Versus

Issue date: 3/14/05 Section: features

[Click to enlarge]

Close-mindedness is not usually associated with liberalism, but a glance around campus gives a diff erent impression. While there is a liberal embrace of acceptance of abortion, same sex relationships, and socioeconomic policies, there is little tolerance among liberals for
dissenting opinions at Vanderbilt. A couple of synonyms for liberal are
tolerant and open-minded, but the mention of any conservative values
brings a stunned look. "How can anyone still believe that?" People that have diff ering opinions are simply looked on as unenlightened or worse, prejudiced. The question I want to pose is, "When did it become wrong to have a diff erent opinion?" Sure, its rumored that conservatives have been intolerant for years, but when did it become commonplace in a tradition that is, by its defi nition, "tolerant of the ideas and actions of others"?

The issue of intolerance of diff erent opinions came to a crux in the recent election cycle, where the Republicans pushed social values
continuously and many Democrats felt betrayed that the nation could vote the most important consideration "family values", which must have gone out the window sometime 100 years ago right? "I mean they are just so intolerant of allowing people to live however they want to! They are just stupid for being backward and not accepting of others." But wait, see to me that seems just a bit narrow-minded.

The quick objection is that you can be tolerant of other people's way of life, but you can not tolerate people being bigoted or backwards. I agree, you should not tolerate people discriminating against one another, but I do not see how a conservative social program is backwards. Conservatives are disdained for basing value systems on their faith and claiming that they have the true idea of what morality is. Liberals say that they are thinking socially progressively, which insinuates that they are changing social values for the better. However,
C.S. Lewis said:

The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better
than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a
standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard
more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools