance of the individual againstan ideal aggregate, but they are not themselves the telosof study. The perfection of study is found in the fullapplication of each students talents and abilities. The

measure of completed study is to each one accordingto his gifts. To have the vocation of student is to beobliged to the perfection of study with a whole heart tothe best of ones ability. You may readily assent to this. The ideal of onesbest may be one you hold, like me, unrealized inmuch of life, but one that you nevertheless cherish. The

vocation of the studentis under constantattack by the manyd i s t r a c t i o n sof life. Manyare such as

are commonto all. Someare particularto individuals andinstitutions. Hillsdalestudents love of country, agood thing of no negative effect upon the capacity forperfected study, gives rise too often to an unhealthypreoccupation with politics, whether national or state.

Notice I say preoccupation with politics. This isnot a critique of an educated awareness of the political

landscape. College students can vote. I hope they knowwho for, what for, and why. The preoccupation withpolitics is found wherever the intellectual eye is turnedoutward to the cold mechanics of policy and campaign,of ideology and partisanship, rather than inward to itsown growth. A mind called to the nurturing of itself,called to study, fails when it occupies itself with theworld beyond its present state, beyond its vocation.A focus on politics at Hillsdale, which may very wellbe a persons vocation in the longer sense, is, in the

circumstance of the student called to study while atschool, both irresponsible and indicative of discontent.The studious vocation requires contentment.

Only in contentment with present circumstances canstudies be brought to a full completion. A student whonds herself at Hillsdale should rest content in thecalling to be a Hillsdale student. The responsibility ofthat student is her obligation to work wholeheartedlyand labor diligently in her studies, perfecting andcompleting her work in the full application of thosegifts and abilities she has been given. To become

preoccupied with politics is to become unsatisedwith the present life of study before bringing thisvocation of the moment to its completion. It is todisregard the responsibility to fully commit the self tothe obligations of study and to become slack in oneswork to become brother to one who destroys. It isto not fulll ones vocation to be a Hillsdale student.F

In settingout on the path of

collegiate study, whethecalled to it or arriving

by default, you havedeclared a goal.


10/24

Planyi and Spntaneus OderBY DEVIN CREED

F.A. Hayek typicallyreceives credit for theterm spontaneous

order, but the termactually originated fromnone other than MichaelPolanyi, the greatHungarian polymath.Although referenced byboth men in the 1940s, the

term spontaneous orderdid not receive explicit useuntil Polanyis 1951 book TheLogic of Liberty. Hayek, on theother hand, did not pen the termuntil his 1960 book The Constitutionof Liberty. Drawing from Polanyis works, Ihope to show how Polanyis conceptionof spontaneous order reaches furtherthan Hayeks idea of the term.

Michael Polanyi (1891-1976)was a physical chemist who wason a track to win the Nobel Prizein chemistry. When the Naziscame to power in Germany,he accepted a professorial chairin England and soon becameincreasingly interested in socialsciences and philosophy. His new-found interests eventually led him toabandon publishing scientic articles in

lieu of writing books on economics, politics,and philosophy. He often drew on his experiencein the scientic community to explain concepts inthese disciplines. His most famous work, PersonalKnowledge, provides a ground-breaking view ofepistemology that inuenced the rest of his writings.Although relatively unknown, Polanyis conceptionof spontaneous order is more comprehensive and

inspiring than Hayeks.Polanyi has a similar understanding of

spontaneous order ineconomics to Hayek. Hearms the working of theprice system by saying thaeach consumer adjusts hipurchases to the rulingprice, which he affects inhis turn by his purchases(The Logic of Liberty145). This system leads to

a series of continuouslyrepeated mutual interactions

that tend to produce adistribution of resources in which

each element of resource is used byproducers to the greatest satisfaction o

the consumers (Growth of Thought in Society436). In a nutshell, the collective action

of individuals work to distributeresources across the economy in an

ecient manner.Yet Polanyi does not stop a

applying his idea of spontaneouorder to economics. He thinkthe concept has merit in law a

well. He argues, [The] operationof Common Law thus constitutea sequence of adjustment

between succeeding judges, guidedby a parallel interaction between

the judges and the general public. The

result is the ordered growth of the CommonLaw, steadily re-applying and re-interpreting thsame fundamental rules and expanding them thus toa system of increasing scope and consistency (ThLogic of Liberty 199). In making their judgmentsjudges refer to laws from previous cases, whichin turn modies all previous rulings in a mannersimilar to the way every purchase modies the pricein a market.

