Dangerous Ideas Come To Dartmouth (11.7.2016)

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Dangerous Ideas Come to Dartmouth

Milo Yiannopoulos at Dartmouth Students finally leaving their safe spaces.

Joshua L. Kauderer

An Account of Milo’s Visit Great Profs: Lurie Rushil Shukla Webb Harrington Associate Editor Contributor

He’s been called the Internet’s most fabulous supervillain, the Loki from London, and the right’s Kanye West. And this week on a chilly, cloudy Tuesday evening, Milo Yiannopoulos brought his provocative brand of political discourse to Dartmouth College.

At first glance, the 32year old, boastfully gay British journalist seems to be a walking contradiction. He is a journalist who hates the mainstream media, a two-time university dropout who has drawn national attention with his college tour, and an openly gay man who is highly critical of the LGBTQ+ establishment. But over the past year, he has quickly become a hero to young conservatives and libertarians for attacking social justice

warriors and political correctness on college campuses. If Donald Trump defies political correctness, Mr. Yiannopoulos–an avid Trump supporter-obliterates it.

For the last few months, Mr. Yiannopoulos has been on the road for a fourmonth, 26-stop American college campus tour. It should come as no surprise that his tour has attracted national attention.

Mr. Yiannopoulos often puts on a whole show to provoke student protesters, claiming that he does so to oppose the cultural tyranny of the Left. At his past speaking appearances, protesters have stormed the stage, smeared red paint on themselves, and sounded air horns to block out his voice. Many schools, including Villanova University, the University of Miami, the University of Maryland, and Florida Atlantic University, have

all canceled scheduled appearances due to concerns about large-scale student protests.

Yet Mr. Yiannopoulos’s controversial remarks on feminism, social justice, and political correctness have attracted hundreds of spectators at each of his tour stops. Cheering on the likes of Mr. Yiannopoulos is a way for many of his supporters to cope with the stifling reality of political correctness on campus and wreak some small measure of vengeance on those who herald it as a virtue. The enthusiasm for the cultural libertarianism that Mr. Yiannopoulos claims to represent was evident on Tuesday. A diverse mix of people hailing from different regions and backgrounds travelled to Dartmouth to attend Mr. Yiannopoulos’s lecture, which was titled “In Defense of Hazing.” Most had discovered Milo on

YouTube or through social media in one of his many infamous videos.

Before the event, The Dartmouth Review had an opportunity to speak with several of the event’s attendees. One of the audience members identified himself as Julio. He had arrived as a refugee from Cuba when he was six years old and remembered the tyranny of the Castro regime. His mother raised him with stories that reminded Julio every day of a world without free speech and free markets.

He had come hundreds of miles to see Milo after the event in his hometown was cancelled. He had known authoritarianism in Cuba and did not want to know it again. Julio feared the politically correct culture and language policing on college campuses that Mr. Yiannopoulos attacks.

> FEATURES page 8

Joseph R. Torsella Max J. Frankel Samuel W. Lawhon Managing Editors Vice President

The Dartmouth Review (TDR): Could you tell us a little bit about your background and where you’re from?

Michael Lurie (ML): The most interesting fact about my biography is, I guess, that before coming to Dartmouth I lived, studied, and taught in four different countries. I was born in St. Petersburg, a town that actually then was called Leningrad, in Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union I had an opportunity to go abroad and study Classics in Switzerland, at the universities of Bern and Zurich.

After graduating, I decided

that I needed to see more of the world and I went to Germany, where I wrote my PhD and then taught Classics at the University of Goettingen. Then I decided that I spent way too much time in the German speaking world and went to Oxford with a post-doc fellowship. There I got seduced and corrupted, as it were, and never returned back to Germany. I was appointed in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh and spent several years teaching there, before coming to Dartmouth two years ago.

The experience of living, thinking, and teaching in very different cultures and different languages has profoundly shaped me as a person, scholar, and teacher.

> Features page 10

The Dartmouth Radical: Extremism and its potential

Milo: The Pros and The Cons

Yiannopoulos Tells All

The Review questions the intellectual push against extremism and proposes a more constructive path towards securing liberty.

The Review offers up two conflicting viewpoints on Milo Yiannopoulos, his ideas, and his tactics.

The Review talks to Milo Yiannopoulos after his speech at Dartmouth.

> EDITORIAL page 3

> features page 6

> features page 9

2 Monday – November 7, 2016

The Dartmouth Review

The Dartmouth Review

Table of Contents

FreSHmen Write

Work

For thirty-five years, The Dartmouth Review has been the College’s only independent newspaper and the only student opinion journal that matters. It is the oldest and most renowned campus commentary publication in the nation and spawned a national movement at the likes of Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and countless others. Our staff members and alumni have won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, and have been published in the Boston Globe, New York Times, National Review, American Spectator, Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, Village Voice, New Criterion, and many others.

The Review aims to provide a voice for any student who enjoys challenging brittle and orthodox thinking. We stand for free speech, student rights, and the liberating arts. Whatever your political leanings, we invite you to come steep yourself in campus culture and politics, Dartmouth lore, keen witticisms, and the fun that comes with writing for an audience of thousands. We’re looking for writers, photographers, cartoonists, aspiring business managers, graphic designers, web maestros, and anyone else who wants to learn from Dartmouth’s unofficial school of journalism.

EST. 1980

EDITORIAL

editor-in-chief

The Dartmouth Radical

Sandor Farkas

executive editors Brian Chen Jack F. Mourouzis

Managing editors Joshua L. Kauderer Max J. Frankel Marcus J. Thompson Joseph r. Torsella

Associate Editors Zachary P. Port Devon Kurtz Rushil Shukla

Business staff President

Mathew R.Zubrow

“Because every student deserves a safe space”

– Inge-Lise Ameer, Vice Provost for Student Affairs

vice president RObert Y. Sayegh Samuel W. Lawhon

Meetings held Mondays at 6:30 PM at our offices at 32 S. Main Street (next to Lou’s in the lower level office space)

ADVISORY

Inside the issue An Account of Milo’s Visit

The Dartmouth Review provides an account of Milo Yiannopolous’s visit to Dartmouth College and discusses expectations, reactions, and criticisms to Mr. Yiaannopolous’s event ................................................................................................................................. PAGE 1

Great Professors: Michael Lurie

The Dartmouth Review discusses teaching Classics, the benefits of studying ancient cultures, and the amazing work ethic of Dartmouth students with Professor Michael Lurie .................................................................................................................................. PAGE 1

Week in Review

The Dartmouth Review writes about current events, including the scandal surrounding Harvard Men’s Soccer, Bernie’s visit to campus, a Fat Studies Department, and World Series champion Kyle Hendricks ................................................................................................ PAGE 4

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In Defense of Milo Yiannopoulos

A Reviewer argues in favor of Milo Yiannopoulos and his antics, and discusses Milo’s necessary defense of Western canon and his refusal to appease the Left and its political correctness ....................................................................................................................... PAGE 6

Founders

Greg Fossedal, Gordon Haff, Benjamin Hart, Keeney Jones

Legal counsel

mean-spirited, cruel, and ugly

Milo Yiannopoulos: An Unexamined Life

Four Reviewers argue against Milo Yiannopoulos, and contend that Milo’s provocative antics are counterproductive , vulgar, and immoral and that his audience owes it to themselves to recognize them as such .......................................................................... PAGE 7

An Interview with Milo Yiannopoulos

The Dartmouth Review speaks with the controversial Milo Yiannopoulos about his tour of college campuses, political correctness, the Alt-Right movement, and Donald J. Trump ............................................................................................................................... PAGE 9

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win great triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to takerank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt

Editorial BOARD

Conservative

space

3

MASTHEAD & EDitorial

Pontificate

Safe

Monday – November 7, 2016

Board of trustees

Martin Anderson, Patrick Buchanan, Theodore Cooper-stein, Dinesh D’Souza, Michael Ellis, Robert Flanigan, John Fund, Kevin Robbins, Gordon Haff, Jeffrey Hart, Laura Ingraham, Mildred Fay Jefferson, William Lind, Steven Menashi, James Panero, Hugo Restall, Roland Reynolds, William Rusher, Weston Sager, Emily Esfahani-Smith, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Sidney Zion

Churchill reads the review. do you?

Notes Special thanks to William F. Buckley, Jr. À la volonté du peuple....

