Thoughts for Neller (and other student athletes)

In the March 16 issue of The Collegian, Brett Neller raised important issues related to the apparent segregation between athletes and non-athletes on Hillsdale’s campus. He certainly recognizes one of the most important problems yet to be solved at this college.

I empathize with many of Neller’s frustrations. I understand the disappointment in working hard all week only to see the lonely stands at football games, each sparsely populated by little more than die-hard parents and a few freshman.

Student participation at athletic events is far less than it should be. And it is unfortunate that Hillsdale faces such a lack of unity between the different groups that compose this tiny campus.

But I must ask those represented by Neller’s article: When was the last time the football or basketball or baseball teams attended a senior cello recital, or supported the forensics team, or watched a single debate round or came out in full-force for the slew of Student Activities events like the President’s Ball or Open-Mic night at the Gathering?

I imagine the answer to this, unless I am mistaken, is obvious to many.

While I understand the athletes’ frustrations over the lack of support given them by the student body, I also see that those asking for support in the stands have done little to show support up the hill.

We have on this campus dozens of other non-athletic teams and organizations that need as much support from their fellow classmates as the football team. It is easy to forget that these non-athletic organizations are filled with individuals putting just as much time and energy—though, perhaps, less muscle—into those things about which they are passionate as the athletes put into their own sports.

Remember that your arguments, Neller, cut both ways. Only by making it a point to bridge this divide can athletes and non-athletes make Hillsdale College a more unified community.

So as the nerds “put down that book and slide that board game back under the bed” and go to the football games, let the athletes put down the ball and change from warm-ups to their Sunday best and support those things not performed under the glow of stadium lights.

David Morrell, ‘07

Western heritage is not better than others

If Chase Purdy didn’t give a satisfactory definition of liberal arts, Jason Gehrke’s arbitrary and self-defeating description ultimately reinforces the need for study beyond the Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman Western heritage.

A liberal arts education, Gehrke reasons, remains within the Western tradition because it ought not involve the servile tolerance training he thinks culturally diverse education to be. Western tradition contains the high knowledge, liberal education imparts it, and liberal education means passing on good knowledge.

If Gehrke really means that the purpose of liberal education is to bury oneself in Western tradition only, that this is what it is to impart good knowledge, then there’s no point arguing. The whole unjustified game runs off an arbitrary distinction, dismissal of non-Western everything.

If, however, “good knowledge” and “Western tradition” aren’t synonymous, and if we grant that the cultures of the entire Asian and African continents, for example, may have the same sort of worth we find in the West, Purdy is right. Either the decision is arbitrary or not, and, if not, we have to let everyone come to the table.

After failing to give any reason for why good knowledge is absent from other cultures, Gehrke’s account of why we stick to the West defeats his conclusion. Humility, which Gehrke identified as a reason for limiting the Hillsdale curriculum to the classical heritage, requires an honest and critical search for good through any source, not a prejudice for Western white culture.

Like any case of “just following orders,” deference to the established body of truth stored up in the literature and history of classical men denies responsibility for selecting one particular tradition as the highest.

Of course Hillsdale College’s specialty is classical and Christian traditions. A more culturally diverse curriculum, though, only furthers the discovery of good knowledge. If we want to be truly liberal, if our service to good knowledge is to have any meaning beyond an arbitrary choice of traditions, we ought to treat all cultures as worthy of study, and certainly not co-opt the liberal arts for their dismissal.

Jonathan Oatess, ‘08

Praise and criticism of Brokeback response

I appreciated and largely agreed with Alexis Boylan’s review of Brokeback Mountain in the March 9 issues of The Collegian. I expected some negative responses, and I also expected to find such responses shallow and uninformed.

Hence, Patricia Corboy’s thoughtful response in the March 16 issue was a pleasant surprise. Unlike many of my acquaintances who are normally unblinking about immoral behavior in films, but who visibly shuddered while telling me they couldn’t bring themselves to watch “a gay cowboy movie,” Corboy is clear that her moral misgivings would apply equally to a great many contemporary films and television programs.

Corboy makes it clear that she is not singling out a “gay” theme as being more disturbing than other morally objectionable themes, and I applaud her consistency and integrity.

It is indeed regrettable that the term “homophobia” is often extended to anyone who believes homosexual intercourse to be morally wrong, as if their views were automatically a manifestation of irrational fear rather than a principled stance.

Still, Corboy’s piece does not persuade me that “[a] thinking public should shun films like Brokeback Mountain, American Beauty and The Silence of the Lambs.” It seems clear to me that if we shun any form of art which might be seen as “dignify[ing] behaviors that destroy human beings,” most of the liberal arts curriculum would have to go (probably including Flannery O’Connor’s writings).

I also fear that Corboy’s discussion might reinforce the widespread tendency to treat homosexuality as especially evil and especially harmful. One need not be a “liberal” to think that this tendency often is a manifestation of fear and hate rather than of principle.

I believe that it is in part a measure of real homophobia that many “conservatives” seem to favor the very non-conservative move of amending the U.S. Constitution in order to regulate a religious sacrament.

Although Corboy clearly does not intend to single out homosexuality as especially evil, some of her supporting points are easily read as implying this. I am unaware of any clear consensus that a situation in which two men live in a committed relationship is “statistically likely” to have (or not to have) the particular tragic results that she lists. I doubt that I could find a source for such statistical information which would not be painted by some as politically motivated in one way or another.

I do not doubt Corboy’s assertions about gay men she has known, but I am unsure what this establishes, since my own experiences with gay family members and friends have been quite different from hers.

I am especially disappointed by the knee-jerk character (especially given that it is based on a Web site summary) of Corboy’s interpretation of Brokeback Mountain as implying that “[i]f only the cruel, repressive world would give up its homophobia, everything would be all right.” Having seen the film twice, I find this interpretation highly dubious at best. 

The only real basis for it that I can see is the assumption that to portray something in a film, or in any other art form, is to approve, glorify or recommend it. I’ve noted the decimating effect this sort of assumption might have on Hillsdale’s curriculum. I suspect that fear is one of the things that can lend it apparent plausibility.

Peter C. Blum
Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Thought