Polanyi experienced rsthand the workings o10


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spontaneous order in the scientic community.Scientists select their eld of concentration based ontheir intellectual passions. They study their chosensubject within the framework of the scientic methodsand procedures accepted by the eld. If they make adiscovery, it is based on the history of discoveries in theeld. Once a scientist makes progress in a discovery,

he immediately places his ndings in front of hiscolleagues for their evaluation. In this way, a scientists

discoveries are constantly honed and improved by hiscontemporaries. Polanyi concludes that science isthus seen to be growing by the characteristic processproducing dynamic order. New scientic claims aremade in due consideration of all previously establishedones, and the results thus obtained continuouslymodify the previously achieved positions of science(The Growth of Thought in Society 437). Polanyibelieves scientic knowledge is dispersed in a waysimilar to Hayeks argument that economic knowledgeis scattered throughout society:

[S]cientic opinion is an opinion not heldby any single human mind, but one which,split into thousands of fragments, is held bya multitude of individuals, each of whomendorses the others opinions at secondhand, by relying on the consensual chainswhich link him to all the others througha sequence of overlapping neighborhoods.(The Republic of Science 4)

Hayek and Polanyi think alike on the subject ofdispersed knowledge, each emphasizing their favoreddiscipline.

Where Hayek stops at economics, Polanyirecognizes that spontaneous order applies throughouthuman society. He claims, The coordinating functionsof the market are but a special case of coordination bymutual adjustment (The Republic of Science 2). Thespontaneous ordering of the economy is a simplicationof a larger principle that orders everything in society.

This principle works in this way: self coordination oindependent initiatives leads to a joint result which iunpremeditated by any of those who bring it aboutTheir coordination is guided as by an invisible handtowards the joint discovery of a hidden system othings (The Republic of Science 1). Polanyi believeeconomists restrain this greater principle by limiting

its application to the market: the self-coordination oindependent scientists embodies a higher principle,

principle which is reduced to the mechanism of thmarket when applied to the production and distributionof material goods (The Republic of Science 10)The reduction of the principle of spontaneous orderprevented economists reaching the additional logicaconclusions of own arguments.

Polanyi claims that spontaneous ordering canexplain the ultimate striving of a free society towardtruth. Society reaches truth through constant mutuaadjustments and improvements. He writes, In thiview of a free society, both its liberties and its servitudeare determined by its striving for self-improvementwhich in its turn is determined by the intimations otruths yet to be revealed, calling on men to reveathem (The Republic of Science 10). The free societyconstantly searches for self-improvement in all itfacets. Spontaneous order is the principle that explainthis outcome occurs in society without the centraplanning of any individual or set of individuals. Hayekand other economists did not realize the breadth othe principle they used to explain markets. But Polany

did.F

Polanyi believes scientific knowledge is dispersedin a way similar to Hayeks argument that economic

knowledge is scattered throughout society.


12/24

A Discurse n DiscurseBY JAMES INWOOD

T.odays America is a bitterly polarized society.When people argue politics, they do sopresuming that to disagree the other person

must either be stupid or malevolent. If someone isprominent in an opposing party, their motivationsimmediately become suspect; anything they proposeto do is considered a conspiracy to destroy goodnessand trash America. Whenever something bad happens,it becomes either part of their plan or evidence thatthey are just too stupid to hold power or inuence. The political forum is disgraceful on todays greatbattleeld of ideas, the internet. Coherent thoughtor actual evidence is a rarity. Name-calling andprofanity grace the screen. Most seem unable to usethe language correctly, and many compensate bycapitalizing everything, since victory clearly goes tohe who yells loudest. If the reader gets lucky, the oddpost in the Queens English might be something otherthan a proof that statesman X is the Anti-Christ.

Electoral victory goes to whichever candidatemanages to say nothing with the biggest smile.

Speeches rarely have any substance, instead relyingon marginally relevant anecdotes and sometimes-clever slogans. In debates, candidates never fail todivert any question to a prepared speech, focus-grouptested and approved. The objective of everythingthey say is to prove that they care about you andprogress and America, unlike that inept fool across thestage. The ambitious might eventhink of a clever gotchaline and thereby securevictory from theentertainment-driven