The Editors of The Dartmouth Review welcome correspondence from readers concerning any subject, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material published previously in The Review. We reserve the right to edit all letters for clarity and length. Please submit letters to the editor by mail or email: editor@dartreview.com Or by mail at:

The Dartmouth Review P.O. Box 343 Hanover, NH 03755 (603) 643-4370

Please direct all complaints to: editor@thedartmouth.com

Back in September, before the reali- ligious perspective or a secular one. ty of this election set in, I saw a post- For individuals like de Tocqueville and er on a column in Novack advertising King, liberty and human dignity are the a panel discussion entitled, “Prevent- metrics of this elusive good. Judaism, ing Radicalization: What Works, What Christianity, Islam, and many other Doesn’t.” Many people believe that the philosophies put forth solid foundafight against terrorism must be ideo- tions for thinking about good and evil, logical as well as physical. We can bomb and these are more or less compatible. If Daesh until “the sand glows,” but only some ideas are good and some are evil, through the force of ideas can we elimi- it follows that extremism for good (or nate it. Social pressures dictate support against evil) is a virtue. for this panel discussion, but I already This election cycle is toxically modknow what they are saying, and I know erate. Neither Clinton nor Trump pasit to be false. sionately advocate a moral Alexis de Tocqueville beworldview or an ideologilieved that democracy was cally-driven course of acthe prime mover of his era. tion. Hordes of voters spend He argued that since decountless hours arguing, mocratization was inevadvocating, and persuading itable, those with power each other that one moderate should seek to mold it candidate is marginally worse. into a form conducive This, they argue, creates a to liberty and human moral necessity to vote for dignity. Rather than their candidate of choice. resist democracy and Gone are the days when have it turn into tyranprogressive socialists Sándor Farkas ny or despotism, de Tocand true conservative queville would guide it and shape it into capitalists waged a worldwide intellecsomething that elevated man to a higher tual (and literal) battle. Dead are the level. The force of our era is no longer passions that inflamed the hearts of men democracy; it is radicalism. It is power- who fought for these ideals. Dartmouth ful, it is irresistible, and like democracy, students no longer feel strongly enough it is not ideal. But it can be bent, it can about real issues that they are willing to be tempered, and it can be forged into put their lives, or even grades, on the something good. line to advocate them.

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. There is nothing The Review would wrote about extremism in his letter from like more than for progressive students the Birmingham Jail, initially expressing to be eloquent and forceful advocates disappointment that others had labeled of real progressives causes. As extremhim an extremist. Then, reflecting on ists for truth, we believe real ideological other great historical figures who, in conflict fosters mutual understanding their days, were known as extremists, he and furthers the purpose of a college wrote, “The question is not whether we education. The Review often reprints will be extremists, but what kind of ex- G. K. Chesterton’s remark, “He is a very tremists we will be. Will we be extrem- shallow critic who cannot see an eternal ists for hate or for love? Will we be ex- rebel in the heart of a conservative.” In tremists for the preservation of injustice our minds, we bear the legacies of Buckor for the extension of justice? […] Per- ley and Kristol, fighting Commies and haps the South, the nation and the world rolling back the hippie tide. But that is are in dire need of creative extremists.” nothing more than a delusion: our ComMoral relativists, who have unfor- munists occupy the President’s office tunately imposed their worldview on over microaggressions and our hippies academia, see political upheaval and drink pumpkin spice lattes. violence as symptoms of extremism. AcOutside of Dartmouth, around the ademia therefore seeks to fight things world, real passions are fomenting. like terrorism, hateful populism, and Come June, one thousand young men political violence by ideologically com- and women will be released to roam bating extremism. The problem with around the world, but they will be lackthis approach is that it begins with a ing any old chivalric faith. They will false assumption: all ideas are moral- work in skyscrapers and raise good, ly equivalent. When hawks in Western moderate sons and daughters, but the countries advocate aggressive tactics to walls will gradually close in on them. counter terrorism, the left cries foul: for This is an era of passion, of extremes. them, the issue is that both sides have Sooner or later, there will be no room extreme views of the world, not that ei- for moderates. Therefore, only one ther side is evil. question remains, the answer to which The reality of the situation, as every will be determined by the faculty and good liberal knows, is that not all ideas students of this College: will Dartmouth are moral. There exists such a thing as men be extremists or evil, or will they be an absolute good, whether from a re- radically good?

4 Monday – November 7, 2016

The Dartmouth Review

WEEK IN REVIEW Senator Sanders Comes to town On Tuesday, Nov. 1, self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders graced the Dartmouth student body with his presence. Sanders led a get-out-the-vote rally for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. Sanders officially endorsed Clinton this past July after spending months as her rival in the primary. During the primary campaign, Sanders labeled her as “unqualified” to be president, pointing to the many questionable aspects of her political career.

U.S. Representative Ann McLane Kuster began the townhall-style meeting, setting the tone for the event to center around the issues rather than the candidate herself.

Congresswoman Kuster cycled through seemingly all of the liberal talking points, from climate change (citing the most recent summer in New Hampshire as evidence) to raising the minimum wage and combating the gender pay gap. She then concluded by bragging about New Hampshire’s all-female congressional delegation and confidently predicting the election of the first female president, which was met with applause.

The next speaker, Governor Maggie Hassan, continued the trend. Hassan began by explaining how she is the best candidate for Senate. She then transitioned to the issues upon which most people present presumably agreed. She took credit for the low unemployment rate in New Hampshire, jabbed rival Kelly Ayotte, and covered a few of the issues untouched by Kuster. After referencing high college tuition, Bernie was set to take the stage.

The crowd met Bernie with applause, and he went right into the most convincing argument for Hillary as president—the argument against Trump. Sanders explained that his motivation for stopping Trump was the fact that he has grandchildren. He said he fears a Trump presidency for their sake. For the remainder of the speech, Bernie smartly avoided talking much about Hillary herself.

Following the trend set by Kuster and Hassan, he went through a wide range of liberal talking points, yet did not get into much of an affirmative case for Hillary, except that she is “better” than Trump by those standards.

The main purpose behind Bernie’s visit to Dartmouth and to other colleges was to redress the damage done in the primaries. By attacking Hillary earlier on for her support of the Iraq War, the questionably run Clinton Foundation, and more about her character, Bernie exposed many serious flaws in her candidacy. He is now attempting to walk back his many criticisms in fear of

a Trump victory. Bernie aims to temporarily reverse all of the anti-establishment sentiment that he generated during the primaries and make sure that all of his former supporters (many of whom were college students) go to Hillary rather than a third party option, such as Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.

Bernie’s new crusade to justify Clinton’s record has focused mainly on attacking Trump’s lifestyle and campaign. Yet after WikiLeaks’ released private Democratic National Committee emails, the claims made by Sanders early on are ever-so relevant. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, along with the rest of the leadership of the DNC, has been exposed for rigging the process for Hillary since the beginning. Many DNC higher-ups attempted to influence the primary in favor of Hillary, even planning to target Bernie’s religion to sway religious voters.

With Hillary and Trump as the major presidential nominees, many Americans are left with a tricky decision to make, and those who voted for Sanders in the primary are no exception. But in the end, for former Bernie supporters, it will all come down to what wins out: the anti-establishment movement that Bernie helped fuel (voting Johnson or Trump) or the strict policy adherence (voting Clinton).

Oregon State Pilots new “fat studies” program

If you are currently attending Oregon State University and took a look at your course catalog you may have noticed the School of Psychological Science is offering a new course: Fat Studies. Many would see that as a typo, but in fact, Fat Studies is an actual class that is being offered at Oregon State and quite a few other schools across the country.

Just a quick glance at the course description shows truly how ridiculous this course really is: “Examines body weight, shape, and size as an area of human difference subject to privilege and discrimination.” Rather than focusing on a more tangible and pressing issue (rising obesity rates in the United States), schools such as Oregon State have decided to consider it as an inflexible identity and address it the same way schools address race, gender, or culture. At Oregon State, this course is considered a “Baccalaureate Core Course,” which means that it is believed to be “the foundation for students’ further understanding of the modern world” and provides full credit to anyone willing to take the course.

The situation is equally as grim, if not worse, at various

schools around the country: for example, University of Maryland at College Park. Students interested in taking “Introduction to Fat Studies” must be prepared for required readings such as “The Fat Liberation Manifesto,” in which dietary products are deemed “special enemies” of fat people. Apparently, by providing solutions to a medical issue, these products are “fat shaming” anyone who decides to utilize them. The University of New Hampshire has approved a group known as “People Against Weightism (POW)” It seems as though the fake-doctrine-inventing left have reached a new low. Unfortunately, such pseudo-scholarship has already made its way to Hanover. In this new group, students will have

Kyle Hendricks ‘12 helps cubs win world series

the ability to intern and receive four credits towards graduation from the Women’s Studies Program.

