{"id":2907,"date":"2014-11-19T14:46:06","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T14:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/?p=2907"},"modified":"2014-11-19T15:28:38","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T15:28:38","slug":"students-bring-conservative-voice-fieldston-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/2014\/11\/students-bring-conservative-voice-fieldston-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Bring Conservative Voice to Fieldston Community"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andrew<\/a>
Andrew Langer speaks at November 6th’s Conservative Theory Assembly. Photo by David Fishman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was no surprise that every student interviewed for the video of the November 16 assembly on Conservative Theory self-identified as a Democrat. Here at Fieldston, while we strive to foster a diverse community and in many ways succeed in doing so, political viewpoints remain relatively homogenous.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of Fieldston families are registered Democrats. Our assemblies often present controversial subjects through a progressive lens, and despite the politically neutral stance most teachers seek to embody, liberalism undoubtedly seeps into the classroom.<\/p>\n

The liberal voice rings so loudly that conservative perspectives most often play a meager role in the conversation at best. The speakers at the Conservative Theory assembly made no point of selling Republican views or of discrediting liberal ideals. They did, however, raise several questions worth pondering.<\/p>\n

The first to speak, Sam Appel (Form V), began by presenting statistics on the demographics and beliefs of both the Republican and Democratic parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot make the mistake of thinking that all Republicans are old, religious, white guys and Democrats are young, not so religious, not so white women,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sam explained that while men comprise 90% of Republican representatives, women only comprise 24% of Democrats. 90% of Republicans are also white, a statistic not radically disparate from the 74% of Democrats who are white. 60% of Republicans are creationists, but so are 40% of Democrats, and while only 40% of Republicans endorse marriage equality, only 69% of Democrats do the same. Sam acknowledged that these differences are significant, but also pointed out that neither party is monolithic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we criticize the gender gap in representation and the racial gap in representation, and anachronistic beliefs,\u201d Sam said, \u201cwe must realize that both parties possess these faults.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam concluded by drawing an analogy between feminism and conservatism.<\/p>\n

One of last spring\u2019s \u201cI need feminism because\u2026\u201d photographs, he told us, stated: \u201cI need feminism because if we only listen to half of the world\u2019s people, it\u2019s going to take twice as long to have flying cars.\u201d Sam argued that the same applies to conservatism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we roll our eyes or change the channel every time a Republican or conservative speaks on TV or at Fieldston,\u201d he said, \u201cthen we are ignoring half the world\u2019s population and it is going to take twice as long to have flying cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

A member of the Fieldston class of 1989, the assembly\u2019s guest speaker Andrew Langer proceeded to talk about his personal political views, his thinking regarding the tackling of challenging dialogues, and his work at the Institute for Liberty (IFL), where he has served as president since 2008.<\/p>\n

IFL, as stated on its website, works to be \u201can aggressive defender of the rights of individuals to pursue the American dream\u2026[by] pushing back against the expansion of the state.\u201d The organization engages in a variety of political issues, including promoting small businesses, protecting capitalist ideals, and preserving free speech. Langer identifies as \u201c\u2019a small \u2018l\u2019 libertarian\u2019 as opposed to a traditional conservative\u201d and characterized his voting approach to be one where he supports candidates with whom he shares political philosophy, not party affiliation.<\/p>\n

More than anything, Langer used his time at Fieldston to emphasize the power and urgency of dialogues across competing views, and to encourage us to look beyond party walls and to understand the profound similarities even the most lefty progressive and traditional conservative share.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of real problems to solve,\u201d Langer said, \u201c[and] we are all facing the same threats. The only way we are going to solve these problems is if we have these discussions and find common ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Common ground is at the core of what Langer seeks to facilitate through his work at IFL.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to stop thinking about things in terms of Republican and Democrat,\u201d he said. \u201cI hate to tell you, but both major political parties are dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

This assertion grows from Langer\u2019s belief that the current tragedy of policymakers lies in the steadfastness of their given viewpoints, as it inhibits their ability to find common ground. The Republican and Democratic parties are doomed, he said, \u201cbecause they are so entrenched and so statist that there is no opportunity for real dialogue and discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

This assembly voiced a frequently silenced set of perspectives and raised the question, is there an \u201copportunity for real dialogue and discussion\u201d at Fieldston? While classrooms flourish with rich and sometimes heated debate on many issues, the fact of the matter is that with such a limited sampling of conservative views, it becomes difficult to engage in robust ideological cross-pollination.<\/p>\n

We do not often think of political opinion as a facet of diversity that should be considered by the admissions office. However, Langer cogently presented the benefit of having a variety of viewpoints in the room. Ideological diversity might enable a greater level of challenge, exchange, and learning. Perhaps it\u2019s time to broaden our definition of what it means to be a diverse community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was no surprise that every student interviewed for the video of the November 16 assembly on Conservative Theory self-identified as a Democrat. Here at Fieldston, while we strive to foster a diverse community and in many ways succeed in doing so, political viewpoints remain relatively homogenous. The vast majority of Fieldston families are registered Democrats. Our assemblies often present controversial subjects through a progressive lens, and despite the politically neutral stance most teachers seek<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[180,179,178,181,141,135],"coauthors":[90],"class_list":["post-2907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider","tag-alumni","tag-andrew-langer","tag-assembly","tag-conservativism","tag-ecfs","tag-fieldston"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Screen-Shot-2014-11-19-at-9.17.34-AM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2910,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907\/revisions\/2910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2907"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}