electorate. Anyone with concrete proposals, howevershould give up before they embarrass themselves byusing too many dweeby graphs or basic economicprinciples. But before contemporary America drowns inself-pity, she should remember this is the result ohuman nature. Consequently, humanity has beenhere before. Even from the earliest days of ourrepublic, polarization and partisanship ruled the dayRemember the Revolution and those Tories who sohated liberty and justice? The historically literate knowbetter: typical loyalists feared revolutionary excess orheld traditional beliefs about authority and rebellionBut many patriots, hearing mostly Adams and Paineconcluded that a loyalist was by denition a traitor andfrequently tarred and feathered such men for theirpolitics. One might look to the post-war founding era athe golden age of republican politics. Fine works likethe Federalist Papers and their equally well-craftedopposition response might seem to justify such

stance if one ignores the occasional popular uprisingagainst government schemes to enslave the commonman with debt and whiskey taxes. But by the electionof 1800, the argument was that though His RotundityJohn Adams was a closet monarchist, the atheisThomas Jefferson had a taste for slave girls.America overcame such rhetoric for a few years afterthe War of 1812, but only because the Democratic-

Republicans were the onlynational party

a r o u n d .Even that

icon of Americanrhetoric, the

Gettysburg Address,was a pretty

speech with littlesubstance.


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Regardless, factions sprang up soon enough, andthe rhetoric got so bad that accusations of bigamyand living in sin stressed Rachael Jackson into aheart attack. At the same time, her husbands menavoided engaging President Adams by lampooning hisproposed national observatories as lighthouses of thesky. The same thing happened when Jackson tookon the Bank of the United States: his opponents werecalled pawns of the Bank while he was named apawn of New Yorks envy-and-greed driven bankers. The examples continue throughout our history,especially during the long era of party newspapers.In Hillsdale, one might go years reading the politicalinsights of the Whig-Standard and belief that allDemocrats were belligerent simpletons, or faithfullyfollow the Herald-Democrat and never doubt thatAbraham Lincoln was a negro-lover trying to tearapart the Constitution. The whole sectional perioditself is an exemplar of political discourse gone wrong:each side was so sure of the others malice that theysplit and killed a half-million men in the process.

Even that icon of American rhetoric, the GettysburgAddress, was a pretty speech with little substance.Lincoln claimed that the Confederacy was trying todestroy America, an absolute absurdity, and that he

was ghting a war for democracydemocracy being39 of the electorate empowering someone to violentlyoverride the democratic decisions of state legislatures.Though a beautiful piece, it is the distant ancestor of

our modern uff speeches. The subsequent era of machine politics differsfrom today only in degree. While todays parties loveto slander opposition candidates, every candidate usedto accuse every other candidate of being machinepawns and having multiple mistresses. Just as todaysdebaters might just shout Reagan! and Roosevelt! ateach other, the Republican Party campaigned almostentirely on Lincolns mantle, just as the Democratspointed towards Jefferson and Jackson as sucient

justication for election. Like today, people discussed meaningful issues and

principles only when radicals hijacked the party. Buttodays Tea Party is nothing next to the Prohibitionistswho preferred to argue not with empty talk, butby raiding saloons and trashing liquor stocks. TheRepublicans were fortunate in that their radicaloffshoots never got far politically; the DemocraticParty, however, frequently fell under the sway ofGreenbackers, Populists, and others whose argumentconsisted largely of utopian promises and accusationsthat everyone else was a pawn of Wall Street. The following generations were no exception to therule. In the 1920s, many folks got their politics fromthe Ku Klux Klan and would vote based on a candidatespersonal views. Even in the midst of the supposedNew Deal consensus, some children from Republicanfamilies stood up and clapped in school when theyannounced Franklin Roosevelts death. Every electionafter that war was life-or-death: Democratic victorymeant communism and Republican victory meantWorld War III. The re-election campaigns of LyndonJohnson and Richard Nixon are especially good

examples of this tactic. The fact of the matter is that there never was agolden age of civil discourse; what we have today ismore or less what weve always had. The times change,but humanity doesnt. Because man is a fallen creaturehis life as a political animal has always been the taleof the partisan animal, and no doubt always will beWhile pursuing intelligent dialogue in our own lives isa virtue, a world of intelligent debate among informedcitizens is a utopia in the truest sense of the word. F

1


14/24

Cffee

SMAC

Th

e

Hlls

daleForum

CAMPUS

A

rtby

Meg

Po

Maddie Overhltzer

WHY DRINK

COFFEE?Coffee is preferable to tea because itcarries with it a tradition of culture,history, and general pretension. It hasbeen an icon of hipsters, college stu-dents, academics, and bitter pts forhundreds of years. It has a rich, darkflavor that warms one up from the insideand it has more caffeine. The aroma is

unbeatable. Coffee is good for you too,with all sorts of great antioxidantsthat can stab cancer in the face. Cof-fee is also a great metaphor for some-ones preference in men, i.e.: I like mymen strong, dark, and bitter. In short,

why wouldnt one want to measure oneslife in coffee spoons?