The Chicago Cubs made history in the wee hours of Thursday, November 3rd, 2016 when they won the World Series for the first time in 108 years, ending the longest drought in Major League Baseball History. Kyle Hendricks ’12, only the second Ivy Leaguer to start a World Series Game Seven was a huge part of that effort. After a very respectable 16-8 season with a 2.13 ERA, the former Big Green pitcher posted a dazzling 1.42 ERA in his five postseason starts, according to ESPN. Hendricks is not a newcomer to big games. According to Dartmouth News, as a freshman, Hendricks won the game that clinched the 2009 Ivy League title and secured Dartmouth’s bid to the NCAA regional tournament— our first in 22 years.

While scouts and sportswriters such as Rian Watt describe Hendricks’s stuff as “pedestrian” and his “skinny frame” prevents him from achieving the type of velocity associated with many major league pitchers, Hendricks still wins games and accolades alike. How does he do it?

In the words of Watt, Hendricks “relies on sequencing and a detailed knowledge of hitters’ tendencies—gleaned through hours in the video room—to set up hitters in a way that leads to his success.” His style is reminiscent of Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux who also achieved great success using his mind as much as his arm. Maybe that’s why they share a nickname. All in all, Kyle “The Professor” Hendricks, both World Series Champion and real thinking man is the type of alum that Dartmouth can be very proud of. He certainly has the granite of New Hampshire in his muscles and his brain.

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The Dartmouth Review

Monday – November 7, 2016

Sandor Farkas

Jack S. Hutensky Zachary P. Port

5

Erik R. Jones Jason B. Ceto

Cartoon Harvard Soccer Team draws controversy This week, Harvard University reckoned with revelations about the school’s soccer team, finding an encyclopedic database of “scouting reports” which detailed an index of female attractiveness and preferred sex position. The school responded by banning the entire team and forfeiting all remaining games in the season.

Harvard University President Drew G. Faust released this statement, offering a remarkably vague justification of the move: “The decision to cancel a season is serious and consequential, and reflects Harvard’s view that both the team’s behavior and the failure to be forthcoming when initially questioned are completely unacceptable, have no place at Harvard, and run counter to the mutual respect that is a core value of our community.” It is certainly justifiable to castigate the team for their actions

Kyle Hendricks ‘12 helps cubs win world series

Those students who stop to read the flyers that adorn boards and columns around campus may have seen something out of the ordinary over the course of this term: small leaflets defending socialism and communism that advertise a Facebook page called “Dawn of the Red.” One pamphlet, titled “FIGHT OPPRESSION!” began, “The world is on fire. Poverty, cruelty, death, and brutality.” As an anecdote to this lack of grammar, it stated, “We must use revolutionary science to defeat the imperialists.”

It accused “the fascist media” of “lying constantly.” Another, titled “WHAT IS SOCIALISM? WHAT IS COMMUNISM?” attempted to answer these “fundamental questions.” It embarked on this weighty task by denying that any current or historical governments are or have been truly socialist or communist. It then waxed poetic about how, “There is nothing more creative, nothing more beautiful, more daring than the struggle for communism.”

Such fliers demonstrate a profound ignorance on the part of today’s students when it comes to the reality of communism. The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation reported in October that, “45% of 16-20 year olds would vote for a ‘Socialist’; 21% for a ‘Communist,’” and that, “One-third of Millennials Believe George W. Bush Killed More People Than Stalin.” This ignorance is clearly present at Dartmouth, and no one should be surpised.

In October 2015, The Review claimed that some of the Dartmouth students who spoke at a series of “diversity panels” were, “living, shouting proof that Soviet-era Stalinist propaganda aimed at Western youth has at last established not only a formidable beachhead but a veritable fifth column within Western Universities.” This less-than-subtitle accusation of Communism drew heat from some circles at the College. Nicole Simineri ’17, a columnist for the Daily Dartmouth, wrote an editorial condemning the author of the original article and current Editor-in-Chief of The Review, Sandor Farkas. Simineri’s piece, entitled “This Is Not Your Space,” declared that white men like Farkas should not concern themselves with these niche spaces on campus, as they are intended to serve only certain segments of the Dartmouth community. She deliberately failed to mention that the purpose of such discussions is to inculcate an ideology with the intent to force it upon the entire community. All those who believed Simineri and thought that real Communism would never come to Dartmouth were wrong: it is here.

“I can’t wait to vote for Hillary Clinton! I’m with her, she’s with me. So selfless - not crooked at all!”

Cartoon

“I’lll catch you later, Jim. MAGA!”

Cartoon

“I can’t wait to vote tomorrow!”

“Seriously, dude? I think you’re the only one.”

6 Monday – November 7, 2016

The Dartmouth Review

Contributor Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for President of the United States, has disrupted the status quo and realigned the political paradigm. In creating a movement, he has done something good. He has stood up to and ultimately defeated an out-of-touch Republican establishment, while reigniting the passion of a despondent Republican base. He spoke up for millions of previously unheard Americans who were left behind by globalization and technological change. Most importantly, though, he utterly destroyed any conception of political correctness that we may have had.

Yet Trump’s erratic candidacy has shown the faults of a movement founded on a single larger-than-life personality and unmoored by ideological fault lines. His lack of judgment and discipline, as demonstrated by his occasionally unhinged performances and inability to resist making childish insults, is concerning. His lack of character, as evidenced by his beyond-the-pale comments about women, is unsettling, if not disturbing. Trump likes to talk about how he is only a messenger for a movement, but his Mr. Prescott is a senior at the College and a contributor to The Dartmouth Review.

faults as a messenger are holding back said nascent movement.

Enter Milo Yiannopoulos.

He is every bit the character that Trump, whom he calls “daddy,” is. The key difference, however, is that Yiannopoulos is personality driven by principle. Whereas Trump has incoherent to nonexistent positions on most topics (except for the Mexican border wall), Yiannopoulos has fleshed out a contrarian yet sensible ideology.

The manifestation of a political realignment, he is possibly the most effective champion of classically liberal values such as free speech against the tide of illiberalism that dominates college campuses and the ideology of the regressive left. Indeed, the movement that Trump inspired, in its manifestation as Yiannopoulos, has surpassed the impact of Trump himself.

Yiannopoulos, not Trump, is the one emboldening principled conservatives to rise up for deeply held principles.

For too long, the battle against the regressive left has been asymmetric and unwinnable. The radical left on college campuses held the moral high ground and expressed consistent outrage at alleged injustices and oppression. Their Alinskyite tactics worked, and conservatives were cowed. We lived in fear of retribution—in fear of reciting unpleasant truths and harsh facts about reality that

offended leftists. Traditional values were left without a visible and effective champion.

Yiannopoulos’ success arises from his exploitation of Trump’s obliteration of the Overton window. No longer constrained by the anti-conservative standards of political correctness, he is able to make his points in a brightly intelligent, devilishly clever, and hilariously “trollish” way.

Employing humor, flamboyant language and presentation, and harsh, often personal ridicule, Yiannopoulos has changed the way that conservatives can fight—and win—against their illiberal opponents. He has taken the methods of the radical left, especially humorous dismissal, and redeployed them to great effect. At Dartmouth, Yiannopoulos declared, “The most effective, powerful weapon you have is comedy. The left has been very good at it for decades, but the tables are turning.”

Yiannopoulos’ forceful rejection of today’s young radicals and revolutionaries is long overdue. The likes of Black Lives Matter are laughably attempting to claim the mantle of the Civil Rights movement. The adherents of identity politics and the new genre of pronoun politics have reached new highs (or lows) with the ease at which they take offense and label dissenting ideas racist, sexist, classist, or any other obscure

Yiannopoulos himself is not American, which makes his points that much more salient.

An Englishman, Yiannopoulos has seen the decay of continental Europe as well as his own country’s reclamation of her sovereignty by means of Brexit.

He sees in America the greatest hope for civilization and the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. We would do well to remember these uniquely American aspirations.

As fierce a critic of leftism and a defender of Americanism as Yiannopoulos is, he does perhaps his greatest service in his contribution to the practice of free speech. The left poses its greatest threat not by its regressive and delusional nature, but by its hypocritical illiberalism.

