Use intellectual diversity in clash of political ideas
Being new to Eugene and the University, this is my first political season here. Having spent 13 of the last 27 years abroad, I have lived on both coasts of the United States, and in six countries on three continents overseas, but I have never lived in a more culturally and ethnically homogeneous (i.e. white) community than this one. Nor have I ever lived in one that talks more often or more loudly about diversity!
The cultural and ethnic diversity that so many on this campus claim to cherish is, conveniently, exactly the kind of diversity that you will never actually have to face as long as you stay in Eugene. Meanwhile, the diversity that you do have the opportunity to engage with on a daily basis, intellectual diversity, seems to terrify you so much that most of you can find no better response than to retreat to the knee-jerk reactions of all bigots (liberal or conservative): mockery, derision and intimidation.
The next time you meet a person with a Bush/Cheney button on their backpack, try something new: Rather than mocking them, offer to buy them a cup of coffee and try to engage in a civil and rational exchange of ideas — no campaign slogans allowed. While it may be that no one’s vote will be changed, at least you’ll finally have an opportunity to put that highly vaunted appreciation for diversity into practice, and if you do it with honesty
and sincerity, that can only be a
good thing.
Paul Tucker
Eugene