WHY SHOULDNT YOU DRINK

TEA?Tea shouldnt be the drink of choice fora number of reasons. Besides the factthat it is tasteless and for this reasonis often drowned in cream and sugar, itjust dsnt have the kick of coffee. Ithas only half of the caffeine contentand none of the flavor. It is wateryand bland. Coffee is a drink enjoyed

by the more hip masses, whereas tea isjust plain and boring, enjoyed by young

women who actually like sitting aroundand thinking about the numbers of catsthey want when theyre fifty. Coffeedrinkers are actual cats; cool cats wholisten to strange music and wear tightpants and moldy sweaters.

14


15/24

Tea

DOWN

nov. 2013

C

opiled

byLorrynCruz

Gwendlyn St

vs.

WHY DRINK TEA?

Tea is basically the elixir of life, thats

why! Several types of tea exist for ev-ery mood, whether youre looking forthe super caffeinated Yorkshire Goldto get you through an 8 a.m. class or afun fruit flavored herbal or spearmintto drink when it rains outside. Like theBritish suggest, tea solves pretty much

every problem. It is a comfort to have acuppa when I get stressed, but drinkingtea means more than that.Drinking tea creates the lovely tra-dition of gathering together and cele-brating with othersthey call them teaparties for a reason! Drinking tea is acultured choice.

WHY SHOULDNT YOU DRINK

COFFEE?

I dont understand how people couldwillingly drink cups of stuff that lookand smell like tar. And dont give me allthat nonsense about adding milk, sugarand caramel sauce. Ive heard of sever-al people telling me they have switchedto tea because they think it is better

for themI cant think of anyone whohas switched to coffee to improve theirhealth.

When you drink coffee, just look at whoyour company is: hipsters and studentspulling all-nighters and those trying tosober up. Basically, coffee drinkers arestrugglingdont be one of them, drinktea!

1


16/24

Lambasting StraussiansBY BRETT WIERENGA

Paul Gottfried is not impressed by the Straussianproject. His latest book, Leo Strauss and theConservative Movement in America, is part

history, part polemic, and part intellectual version ofMythbusters. For anyone confused by the Straussiandebate that occasionally rears its head on our campus,this book is a great place to start, but a terrible placeto end. Gottfried presents an adequate overview ofthe intellectual debate, and thedramatic one-sidedness of hiscritique reects well the divide

between Straussians and theirconservative critics. That said,Gottfrieds overgeneralizationsand accusations are tinged witha bitterness that underminesany easy condence in hisjudgments.

Gottfrieds polemic is lessa well-honed blade than apack of grenades. A book thisshort might have been betterserved by a central thesisrather than a general topic.Gottfried spends one chapteron Strauss himself, two on hismethod and its critique, oneon the Straussians politics,and the last on the overarchingStraussian project.

For the uninitiated, thechapters on the Straussian

method will prove the most helpful. For veterans,Gottfrieds argument is a familiar one. Planting his agrmly on the side of the historically-minded right,Gottfried criticizes Leo Strauss interpretive method,or hermeneutic, which Strauss and his intellectualdescendants have applied to a plethora of great thinkersfrom Plato onward. In caricature, this esoteric methodis based on the idea that great thinkers of the past were

often unable to fully express their ideas because ofthe intellectual oppression of the prevailing tradition

or religion. So they hid their true beliefs within morconformist writing, only to be discovered by thoswho were privy to the secret conversation. Strausown reading of Spinoza, Maimonides, and Platencouraged his followers to apply this method to manothers, with sometimes absurd results.

Claiming to speak for critics on the far-righGottfried claims that the massive failure of the Straussian

and their methodology their disregard for historicacontext. Every author write

in a certain time and civenvironment for a certaiaudience, and any assessmenof the authors intention incomplete without adequathistorical knowledge of contexor purpose. Straussianconservative critics prefeparticular, historic knowledgto abstract universaideals, such as prescribedhistorically-based libertieto abstract natural rightIn terms of the AmericaFounding, Straussians arprone to downplaying thhistorical inuences oProtestantism, for exampleand emphasizing the abstracconcepts of the Declaration oIndependence.