As we well know, the left touts diversity and inclusion, but means something entirely different. Its goal is to fill certain demographic buckets, usually “underrepresented” racial and gender groups, in an ideological monoculture. Any true diversity, which is any deviation from the ideological orthodoxy, calls for the greatest offense and outrage. In a world of trigger warnings and safe spaces, Yiannopoulos’ unconventional and controversial speech does us all a service.

Critics of Yiannopoulos like to point to his polarizing and irreverent style as counterproductive to advancing classical liberal values. However, it is precisely his tendency to force timid, insecure social justice

Yiannopoulos’ success arises from his exploitation of Trump’s obliteration of the Overton window. No longer constrained by the anti-conservative standards of political correctness, he is able to make his points in a brightly intelligent, devilishly clever, and hilariously “trollish” way. the utility of such a hegemonic and imperialist worldview. To add insult to injury, they have had increasing success with implementing requirements on diversity and inclusivity. It is for these reasons that it is so important that we have Yiannopoulos on college campuses today.

The radical left would have you believe that America is the most racist, sexist, oppressive, imperialist, and least free society in the history of the world.

Built upon slavery, colonialism, and exploitation, as well as numerous war crimes and human rights violations, America is only exceptional in its awfulness, or so the narrative goes.

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Milo Yiannopoulos: An Unexamined Life

In Defense of Milo Yiannopoulos

Samuel L. Prescott

Monday – November 7, 2016

Features

features

“-ism” they can conjure up in their twisted minds. Disproven Marxism based on a false humanitarianism and misguided empathy remains shockingly prevalent. From the right, a fierce repudiation of their weak and regressive ideology is the only reasonable response.

Conservatives have pushed back against the radical left, with limited effect. Take the creeping influence of thirdwave feminism, which is spilling over to mainstream society despite its incongruence with biology and reality. The ideas of distinguished scholars such as Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers, which stand for true equality between the two genders in light of biological differences, have been around for quite some time. But unfortunately, they seemed to lack currency until Yiannopoulos came along. At Dartmouth, Yiannopoulos integrated their serious scholarship into his entertaining presentation and proved that one can be intelligent and incisive against the left while maintaining a joyfully humorous façade. Perhaps that is the best way forward.

When it comes to the broader discussion on Western civilization, conservatives have been in retreat until Yiannopoulos. The left’s consistent efforts to impugn the West—and white men more broadly—ended up taking a toll. For decades, Western canon has been falling out of favor at colleges and universities as leftist luminaries questioned

The Dartmouth Review

warriors into a fetal position that ensures his efficacy. Indeed, Yiannopoulos has galvanized free speech advocates who may not agree in the slightest with him. Following the left’s asymmetric standards of conduct—one set of rules for conservatives and one set of rules of rules of Alinskyites— was a losing strategy from the beginning. If truth is treason in an empire of lies, then the massive overreaction from the left signals that Yiannopoulos is on the right track. The process of forcing the left to confront the absurdity of its own ideology is as painful as it is necessary, but at least Yiannopoulos makes it fun for the rest of us.

Joseph R. Torsella Max J. Frankel Samuel W. Lawhon Peter W. Schroen Managing Editors Vice President Contributor On Tuesday November 1 st, Milo Yiannopoulos, the flamboyant “alt-right” provocateur, visited Dartmouth College to deliver a speech titled “In Defense of Hazing.” In addition to supporting the practice of hazing itself, Milo derided feminist attempts to stifle what he views as healthy masculine behavior expressed in fraternities. Along the way, Mr. Yiannopoulos drank a flask labeled “piss,” was waterboarded by his staff, and called multiple female Dartmouth administrators “dykes.” Clearly, Milo embraces a unique form of political discourse. The self-proclaimed “dangerous faggot” finds traditional methods of discussion to be quite dull. Instead, Milo employs an irreverent and provocative style to crusade against political correctness and the cultural left.

While this approach appeals to many who have felt scorned by progressivism, we believe that it is counterproductive in the quest to defend and spread conservative principles. In particular, we question the cohesiveness of Milo’s ideas and dispute the methods with which he communicates them: Mr. Yiannopoulos’ reliance on crass ad hominem arguments and ridicule is a basic indication of the crudeness of his philosophy.

One of the principal reasons we find Milo’s method of discussion unproductive is that he rarely fully develops his ideas. It is one thing to use unconventional rhetoric in the service of a consistent ideology, but one would be hardpressed to discover one underneath Milo’s invective. He has no need to see a string of logic to its end because he often has no substantial conclusions to make. As a result, he wavers between a number of different issues while taking cheap jabs at his intellectual opponents.

While amusing to his audience, this tactic does nothing to advance his ideology. For example, he calls this election “a pitched battle between men and women” then asserts that Hillary Clinton embodies all of the classical female virtues, Messrs. Torsella and Frankel are sophomores at the College and Managing Editors at The Dartmouth Review. Mr. Lawhon is a sophomore at the College and Vice President of The Dartmouth Review. Mr. Schroen is a sophomore at the College and a contributor to The Dartmouth Review.

“right down to the scissoring.”

After the audience roared in disbelieving laughter, Milo went on to call Huma Abedin “quite hot” and insinuated that she and Ms. Clinton are having an affair. After this tangent, Milo began discussing the election in conventional terms, without returning to his original claim that the election was a battle between men and women. This episode is typical of Milo’s rhetorical style. He makes a claim, ridicules people to his audience’s amusement, then moves on to a different point. This process occurs again after he makes a foundational claim for his lecture on hazing: men and women relate to each other in different ways. He argues that men bond by taunting each other, whereas women are more “sort of vicious backstabbers…like gays.” This use of humor detracts from his argument and conveniently excuses him from having to make a serious argument about the way women form bonds.

however, he switches focus and argues that masculinity benefits women. Mr. Yiannopoulos’ constant use of humor and short attention span prevent him from developing crucial parts of his argument, to the detriment of thematic cohesion.

Mr. Yiannopoulos also professes a wrongheaded theory of political and social change.

He believes that it is effective to attack people, not ideas. He intends in this way to shift social discourse rightwards. His violation of social norms is meant to induce a shift in the Overton Window: that which is within the allowable bounds of discussion. On the surface this would seem to justify some of the more egregious parts of the “Dangerous Faggot Tour.” If Mr. Yiannopoulos is pursuing a desirable end, his method might be thought of as less concerning. His theory needs testing, however, and an analysis will find it wanting.

Does attacking leftists really shift the common discourse

The extreme left on campus already thoughtlessly conflates political ideas with personal attacks; A well-known political figure insulting them in actuality will only further alienate leftists and polarize discussion. There is no surer way to shut down debate than to insult someone.

The result of this rhetorical style is an unfocused lecture where few claims are truly developed.

The few claims Milo attempts to develop are often hyperbolic arguments that lack nuance. He equates media outrage about the Trump’s lewd conversation with Billy Bush with an assault on “ordinary masculine nonsense.”

He argues that those who condemn Trump’s comments all do so because he is politically incorrect and doesn’t care about micro-aggressions.

Obviously, this is untrue. One can condemn brutish speech without subscribing to leftist speech codes. But this type of intellectually shallow hyperbole is common throughout his lecture. Milo argues hazing is “far too masculine for…lesbianic feminist administrators to cope with.” He goes on to argue that putting these “lesbians” in charge of college students’ developments is equivalent to putting Hitler in charge of a museum of Jewish antiquities. It’s only after he made this series of outrageous comments that we arrived at some semblance of a substantiated argument: it is not the university’s role to police language and sexual development. As soon as he articulates this point,

rightward? The answer is no.

The distinction lies in the qualifier “common” – attacking leftists personally may well incline the already-converted towards a more strident and unapologetic conservatism, but it also will incline those on the left towards a more strident and unapologetic leftism.

The extreme left on campus already thoughtlessly conflates political ideas with personal attacks; A well-known political figure insulting them in actuality will only further alienate leftists and polarize discussion. There is no surer way to shut down debate than to insult someone. The apathetic or undecided middle, who haven’t yet made up their political minds, will see the spectacle of Mr. Yiannopoulos and be justifiably repulsed.

Even among people who are right-wing, Mr. Yiannopoulos does not so much shift the discourse towards the right as shift it towards vulgarity and abuse. There is a distinction between weakening political norms and all social norms.

Milo sacrifices all of the benefits of the former in favor of the latter. What Milo proposes in an already polarized society is not a shifting of norms but rather their destruction. Just like a community, a conver-

sation needs two people who share certain basic standards, and the project of Mr. Yiannopoulos is to attack those standards and eviscerate the basis of dialogue and thereby community.

