For the first time in a long time, I'm angry. I can put up with die-ins at the bus stop, with Curriculum 2000, even with Larry Moneta. But when protestors took over a Duke Student Government meeting earlier this month, that was it. I'm sorry I'm so late to write about this, but it's not the particulars of the situation that bother me. I don't really give a damn about the sanctity of DSG - I think something a lot bigger is at stake.
Here's why: Everyone - every citizen, every student at Duke - has implicitly agreed to a contract. It binds each of us, from the president on down, and it's the key to a democracy. The contract says that, in making our decisions, we all agree to abstain from force. Disputes have to be settled by the quality of our arguments alone; when we reach a decision, the losing side can't try to beat up or shout down the winners.
A system like that is so valuable because it protects the weak, the people who can't come up with catchy chants or flashy posters, who only have their arguments. Only when the contract is in force can you even hope to win a debate on substance rather than strength.
But the contract is also incredibly fragile. If anyone decides to break it, you can't do anything about it without breaking it yourself. If my faction loses a vote, but we decide to start shouting until we get our way, you can't politely ask us to stop - you have to shout louder or drag us out of the room. So the contract depends on the goodwill of everybody, and that's why democracies are so rare in the broad scope of history.
A physical protest breaks the contract, because a protest is a show of force. All protests operate on this principle, even those, like the DSG takeover, that don't actually hurt anybody. The implicit message is always the same: "Look at how many of us there are. Look at how loud we're willing to shout. Look at what we're willing to interrupt."
Do you doubt it? Then ask yourself what new arguments a protest adds to a debate. No one protests if they can win in the usual channels of debate - you only start protesting once you've lost. The message: "Didn't like our argument? Well, here it is again, in chant form."
Please, I don't want letters saying I'm killing anybody's free speech. You can protest whenever you want. That doesn't mean you should.
That's because protests are a last resort: They're only legitimate when the usual channels break down, when someone else breaks the contract. If your ideas aren't allowed in print, if you don't have a vote, if you live in a dictatorship - then by all means, pick up a placard. The civil rights protests of the 60s were legitimate because blacks in the South didn't otherwise have a voice.
But both sides have a voice today. Our newspapers have already accumulated miles of antiwar column space, much of it right here in The Chronicle. On TV, you can hear the likes of Chris Matthews calling Iraq "the next Bay of Pigs." We have five antiwar presidential candidates.
Yet, somehow, that's not enough debate. Another group of protestors, the ones who blocked Chapel Drive last week, said the following on this page Friday: "If our administration has taken from us the possibility of effectively voicing our dissent within the institutions, our bodies testify to our dissent and our claim to an alternative democratic political space." Sorry, ladies and gents, but it's just not true. Your arguments have been heard, weighed and rejected. The only thing "ineffective" about them was their failure to convince anybody. Don't flatter yourselves that disagreement equals suppression.
The point is that we, as a nation and as a campus, argued and argued and eventually came to a conclusion. The evidence of that decision? Public approval of the war rising steadily for nearly a year. A Congress that voted for the war, went up for reelection and then got reelected. And so on. If that's not democracy in action, I don't know what is.
Now, the endorsement of democracy doesn't make war right. Of course we have a flawed system - but we do have the system most likely to get things right ever invented. It'd be great if someone came up with an even better replacement, but seeing which side can generate the most decibels isn't it.
You ignore these facts and turn to force only when you're convinced you have the absolute truth. The problem is that people who think they do don't work well in a democracy. The closest thing we'll ever have to truth is the combined result of all our debating. To accept that result, we have to accept our own fallibility and abide by the contract. The only way to the truth is through argument and persuasion.
So why am I so angry at the DSG takeover? I'm angry because I am weak. Give me a chance to speak or to write - to participate in the debate that DSG oversees - and I can persuade you of any number of things. But I'll never be able to force you to do anything. How many of you reading this are like me? How many of you are shut up whenever our debate is forced shut? The protestors who took over DSG were not peace marching against war. They were force marching against persuasion.
Those protestors had four chants prepared and practiced. One of them was "Listen to the people!"
Yes - listen to the people. And listen to their democracy, straining at its anchor. We hardly ever realize how contrary the system we've built here runs to human nature. But in a sea of brute force, stretching for centuries in either direction, we've come to rest on an island where force matters less than it ever has before. Nobody knows how long the anchor will hold. But whenever anybody decides he's too good for democracy, we come a step closer to finding out.
Rob Goodman is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every other Tuesday.
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