Gottfrieds criticism of Straussians themselvehowever, is perniciously less precise. At least he willing to distinguish between Strauss and his studentLeo Strauss, to whose intellectual biography Gottfriedevotes an entire chapter, had greater erudition thahis students and came out of a richer cultural worldIn many cases, Strauss simply celebrated philosopherwithout using them for his own political purposes, anhis use of his esoteric method was more careful thahis students use.

review

16


17/24

On the other hand, in Gottfrieds mind Straussiansare all agnostic, liberal internationalist, neocon, pro-Israel Democrats who only switched to the RepublicanParty when the Left got soft on foreign policy. Theirheroes include, not only Lincoln and Churchill, butalso FDR and Woodrow Wilson, and they want tospread democracy to the four corners of the earth.

They tend to dominate certain political sciencedepartments and publishing vehicles and thuggishlyignore the historical rights critique. Gottfriedsproblems go beyond the intellectual to the personal;such an overgeneralization breaks down in underalmost any pressure.

Because of these gross generalizations, it is toughto separate Gottfrieds criticism from his cynicism ashe summarizes the Straussian project. According toGottfried, the dening characteristic of the Straussianproject is not a conservative march into the past

towards the ancients they so often reference, it isa celebration of the American present. Althoughmodernity is full of scary nihilist and historicistphilosophy, it has also produced Anglo-Americandemocracyits felix culpa or happy mistake. Thisform of government, which emphasizes equality and

natural rights, is a bulwark against destructive formof modernity, and we must protect it with civics anhistory lessons on men like Lincoln and Churchill.

Consequently, Strauss attacked the new politicascience for its value-free approach, since it undermineits own regime with its own relativism. We musreturn to the old political science, which recognize

a common good and teaches that some things arintrinsically high and others are intrinsically low.Accusing the American Political Science Association oshirking its responsibility to protect American liberademocracy against the USSR, Strauss famously saidof the new political science that it does not know thait ddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.That accusation points to an important question in thstudy of history: can we learn great moral truths fromhistory, or is it just one damned thing after another?

A nal, unfortunate note: in his book Gottfrie

accuses the Claremont Institute of being progressivon issues of race. It is not clear what Gottfried meansbut given his history of association with people whobelieve in real intelligence differences between racesI have a sneaking suspicion that I too have progressivviews on race. F


18/24

Comp

ile

d

by

Andy

Reu

ss

unk & ttiehillsdales

of the month

SalemBaer

DannyDummnd

HOW DID YOU GET TO BE SO HOT?

Id have to credit most of it to my homeschooleducation.

IF YOU COULD BE ANYONE ELSE ON THISCAMPUS FOR A DAY, WHO WOULD YOU BE& WHY?

Probably Danny Drummond, hes so hot rightnow.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TOOTHER FRESHMEN TO BE AS HOT AS YOU?

Dont do drugs, stay in school!

IS IT DIFFICULT TO BE BOTH A FRESHMANAND A GINGER?

Some days I feel like Im ghting a downhillbattle, but hey, this is my life. Gingers such asElizabeth Green and Garrett Holt have really

inspired me though,

I hear they were oncefreshman as well and theyseem to be doing great in lifenow!

ITS THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.IN TEN WORDS, WHAT IS THEFIRST THING YOU DO?

Throw a chair through the shbowl.

CAKE OR PIE, AND WHY?

Pie, hands down. Ive never eaten a pieceof cake that had the proper frosting-cakeratio. You dont run into that problem withpie though.

HOW DID YOU GET TO BE SO HOT?

Well, I decided one day to be an offensivelineman, and, with offensive linemen,hotness pretty much comes with theterritory.

IF YOU COULD BE ANYONE ELSE ONTHIS CAMPUS FOR A DAY, WHOWOULD YOU BE & WHY?

I would be either Alex Buchmannor Jake Bull. I would want to

experience how it feels to be the twobest Improv guys on campus!

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVETO OTHER FRESHMEN TO BE

AS HOT AS YOU?

Tris for the guys, and curls forthe girls!

IS IT DIFFICULT TO BE BOTH A

FRESHMAN AND A GINGER?

In a way it is dicult. When people rstsee us gingers, a misinformed culturebegs them to assume that we have no souls(which is, of course, FALSE!!), and so ittakes much perseverance on our part toconvince them otherwise.

ITS THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. INTEN WORDS, WHAT IS THE FIRSTTHING YOU DO?

18-holes, no cart, Augusta National,its on!

CAKE OR PIE, AND WHY?