A more obvious problem with Mr. Yiannopoulos’ theory is that it is immoral. Even if it actually shifts the discourse rightward, gratuitously insulting people and not ideas is still rude. To condemn Milo’s display is not to condemn what he describes as the “vitality” or the “energy” of the right.

It is good sometimes to take less seriously the strictures of social decorum; however, to insult people constantly and to disregard basic courtesy is morally condemnable. The fact that Mr. Yiannopoulos cannot recognize this as such speaks volumes.

Moreover, Mr. Yiannopoulos’ theory of shifting social norms recognizes only destructive argumentation, and ignores its productive counterpart. Mr. Yiannopoulos attempts to tear down norms without arguing for their replacement. What is to replace PC? What is to replace courtesy in discourse? What is the alternative to leftism? He leaves his audience without resolution. This should be deeply concerning to any intellectually honest observer. Milo is playing with fire; what if the new social norms are worse than the previous ones? Milo might even be culpable as an arsonist; rudeness and vulgarity would seem to encourage the production of an even less friendly discourse.

Another problem with destructive argumentation alone is that in order to truly think about ideas, one has to propose something. To hold a system of ideas in the mind is to see in what manner they interrelate. It fosters nuance and understanding. Milo’s lack of any coherent counter-proposal is an indication that he has not thought deeply about conservatism, and his lack of any counter-proposal deprives his audience of the same benefit. To argue constructively is more difficult than to argue destructively, it is therefore also more rewarding and convincing. Part of the problem with the “Dangerous Faggot Tour” is that there is little that might lead students towards an examination of their beliefs.

If Milo argued for something instead of against something that might not be the case.

Mr. Yiannopoulos purports to be a valuable ally in the fight against political correctness.

But political correctness, in itself, cannot be called an evil unless it suppresses the truth.

We all should hope to live in a

society where some actions are socially marginalized: racism, pedophilia, islamofascism – all of these ought to be relegated to the margins of society. Political correctness is a problem because it seeks to bypass true debate and dialogue that has not yet been completed. But Mr. Yiannopoulos’ agenda is not an attack on political correctness, it is an attack on all social norms of speech. His modus operandi is to be so offensive in mannerism as to obscure the shallowness of his ideas. Indeed, his tactics replicate the PC mechanisms that he opposes. Any attack on his views he rebuffs as “cucked,” any objection to his language is “PC.” Mr. Yiannopoulos does not attack Political Correctness – he violates common standards of decency and kindness. A right that stands for cruelty is a right that will continue losing the major political and moral battles of our time.

Defenders of Mr. Yiannopoulos claim that his actions are justified by the principles of free speech. This is patently wrong. Yes, controversial speech plays a valuable role in reminding us that we live in an open society in which no views may be legally suppressed. But we also have a duty to condemn speech that we find morally opprobrious. Indeed, Mr. Yiannopoulos does a great disservice to the principles of free speech: personal attacks serve only to close off the dialogue he claims to desire.

We owe it to ourselves to honestly examine the actions of Mr. Yiannopoulos. He owes it to all of us to do the same.

It is impossible here to find anything but weak ideas surrounded by unjustifiable insults. Whoever confuses the strength of Mr. Yiannopoulos’ rhetoric with the strength of his philosophy makes a basic mistake. He uses insults to cover logical leaps. He makes kindness the enemy of truth.

He praises the “classical virtues;” he embodies none of them. He is not courageous.

His is a sort of false courage, a claim to bravado that is proven empty by the intellectual cowardice of his tactics. And it is impossible to call him temperate. Is the virtue of temperance expressed in a man who seems to seek the very extreme? In a man who openly revels in his own hedonism? Wisdom has no purchase in the sort of man who revels in his own contradictions. There is no seeking of truth, only a desire for “fun,” for comedy, for entertainment. There is no wisdom in Milo. There is only the vulgar spectacle, however attractive, of one man’s unexamined life.

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“My mom was alive during the revolution and she saw the change from a capitalist country to a socialist country. It was a very frightening time for her, but also a time of great hope where they offered her socialism as being a solution for all the problems of the country, and it turned into a hell-hole.” Julio’s voice conveyed the sense of betrayal he clearly felt. He continued, “People are arrested just for speaking their mind. There is no such thing as a First Amendment or a Second Amendment. The government took complete control. And that is why we came here.”

Autumn, a seventeen-year old attendee from the New England region, came from an entirely different culture and had been born in the United States. She had introduced the rest of her family to Milo’s videos and social media presence and had been following the cultural libertarian movement for months.

“We’re here for Milo. He’s really funny. Despite that we don’t agree with everything he says, he’s very charismatic and very witty,” Autumn said.

Her family nodded in agreement. As a prospective college student, Autumn was most interested in free speech on campuses across the United States, an issue Mr. Yiannopoulos has focused on bringing to the forefront.

There were no protesters at the event on Tuesday, but there was one free speech activist from New Hampshire who came to see Mr. Yiannopoulos. The man, who identified himself as George Stanley Berlin, was wearing a large brown paper bag on his head and was carrying a sign referencing court cases he had filed against New Hampshire colleges.

“I started making these posters two months ago when my friend told me that he had tickets for me to come down to this event.

I didn’t know anything and had never heard of this Milo guy,” said Berlin. “I heard Milo for the first time coming down here. I wouldn’t agree with everything that he says, and he wouldn’t agree with me. After all, it’s very complex, this issue of free speech.

It’s very skewed. I’ve been abused and harassed by college administrators all my life.”

However, despite expressing disagreement with Mr. Yiannopoulos on many issues, Mr. Berlin stressed the values of free speech and open dialogue on college campuses.

“We should bring other ideas into [universities] that students may try to squelch, stymie, and squash,” he said.

Mr. Shukla is a freshman at the College and an Associate Editor to The Dartmouth Review. Mr. Harrington is a freshman at the College and a contributor to The Dartmouth Review.

By the time the event was set to begin, the excitement in the air was pablepalpable. Many had been waiting hours to hear Mr. Yiannopoulos speak. Finally, Brian Chen ’17, the President of the College Libertarians and Sandor Farkas ’17, the Editor-in-Chief of The Dartmouth Review, opened the event. Farkas explained that the co-sponsors did not endorse the views expressed by Mr. Yiannopoulos and had invited him to Dartmouth out of a desire to initiate political dialogue on campus.

Following the introduction, an opening video including footage of some of the protests that have occurred at Yiannopoulos’ events was played. As the video ended, Yiannopoulos, dressed in black football gear and sporting thick eye black, stepped into the room to thunderous applause.

Throughout the course of the evening, Mr. Yiannopoulos touched on a number of topics.

The focus of his lecture, however, was political correctness concerning masculinity, feminism, and fraternity culture.

Milo did not soften his words.

“This election can be viewed as a battle between a man who epitomizes pure masculinity versus a woman who epitomizes man-hating feminism.” Milo was abundantly clear on his own views regarding the election and modern feminism when he said, “I’m sure we will all feel stunning and brave for electing a hospital-bound globalist in an ugly pantsuit while the ballistic missiles turn the earth into a fireball.” Quoting Camille Paglia, who he described as a “dissident lesbian feminist,” Milo declared with a boyish grin, “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.”

Milo went on to passionately defend masculinity and all of its accomplishments. He claimed that nothing creates brotherhood more than hazing and taunting.

He made wistful references to Spartan military traditions and outlined his vision of college fraternities as the last strongholds of masculinity in an increasingly politically correct culture. He referenced the Rolling Stone article authored by Andrew Lohse, whom he called “Andrew Loser,” and said this attack on one of Dartmouth’s most prominent fraternities represented an attempt to stifle traditional masculine traits.

He was happy to defend his views of masculinity as worth idealizing in their own right: “Men are by nature competitive, aggressive, and can be maniacally driven. This is a hormonal and behavioral fact, reflected throughout the history of humanity. It explains why men commit nearly all of the violent crime, but it also explains why men have invented and built nearly everything you own.”

Knowing, and enjoying, the controversy of these statements, Milo attacked the politically correct liberals who would reject

his style of thought. “Feminists reject this kind of thinking but it is not compatible with their gender-bending, non-binary worldview in which gender is a social construct propagated by a misogynistic patriarchy. But all this is doing is denying biology. Men and women are different, we have different tendencies, skills, and behaviors. This should be accepted and fostered, not demonized.

