As the summer in Washington, D.C., revealed leaders acting ever more stubborn and childish, thank goodness, at least, that we at Brown know how to be adults. Even at a school where the student body is, admittedly, a bit one-sided in its political leanings, we spend our four years here buffeted by diverse opinions from all sides. Be it a speaker at an overflowing Janus Forum event, a professor or classmate in discussion section, or a friend (maybe one of those rare Republicans!) in the Sharpe Refectory, there is no shortage of people who both disagree with us and are willing to argue the point. Brown justly celebrates the debate and discourse that characterize our campus: In her welcome to the class of 2014, President Ruth Simmons encouraged students to practice open-mindedness, lauding "the diversity of thought that we believe so vital to your education." By the time we graduate, we are ready to go off and be responsible, respectful citizens of our community, nation and world.
It would be a shame, then, if someone managed to obtain a Brown degree with their ideological blinders intact, in the habit of caricaturing and dismissing anyone who disagreed with them, making superficial arguments with no sense of the importance of defending their opinions. Unfortunately, in May, at least one person — I pray only one — managed to do just that. Allow me to introduce Arianna Huffington, CEO of the Huffington Post and, as of 2011, proud holder of an honorary degree from our august institution. For the five of you reading this who have never encountered the Huffington Post, the site is an amalgam of political news, celebrity nip-slips and lefty opinion — a cross between tabloid journalism and MoveOn.org, masquerading as the next New York Times. To give you a feel for the site's frenetic, sensational tone, I offer an example headline: "GOP candidates step into a minefield," accompanied by a giant, unflattering picture of Michele Bachmann superimposed onto a high voltage sign.
This tone — alarmingly strident, superficial, devoid of nuance — permeates Huffington's site, if not her entire worldview. One need only glance at the title of her most recent book, "Right is Wrong," for an example of the type of attitude that has led to the gridlock and bickering that characterize contemporary politics. Dismissing 50 percent of the population as straight-up incorrect precludes any potential for constructive debate. On the other hand, it's a great way to sell ads and attract left-wing viewers, just like a list of the "10 Biggest Sarah Palin Conspiracies" or an exclusive Huffington Post Report titled "The GOP's Sin City." Fair and balanced this ain't.
Unfortunately, the type of news-opinion combination that the Huffington Post epitomizes so well foreshadows a political sphere where, more and more, we engage only with other people who share our worldview. One writer in the New Republic perhaps said it best in calling the site "glitzy edification for the progressive congregation." The political slant of the site is unabashed, and the army of bloggers in Huffington's employ disagree only over, for example, exactly how insane Republicans are. Over in the "news" section of the site, stories of Republican insanity are often featured prominently and disproportionately. When your news is filtered through an echo chamber of people with whom you already agree, you become less and less inclined to seek common ground with the variety of people with whom you don't. Instead, you think with Huffingtonian clarity: Right is wrong, and I am right. While such a mindset might make for extremely confident ideologues, it leads also to a polarized, atomized society where any agreement on, and action towards, political change becomes more and more impossible.
It's curious that a school whose mission proudly proclaims its commitment to "discovering, communicating and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry" would single out for high honor a woman whose website represents — and is driving — the ever-cheapening of our country's political debate. And it's too bad that Huffington got her Brown degree without ever taking a Brown class or spending time with Brown students. Disregarding a few regrettable pie-throwing incidents, people here have an admirable willingness to listen to John Yoo or read Ayn Rand and consider their ideas with the same open-mindedness and respect that we would accord their more left-leaning counterparts. By the time we graduate, our classes and our peers have given us intimate encounters with a broad spectrum of ideas, and we've forged our own opinions in the fire of a robust debate. These, not the Huffington Post's tabloid-y and partisan approach, are the values that Brown ought to celebrate and reward in the people to whom it grants degrees.
Reuben Henriques '12 is a political science concentrator from Madison, Wis. He can be reached at reuben_henriques@brown.edu.