Cake is usually my go-to. I have alwaysbeen a frosting guy (cream cheesefrosting is my favorite), and those cornerpieces are just tough to beat!

freshman from ny

freshman frochicago,


19/24

Tagically HpBY SARAH ALBERS

PHOTOBYLAURENW

IEREN

GA

If yourereadingthis col-

umn, I am going toassume that you are,

on some level, desper-ate. Fear not, would-be hip-

sters! This is a good thing. All true hipsters are clos-eted gluttons for peer validation. Just try defending a

mainstream artist while your indie kid test subject ofchoice is surrounded by sneering, denim-clad hench-men and youll see what I mean.

The rst rule: avoid enthusiasm at all costs. Its likefear or weakness. They can smell it on you, despite thefact that none of you have bathed since last Tuesday. Ifpressed to render praise, be sure to temper it with apejorative comparison to some more obscure object ofequal or lesser value.

The second rule: begin a strict diet of Pabst Blue

Ribbon and cheap cigarette smoke. Youve got to into those skinny jeans somehow, bucko.

The third rule: acquire a working knowledge of thblogosphere and associated internet arts culture. Obtuse conversational references to said body of knowledge often prove to be a bonus.

The fourth rule: take up a quasi-artistic activity oyour choice. (Instagrams lters make photography popular option). If utterly devoid of creativity, hipste

proteges may also resort to simply combining organicfruits and/or vegetables with quinoa and posting aboutheir culinary exploits.

The fth rule: listen to the following songs. Convince your new friends that you actually discoveredthem through some music blog in Seattle. When theyask what the name of the site was, consummate yourindie kid metamorphosis with a dismissive a ip oyour fringed bangs.

Oh, youve probably never heard of it. F

Haims Days Are GoneFirst let me say that HAIM is one of the most insanely over-buzzedbands in recent memory. Let me say also that HAIM is one of the

best pop groups in recent memory. Their debut full-length, Days AreGone, is guitar pop as it should be. These girls love what theyre doing,

and theyve been doing it for a long time. Their hooks are tight, theharmonies effortless, and their energy absolutely irrepressible.

DaughtersIf You LeaveDaughter recently released the rst advance of their upcoming full-

length, and boy is it good. Their tracks are delicate, dark, and breath-takingly gorgeous. Earlier work, like that on The Wild Youth EP, is

heartbreaking. The vocals, honest and raw, hover at times barely abovea whisper. On If You Leave, Elena Tonra has honed her craft. Feeling

depressed never felt so good.

Five Simple Rules for Gaining Indie Cred

music


20/24

SHORTST

ORY

CONT

EST

WINNER!

Lemns

Lemons.

There are, on occasion, in a small glassbowl to the left side of the iced tea, lemons inour college cafeteria. That. That, my friend,is how you can tell that there are donors, orparents, or prospective students in town.

The details, the small thingsthey really docount. Who knows, lemons really could bewhat convinces an all-state athlete, with a 4.0GPA, to come to Hillsdale College. Of course,he wont know that it was the lemons, or themoulding along the edge of the wall and theceiling in the Student Union, or the slightlymore purple petunias off to the side of the eaglestatue. But theythe petunias, or the moulding,or the lemons (probably the lemons)may bethe nal push, the sweet and tangy nal pushthat convince Dash Johnson, the captain of his

football team since sophomore year and theheartthrob of McKinney High in Pensacola,Washington, to sign his blue and white letterof intent.

The only problem with lemons, though, is

that you only notice them after theyre gone.Maybe Dash wont pay the lemons more than apassing glance when he takes one at DistinguishedScholars Weekend, or even when theyre nothere for his rst few weeks of freshman year.

But hes sure to be pleasantly surprised whenthe lemons come backwhen the new DashJohnsonthe Dash Johnson of the class of 2017,or 2018, or whatever other year, has come totown. Yes, our Dash will certainly be pleasantlysurprised, and hell wonder why there arelemons again. Hell wonder more about thelemons when theyre gone the next day, and,for a while, he wont really understand those

lemons, mostly because he doesnt play baseball(the new Dash does), and he doesnt know thatthe newest class of soon-to-graduate heartthrobgeniuses is eating nearby in the private diningroom. But then, he will wake up one Saturdayon parents weekend, and the lemons will beback. Only this time, Dashs mother will be intown, and she will comment on how nice it isthat the college gives its students lemons withtheir iced tea. And Dash will also notice that thefood is a little nicer, and that the dish carouselisnt quite as messy, and that the bananas are alittle riper. But mostly he will notice the lemons.And as he stares at the thin yellow citrus wedgeoating in his drink, he will nally understandwhat the lemons mean. They are the lemonsof oppression, and of beguilement, and ofliesthey are shined with the waxy polish ofOrwellian academia, nourished on the forgetfulliquors of the Lethe River and delivered in a

crystal bowl by Salome herself.