Because the end result is simply more effeminate men, and more masculine women. Who wants that?”

Audience reactions to Mr. Yiannopoulos’s lecture were mixed.

This was primarily because Milo is emblematic of a new force emerging in the conservative movement. This force, termed “cultural libertarianism” by Milo and many of his supporters, has been on the rise as authoritarians of all stripes, from religious reactionaries to social justice warriors, have come under attack from a younger generation of thinkers, commentators, and new media stars.

“If conservatives are smart they’ll focus less on the obsessions of the 1980s like free markets and Bush-era neoconservative foreign policy. It’s not like those issues aren’t important, but young people care more about culture and free speech and all these cultural issues that go way beyond the old fashions of, say, abortion and

traditional marriage,” said Allum Bokhari, a technology editor for Breitbart who works closely with Milo Yiannopoulos. “Young people care about things like the Leftist dominance of Hollywood, entertainment, video games, and colleges.”

The view expressed by Bokhari resonates well with many cultural libertarians and Trump-generation conservatives. They view themselves as fun-loving provocateurs, valiant and humorous defenders of traditional Western civilization, and edgy intellectuals. They thrive on testing the bounds of acceptability and indulging in deliberately outrageous jokes. Faced with the rise of a new totalitarianism from the Left, many young people across the political spectrum are beginning to converge on the new cultural libertarian consensus led by Milo Yiannopoulos. But not all young conservatives identify with this new cultural libertarian movement.

“I think Milo brings up a lot of valid issues, but I don’t see that as a very successful bipartisan way to run the Republican Party,” said Tyler Baum, a member of the Class of 2020 at Dartmouth College. “I see Milo’s approach as polarizing Americans more than they already are, which is exactly what the Left has done over the past 8 years with liberalism. I don’t

9

think Milo’s approach is the one we need to save conservatism.”

Many traditional conservatives have raised issues with Milo’s approach to political activism. Earlier this year, writers at National Review described cultural libertarianism and the views held by Yiannopoulos and those like him as “moral and intellectual rot.”

Yiannopoulos sees his noholds-barred approach as a method of fighting for cultural freedom, but many conservatives believe that it is an anti-intellectual philosophy that promotes overt racism under the façade of attacking political correctness.

Regardless, it seems clear that there is a schism within the ranks of the conservative movement. National figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Donald Trump have redefined conventional conservatism as an energetic, provocative, grassroots movement centered around free speech and cultural issues. The leaders of this movement are exciting and rebellious insofar as they represent a radical departure from the status quo. The popularity of Yiannopoulos and Trump should demonstrate to leaders of conservative movement that change is needed. The Dartmouth Review looks forward to a healthy and robust debate about the future of American conservatism.

A Discussion with Milo

Sandor Farkas Editor-in-Chief

The Dartmouth Review brought Breitbart diva and renegade journalist Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at Dartmouth to expose students to a viewpoint that was certain to challenge their worldviews. While many at The Review do not approve of Mr. Yiannopoulos, many were nonetheless eager for a chance to see the populist hothead get up on his soapbox and make a fool of himself. Others took the opportunity to challenge him and his dubiously libertarian ideology.

After the event had concluded, The Review and Dartmouth ’13 Alice Lloyd interviewed Yiannopoulos.

Alice Lloyd (AL): Did you know Andrew Breitbart? How do you think you would have gotten along with him?

Milo Yiannopoulos (MY): I never met him amazingly enough ‘cause I joined after he already died. I’d like to think he would very much enjoy what I am doing. I think he was just a hell raiser, a mischief maker, and making conservatism dangerous and fun and cool. I didn’t know very much about him when I joined ‘cause I joined the London satellite office in the UK, and I got swept into American culture and politics after that. I watched some of his college talks and it looks a little eerie. I never watched this guy but I would totally say [what he said] just like that. So yeah, I like to think we would have fun. People make very flattering comparisons and I have no basis to assess them and would never accept the compliment, but people have made nice comparisons.

AL: How disappointing is it that there aren’t protests today?

MY: I’ve noticed the strategy is changing, which is good, because it means I’m winning. There was pandemonium on the first two legs of my tour, and then they realized, “Well, we’re kind of proving his point for him, aren’t we?” Now they stay away or they have some sort of parallel event like a love/diversity fest. What it means is that while formally, half the room would be attentive and authoritative and anxious, and I would be giving a more traditional lecture, and all the energy and enthusiasm and power would be outside the room protesting, now it’s flipped, and I credit myself for at least some of this. What it means is libertarians and conservatives have been empowered, they have become bold, they’ve become brave, and

George Stanley Berlin A free speech activist.

Monday – November 7, 2016

Features

Features

Milo’s Visit to Dartmouth

The Dartmouth Review

Sandor Farkas is a senior at the College and the Editor-in-Chief of The Dartmouth Review.

they feel like the momentum is with them. I have a feeling that partly because of me, partly because of the Trump thing, social justice warriors in general got their spirits broken slightly. They seem to me to be exhausted and burnt out and they don’t have the energy for the protests anymore.

AL: But what if you hit the saturation point in offending people? Is that a concern?

MY: When I offend people, it’s a sort of a happy secondary effect of what I really have been able to do. I’m talking about the importance of free speech and free expression. One of the ways of demonstrating where the lines are drawn is showing people those lines and saying, “Look what you can’t say and look who gets mad when you say it. Look at the groups in society you are allowed to laugh at and look at who in society you are not allowed to laugh at. So rather than just talking about it, I go out to college campuses and demonstrate who you’re not allowed to laugh and who you are allowed to laugh at. You can say what the hell you want about straight white men… but about black women or transsexuals, that’s a problem. I’m demonstrating by doing and it’s a secondary consequence. If people get offended, good – I’m proving my point.

AL: So your popularity doesn’t depend on outrageous remarks?

MY: No, of course not. The holy grail is that I make myself redundant. The holy grail is that every kind of speech or idea is allowed in America on college campuses, and nobody ever complains, there are no safe spaces, no trigger warnings, none of that stuff.

I’ve become completely redundant and won my war and I can go do something else.

AL: And sexual politics are something that most people actually aren’t with, deep down. I think that’s a valid comparison.

Sort of fascinating, knowing how nontraditional you are.

MY: I think that’s a function of millennial culture Rejecting old social norms by the boatload of just throwing out speech codes, throwing all the schism between the old and the young millennials, you know 12-15-year-olds don’t like feminism at all. Older millennials my generation my age are the problem. They’re the bitter BuzzFeed bloggers.

They’re the problem age. Things are changing, and there’s a schism between old and young millennials.

The Dartmouth Review (TDR): Can you tell us what it means to

be a gay British catholic with a Greek and Jewish background?

MY: I prefer race-mixing k--e f----t. You can’t say that. I just don’t process the world that way I don’t give a s--t. I play with being gay because it’s funny and because it makes a point. I’m demonstrating how stupid it is that I can say things and you can’t just because I suck d--k.

That’s ridiculous that it’s ok for me to make jokes about gays and it’s not ok for you to make jokes about gays. This is so contrary to reason. If you are directly affected by decisions, you are the last person anyone should listen to.

If you are black and you say you have a grievance, it shouldn’t be black people who get to decide how the law changes should be everybody weighing the resources and costs to society. This is why I say diversity and inclusion departments should be rich old white men because they’re not in these groups and can argue dispassionately; if the stuff the progressives say is true, don’t you want people who are dispassionate, who are not affected by these issues, deciding how limited resources get divided up, or do you want survival of the loudest, where the black feminist contingent just yells more and nobody dares to go there because they don’t want to be called sexist, racist, or a monster, and so they just get everything they want? That’s not a world I want. I want a world ruled by reason and logic and discourse.

AL: When it comes to trolling, aren’t you concerned that millions of people are taking things totally seriously?

MY: No, I don’t think anyone is that dumb. The BBC asked me about this the other day. I meet thousands of people a week.

None of them are that dumb, and not just on college campuses… I just don’t believe that people can’t tell the difference between me making a joke on stage and seriousness. I have plenty of serious things – history, statistics, sociology – with comedy. I believe people are able to tell the difference.

TDR: You mention Alexis De Tocqueville, who really understood the tragedy of populism and how to format government to accommodate it. However, you’ve largely alienated other academic conservatives who follow in his tradition.

MY: Because they’re boring and ineffective. They were at their most influential five or ten years ago, when people were calling out for alternative, but all they had was Bill Kristol or Ben Shapiro. They’re not good enough, they’re boring and inconsequen-

tial and ineffective. All of their careers have been nuked by the Trump candidacy. One of the best affects of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has just turned them into jibbering idiots; people who hate him have lost their minds. They’re incapable of processing him with reason. They’re incapable of actually looking at the phenomenon honestly; all they want to do is to say he’s racist, sexist, etc. The reason this movement happened is that the left has been doing that for so long. I appreciate everything they say, and they’re right about almost everything, but they don’t have what it takes to take this fight to twenty year olds.

AL: Can we say that generally, there is a profound relationship with Trump support and “daddy issues?”

MY: I would love for there to more masculine role models. He is obviously an imperfect one, but at least he is one. There was this Atlantic article that Peter Thiel wrote; some people take Trump seriously, but not literally, and some take him literal-

ly, but not seriously. I think we should take him seriously, but not literally. Father figures are not supposed to be perfect. You know that the general trajectory is right and the confidence and aspiration in you is there. Being strong and protecting the family on your behalf: that’s what dads do. Do you love everything about your dad? No. Do you cringe sometimes when your dad speaks? Yes. That’s exactly how I feel about Donald Trump.

TDR: What does it mean to be Jewish?

MY: Not very much. I was raised catholic. I like to play with these things so I can demonstrate how stupid it is that some people can say certain things and others can’t. It has at least made me Jewish friends who have educated me on things like Israel.

I don’t take biographical things very seriously. I think they’re there for you play with. If you allow your race, gender, sexuality, or religious identity to start forming part of your personality, it’s evidence of an intellectual deficiency.

Donald J. trump reads the review. Make Dartmouth Great Again.

10 Monday – November 7, 2016

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TDR: What first got you interested in Classics, and particularly poetry and tragedy?

and Greek literature in general means something to you, is, or at least can be, an intellectually and emotionally engrossing, perhaps even soul-changing experience, that Greek pre-Platonic literature, quite possibly more than any other literature of any other cultural period has this intrinsic capacity to explore big questions about human life and human society and to convey to you a particular worldview, mentality, and conception of life.

In Greek culture before Plato, literature in general and tragedy in particular was the main medium of reflection, the main medium of exploration of the world and man’s place in it.

This is how Greeks asked big questions and tried to answer them. This notion is very alien to us. Today literature doesn’t really play this crucial role in society. If you want to answer big questions, then you either do science or you do philosophy or you study theology. Literature is something you read to be entertained; it’s not the medium of crucial intellectual, theological, philosophical debate. Now, in Greece before Plato this was the case. It was literature and poetry that asked big questions of all sorts about the gods and human responsibility, but also community and social life and politics. Poetry was also philosophy, and theology, and political science as it were. So there was a transition from philological interest in languages and respect for the text that I am trying to read to an intellectual discovery of the fascinating and challenging world of Greek literature, the world of ideas and, really, big,

ML: Well the remarkable thing about one’s professional career is that the reasons why you’re doing something might evolve over time, and frankly I think the reasons that drew me to Classics in the first place are not the reasons why I’m doing it now. I grew up in a literary family where almost everyone was either teaching literature or writing literature themselves, and I was – back then – very tired of people talking a lot about literature and poetry.

I wanted to do something different, something serious, and for me, studying Classics and learning ancient languages was something that I thought was much more serious and solid than just chatting about literature all the time. I was fascinated simply by this magical experience that you can learn a dead language, and, all of a sudden, you can read a page of Cicero or Sophocles or Tacitus in the original – and maybe just a page but this was still a magical experience. You can spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the sentence means exactly. Your ambition in the very beginning is not to say something very subtle and sophisticated about the text you are reading but to make sure you really understand MICHAEL lurie The Young Master of the Classics Department the construction of any given sentence: you understand why something is in genitive, why ture and culture that occurred about the world and myself something is infinitive, how it in Europe and the West for the and it can change the way we all fits. That trains you to look last five or six hundred years. understand the world we live at the text in a particular way: One answer that I can imag- in. And this slightly anti-modyou take each sentence very ine you’ll get very often to this ernist approach to antiquity is seriously. And I question is that something that I think can be loved it. I learned “All theories and ideas about Sophocles, it’s very important a powerful tool in your own Latin, and then I study ancient development but also in edufor example, are based on the seven plays to learned Greek, and Greek culture and cation. Very often we look for in the beginning I out of, say, 120. If we had another hun- antiquity in gener- things that we are familiar with really all I wanted dred, then quite possibly we would have al because it helps and that would reinforce our was to read and us understand the own values and beliefs. Studytranslate ancient to rewrite the history of Greek literature.” world we live in ing Classics in particular and texts. I was one better, because so studying literature in differof those students who would central questions. much of our world is informed ent cultures in general, but in say: before we start talking a by ancient culture. However, particular with ancient Greek lot about literary theory, let’s TDR: What impact do you the more interesting, other culture that is in many ways so really try and understand what think that the study of clas- way of looking at it is that in close to us and yet at the same exactly this text says. And very sics has on our interpretation many ways ancient Greek cul- time so profoundly different, often if you learn to look at of modernity? Aside from ture, while being foundational, can challenge your values and the text closely and translate that capacity, is the study of is also strikingly different from your ideas about the world. it properly, you can develop an Classics an intrinsic good? the modern world and that That is something that I think interesting interpretation out studying ancient Greek liter- is very valuable. the text itself, without relying ML: Well if I thought it wasn’t, I ature and philosophy will in too much on external theoret- wouldn’t be doing it. There are many ways challenge the way TDR: What lost work would ical models and that was very two ways of looking at that and we today see the world. That you most like to have back important for me. both are quite possibly valid. is a much more existential, if and why?

However, the more I got into One is to say that in many ways you will, approach to ancient Classics and the more I read, ancient culture in both Greece culture and literature and the ML: It’s a boring answer to a the more important the content and Rome is foundational for studying of Classics. I study fun question, but you see very has become. The ability to read the western tradition and soci- Classics not only because I often we forget that an enorancient texts in the original is ety, that so many things when want to know where democ- mous amount of stuff is lost. still very important to me, of you look around, when you racy comes from; or to know Sophocles wrote more than a course, and reading Sopho- use the words and think about why theatres everywhere in the hundred tragedies. We have cles and Plato in the original is anything from politics to the- world are shaped the way they just seven. And it’s exactly the still a magical experience, but atre – that all of it is in many are; or why we go to theatre same with Aeschylus and Euat the same time I’m general- ways is informed by ancient in the first place. But because ripides and many other ancient ly speaking driven by the idea culture and by the engagement studying ancient Greek litera- authors; the amount of Greek that reading Greek tragedy with Greek and Roman litera- ture challenges the way I think literature and poetry that is

Monday – November 7, 2016 11

Features

Great Professors of Dartmouth

> CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The Dartmouth Review

Michael Lurie: Classics

lost to us is staggering. So it’s very difficult to choose. If we could have another tragedy

by Sophocles – well as far as Greek Literature before Plato is concerned, then more tragedies would be great and quite possibly the interesting question there is to what extent a discovery of a new complete tragedy say by Aeschylus or Euripides or Sophocles would change our understanding of the genre and of the history of Greek culture of the period in general. Because all theories and ideas about Sophocles, for example, are based on the seven plays out of, say, 120. If we had another hundred, then quite possibly we would have to rewrite the history of Greek literature.

TDR: How does teaching Classics in the US compare to other places you’ve taught, in Europe and in Britain?

ML: Well it is very different.

Partly it has something to do with Dartmouth and our quarter system which makes everything very intensive and some of it has to do with American high school and just the American culture and educational system in general. I would like to mention two things and

they’re related to each other.

The one is that, generally speaking, students in Europe, both in continental Europe – say in Switzerland and Germany – and in Britain, they come to university knowing more, particularly about the subjects they want to study: in Germany and the UK you choose your major before coming to university and focus on it from the very beginning of your degree. However, the American students, or at least the Dartmouth students, have this amazing capacity to embrace and process, in an interesting and creative way, new material much faster than, say, European students would.