But Dash will keep sipping his iced tea, andtake the lemons when he can get them, becauselemons are tangy, and make the iced tea godown a little more sweetly.

by Ian Atherton

20


21/24

Interview with the Authr

WHATS YOUR NORMAL WRITING PROCESS? DO

YOU HAVE ONE?

Lemons was a funny oneI needed to submit a writingsample for the work Im doing with the schools social

media program, so I sat down to write something.A lot of times when I write a paper, Ill let my mindwander for a while and Ill end up with an academicpaper that turns academic about halfway through, therst half is just stupid poetic musing. So Lemons wasthe rst half of that writing process. A little while laterI was reading through and thought, I actually havesomething here! and I edited it again and, almost ona whim, submitted it.

FOR THIS SPECIFIC STORY, WHAT WAS YOUR

INSPIRATION?Really, it was just the lemons. Freshman year Iremember walking into Saga on a Sunday morningand I got some iced tea and there was a bowl of lemonsthere. I grabbed one, I knocked that drink down, andas I sat there I thought, This is great, iced tea andlemons. When I came back on Monday, really pumpedfor the lemons, they werent there. As it happened,that weekend the college had hosted something likeDistinguished Scholars Weekend or a CCA.

WHAT DO YOU USE FOR WRITING? PEN AND

PAPER,

DO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?

I would love nothing more than to be a writer. I think,knowing the path that lies ahead for that, it is a verylong one, but to be a great writer has always been adream of mine.

DO YOU THINK YOUR WORK IN SOCIAL MEDIAFOR THE COLLEGE HELPS YOU WITH YOURMORE CREATIVE WRITING?

I think so. Last semester I went a long time withouhaving to write a paper. I nally sat down to write oneactually for Dr. Somervilles class, and I realized thaI had all the ideasthe trouble was getting them intowords. Ive heard the quote from Oscar Wilde, All badpoetry comes from genuine feeling. The ideasthfeelings, were all there, but the expression wasnt whait needed to be. I started to realize that not being inpractice means that the vocabulary and the sentencestructure and the general organization just arenthere, you have to access a certain schema of thoughtTo speak psychologically, those neural connection

just werent ring. But working with the social mediteam, and writing for them, keeps me in practice.

DO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?

I would love nothing more than to be a writer. I thinkknowing the path that lies ahead for that, it is a verylong one, but to be a great writer has always been dream of mine.

WHO DO YOU LOOK TO FOR INSPIRATION?

My favorite poet is John Keats, Ive had a great love

for the British romantics for a long timethey werereally the rst time to get me interested in the literaryworld. More recently Ive really come to appreciatthe warmth of southern storytelling. Somervilleclass helped me along thereTwain is just excellentThis semester Ive also spent a lot of time readingEmerson, and hes really the rst philosopher to catchmy interest.

2

Junior Ian Atherton is an English major and VicePresident of Alpha Tau Omege Fraternity, where heoversees the houses internal affairs. He took a break

from schoolwork and intramural sports to sit dowwith The Forum to discuss his winning short storyLemons. F


22/24

Sptlight n ShtingBY LORRYN CRUZ

SHAUN LICHTI

MCLAIN MAC DRIVER

BEN ALBERS

IS THERE A SIMILARITY BETWEEN

SHOOTING GUNS AND PICTURES?

Tere definitely are similarities between shootingguns and cameras. From a technical standpoint,many o the strategies to eliminate superfluousmotion rom your grip are the same. I requentlyfind mysel hearing my athers voice in my headas I shoot with my camera: Brace it careullygood, now gently begin pulling back on thetrigger. Slowly add more pressure continuously,

wait or the clickmake sure you dont mashthe trigger. Te same processes that help you

achieve a accurate shot with a weapon alseliminate blur and other unwanted issuesphotography.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY ABOUT SHOO

Photography is extremely important to monly is it a beautiul way to capture the naworld around me, but it is also a way to exmysel. Te images that I create have signto me, and going out to shoot photos is of

therapeutic and relaxing. Even i its a streshoot, it is ultimately rewarding.

WHAT IS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT

REALIZATION YOUVE HAD WHILESHOOTING?