Everything that happens at Dartmouth happens within nine weeks. You come to class, and very often it is a topic that many students know very little about. So if you think of CLST 2: Tragedy & Comedy of Greece and Rome, there are many students who have never read tragedy before, never done Classics before, and they are confronted with a completely new world and new material, yet they have the capacity to learn very quickly: to figure out exactly what matters and to come up with interesting, creative ideas and questions and also work in a very short period of time. This is very impressive and this is a skill – or a set of skills – that European students generally speaking don’t have. The semesters are much longer; there are fewer deadlines; for everything, you have more time. This idea that I have nine weeks or I have a week and I have to come up with an essay and then write and submit it would be alien in many other places. For example, in Germany you submit your final paper after the end of the term. So there is the term and it is quite possibly twelve or thirteen weeks long, and you read and discuss and do presentations and read

many advantages because in a way you have more time and can engage more deeply, but it also means that the students in Germany, but also many students in Britain, would also not be able to cope with this pressure that within nine weeks I have to understand what it’s all about or I have to learn elementary Greek in nine weeks, and I have to do well. And the Dartmouth students are actually quite amazing at that. And my impression is – I always tell my colleagues that – if I had a Greek class, say Greek 24, and I told my students, “well your assignment for Monday is to translate this passage or this text from Japanese” and said, “well you have to translate it and this is 10% of the grade.”

The students will think I am insane and quite possibly curse me but they won’t even complain that much, they will just go home and say “well how much time do I have to learn bloody Japanese?” By Monday, they will be done; they will figure out how to translate this text from a language they have not learned. And they will do a very good job. That is an amazing skill that I think is very typical for Dartmouth and quite possibly for the American education system.

The other, related difference is that students in Europe are given much more time and space to work on their own. Each class that you take has fewer contact hours. And students are supposed to do much more independent study and work.

Which means that very often you don’t have a quiz, and you don’t have to tell the students what they have to do for tomorrow and the students can spend the afternoon reading and studying in the library because they know at some point they will have to write a paper or do a presentation and they will just work on it. That is not really the way Dartmouth works. If I want the students

and study and form your ideas about a particular topic or text or whatever it is. Then the term ends, and then you have another three weeks to write your paper. That is a completely different. It has also

to work for my class, I have to come up with an endless chain of small assignments and if I do so then the students will be great and will work very hard.

But if I just say, “you don’t have to do anything in particular for tomorrow and there will be no quiz, just go to the library and enjoy the beauty of Greek poetry,” because they’re so busy and the terms are so intensive, they will immediately shift focus to other courses where professors are more demanding and ask you to do some-

“American students, or at least the Dartmouth students, have this amazing capacity to embrace and process, in an interesting and creative way, new material much faster than, say, European students would.”

Messrs. Torsella and Frankel are sophomores at the College and Managing Editors at The Dartmouth Review. Mr. Lawhon is a sophomore at the College and Vice President of The Dartmouth Review.

thing every day, which means that each course has to come up with a chain of assignments and quizzes. Quite possibly it is similar to what you know from high school where you are told what you have to do every day.

You know: for tomorrow I have to do that, and Friday I have to do that, and Friday there’ll be a quiz, and Monday there’ll be another quiz. That I think is really different. I never in my life had to set so many quizzes as at Dartmouth. But I feel I have to because otherwise my wonderful students will be too busy to do work for me. That is potentially problematic; for in the worst case it might lead to a strange competition between courses because every professor, if they want their students to work for the class, has to give an endless chain of daily assignments. As a result, you have even less time to be independent or to study independently, and this is a vicious circle. So these are the two, quite possibly related ideas.

TDR: What’s your philosophy of teaching?

ML: What you wrote in The Dartmouth Review reflects many important aspects of it very well. Normally it’s petrifying to see what students write about you. We’re all delighted, of course, to hear that students like our courses, but they can like your courses for different reasons, and it’s important to me that students understand what I am trying to do and like my courses for the right reasons. I do think that studying Classics ultimately is about intellectual discovery and exploration of the world we live in and about developing your abilities to think critically and to think about the world you live in critically, independently, and quite possibly in a more creative and sophisticated way than you are used to. So at the heart of my teaching philosophy is the question how I can get students to engage with what I teach and the texts and the ideas and the questions that we explore seriously and creatively, in a way that will ultimately, maybe, change their perspective and increase their capacity for critical thought.

That is basically it.

My teaching is also very much informed by a particular notion of liberal arts education that Dartmouth is historically grounded in and that I feel many students coming to Dartmouth don’t understand any longer: the very idea is that you can study ancient Greek or art history or philosophy or whatever it is, and that will prepare you to embark on any walk of life, that if you come to Dartmouth you come here not to do vocational training

and to take endless courses on economics and government because you think that this is what will get you a job. But it is ultimately the study of Classics that can get you a job.

And I believe in that still very strongly. So the courses I teach are designed – or I try to de-

can achieve that in class is a different matter.

My job is not to make students like me or take my courses at any cost, but to make them think, and engage with interesting texts and ideas in a meaningful way. The ambition is rather to design and struc-

sign them – in such a way that they will open horizons and make students think critically, whether it’s Greek tragedy or intellectual history or whatever it is. So that by the end of their time at Dartmouth they look back and say, “well in a way it changed me,” not in the sense that I got indoctrinated by a particularly ideology, but because I understand so much better the place I live in and my own culture and history. How do you do that? That is a big challenge I think, and each course and each group of students require a different approach. You see, very often it’s not really about ‘teaching philosophy’ because when we talk about teaching philosophy we all say the right things. The trick is whether you can actually find a way of doing it successfully. You can ask anyone “what is your teaching philosophy; what do you think liberal arts is about?” Everyone will come up with beautiful, right, correct answers. Whether you

ture courses in such a way that by the end of the course, and quite possibly only by the end of the course, the student looks back and thinks “wow this was actually a meaningful experience; I really learned something.” Not only that you enjoy class on a daily basis and have fun working on the things we work on but look back and think “well, it all makes sense now.” And very often a good, intellectually coherent course only really makes sense at the very end. The measure of real success is perhaps if a year, or two years from now the students still remember the course they took with you and it still means something to them. And if the course turns out to be just the beginning of a conversation or thought process that will then continue through other courses and through discussions and readings and with other professors, perhaps even after you left Dartmouth, then I think I did a good job.

“The ambition is rather to design and structure courses in such a way that by the end of the course, and quite possibly only by the end of the course, the student looks back and thinks ‘Wow, this was actually a meaningful experience; I really learned something.’”

SOPHOCLES One of the three great ancient Greek tragedians

12 Monday – November 7, 2016

The Dartmouth Review

The Last word Gordon Haff’s

Compiled By Marcus J Thompson

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

-Soren Kierkegaard

“You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.”

-Epictetus

“According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.”

-G.K. Chesterton

“God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.”

-Niccolo Machiavelli

“What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.”

-Madeleine K. Albright “You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.”

-Leo Tolstoy “You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.”

-Sam Harris “The sin both of men and of angels, was rendered possible by the fact that God gave us free will.”

-C.S. Lewis “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.”

-Henry David Thoreau “The mother of goodwill is freewill, if untainted by evil.”

-Christian Hunt

“A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.”

-Thomas Aquinas “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”

-Franklin Delano Roosevelt “Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

-William Jennings Bryan “Given a choice between their worldview and the facts, it’s always interesting how many people toss the facts.”

-Rebecca Solnit “Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”

-Aristotle “I think the American people should express their preferences, and we’ll accept their choice.”

-Vladimir Putin

BArrett’s mixology

Locker Room Talk Ingredients

• Hurt Feelings • Moral Superiority • High Horses

She used to be great. She’s still ver y cunning. I moved on her, actually.

You know, she was down in Foggy Bottom. I moved on her, and I failed.

I’ll admit it. I did tr y and indict her. She was married (to a powerful man). I moved on her ver y heavily. In fact, I put her under subpoena and cross examined her for hours. She wanted to get a private ser ver. I said, “I’ll show you what should happen to those who store secrets on private ser vers.” I moved on her like a b****. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married to a former president. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony stor y and ever ything. She’s totally changed her stor y.

I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start yelling at her. You know, I’m automatically repulsed by corruption – I just start yelling. It’s like a magnet. Just yelling. I don’t even wait. But because she’s a star, they let her do it. It’s like she can do anything.

Indict her by the pantsuit.

— Atticus G. Weyman

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.”

-Aeschylus “Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.”

-Oscar Wilde “What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.”

-Ronald Reagan “The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!”

-Dwight D. Eisenhower “Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman’s truncheon over the anarchist’s bomb.”

-Spiro T. Agnew “I will offer a choice, not an echo.”

-Barry Goldwater

“A society that thinks the choice between ways of living is just a choice between equally eligible ‘lifestyles’ turns universities into academic cafeterias offering junk food for the mind.”

-George Will “If you don’t like the Greek system just don’t participate” -Dartmouth ‘20

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