Shooting my first gun as a young boy, whohad heard a lot about bad guys with guns, Iunderstood what guns meant to those who would

use them or evil compared those who would usethem or just causes. Guns are an equalizer. I keptasking mysel, Why did no one at the Columbinehave a gun to shoot back at the attackers? Icouldnt ully understand it at the time o course.But it made sense to me that guns could even

the playing field in any sort o lie-threatesituation. O course I also learned that it wplain un to shoot stuff.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE T

PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO GET

INVOLVED IN SHOOTING?My advice to anyone getting involved in sis be sae, stable, and responsible. Shootinnot or the aint o heart nor the irresponsShooting is un, but it comes with extraorresponsibility.

HOW AND WHEN DID YOU LEARN TOSHOOT?

My first experience with competitive shootingbegan at the age o 12, shooting smallbore riflecompetitions through 4-H. I transitioned to pistolat 15, and have stayed there ever since. I have beencompeting in several different Olympic Pistoldisciplines or two and a hal years now, and hadthe honor o earning a spot on the National Junioream while competing in the 2012 USA ShootingNational Championships at Fort Benning, GA.I have since aged out o the Junior category, and

my present goal is to qualiy or the OlymDevelopment eam.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABO

SHOOTING?Te concentration and discipline requiredexecute each and every shot with accuracyprecision, even while stressed or in ront ocrowd. Perhaps the greatest joy o shootinthe competition, but simply being in the co competitors.

spotlight


23/24

satirAdmissins Office RecrdsBY ANDY REUSS

The following story was found among the many records

of the Hillsdale Admissions Oce. Dated Wednesday,17 October 2012, it is an account of an exchangebetween a soon-after red student ambassador and aprospective student and his parents. Reader discretionadvised.

Iknew to pay attention the moment I heard his voiceecho through the 2nd oor hallway of Strosacker.One part soothing or irritating, three parts obnoxious

or sensuous, the rst thing it announced to my ears

was the proclamation Hey! You look like you couldcook some meth!

The uncomfortable chuckle that followed gave methe conrmation I needed: he was giving a tour.

Two ruddy-faced adults and one wide-eyed youngman rounded the corner, appearing next to thestraight-laced and well-intentioned tour guide.

So you mean to say that these classes are onlytaught in order to train classical and charter schoolscience teachers? asked the woman, as she happilynudged her son and nodded his way.

Oh yes! Hillsdales charter school initiative is takingoff across the nation, and the demand for liberallyeducated teachers is quickly growing! A foundation inour western heritage and American exceptionalism isessential to a well-rounded teacher, and a rudimentarygrasp of science or something like it is very helpful tothat goal.

Concerned, the young man glanced skepticallytowards the open lab door, and pointed at the studentsworking at the station: You mean to tell me that

they arent actually doing research, but are simplypreparing for teaching careers as elementary schoolscience teachers?

Exactly! Now youre getting it. Part of the statedpurpose of the founders of the college was to furnishall persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, orsex, a literary and scientic education. Why do youthink original scientic research would be a component

of the mission of the college?

Dumbstruck, the prospective could do nothing bustare at the ambassador, who continued to blundealong when he said, A little bit of history for yoall: Strosacker, this building, was actually built in th1960s. Now, youve probably made the connection: itno coincidence that it was built near the period othe sexual revolution. It seems our college was noimmune to the cultural indecency that swept acrosthe nation.

The walrus-stached father piped in, So why is still standing? I mean, it seems that if it were to b

removed, the opportunity for such meaningless studiewould be removed too. More students might be turnefrom frivolous sciences and choose the humanitieinstead.

Thats a great question. Personally, I still hold ouhope that the building will be razed and the LibertWalk extended, perhaps with a statue of WilliamJennings Bryan or the like. And, if you promisnot to tell anyone I told you so, rumor has it thathe greenhouse might be sold to Saga and used tgrow coffee beans to fuel the English and Philosophdepartments!

Now young man, I recall that you said you are sophomore here. What did you say your major is?

Politics, maam. Im a Politics major, I plan to gto law school, and with my liberal arts education anlegal expertise, I will bring down the debaucherouProgressive regime that has a stranglehold on thnoble American people.

The mother could hardly contain herself as a smacheer escaped her lips, and the father teared up as h

tried not to clap.The son began to laugh.Appearing slightly confused, the ambassador too

the laugh to indicate support and proceeded to join inbefore he began to lead the family out the doors.

Anyway, well head over to where true academictake place, Kendall. F

23


24/24

Hllsdale in ArtBY TRACY BRANDT

the hillsdale forum december 2013

Documents

hillsdale forum

hillsdale fruminterview

hillsdale isto

hillsdale luke adamsare

d e c e

longwinded questions

student body

delinquent student ambassador