LETTERS
Illiberalism
"If any educational institution should bring people together as individuals in friendly and civil association, it should be the university. But the fragmentation of campuses in recent years into a multitude of ethnic organizations is spectacular and disconcerting."
Are these the words of "the managing editor of the Conservative Heritage Foundation's Quarterly Policy Review, (one who spent) two years in the Reagan White House ... a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank" or (horrors) a former editor of The Dartmouth Review?
No. These are the words of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a former special White House advisor to President Kennedy, an avowed liberal, and eminent American historian and scholar.
Reread Timothy Burger's article on Dinesh D'Souza '83 in the Summer issue, and then go on to read Schlesinger's "The Disuniting of America," and you will see they are saying the same things. You will then realize that the ethnic crises on college campuses and in American society in general are not a political conservative or liberal—issue. They are real threats to us all.
Sometimes, salient points become obfuscated by the kind of garbage growing out of The Dartmouth Review and its adversaries. For instance, early in the game, The Dartmouth Review disclosed a survey which among other things reported that only 52 percent of the then Dartmouth undergraduates could name three of the five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Throw out The Dartmouth Review, if you will, but what is the answer to that shocking statistic?
It's time to depoliticize the issues and get to the heart of our problems.
Speaking of depoliticizing, Robert Sullivan's diatribe in the same issue doesn't help. In the words of one of my professors when I was an undergraduate, his is a constipation of thought and a diarrhea of words.
Montgomery, Alabama
Haven't you carried affirmative action too far? You have presented a fullcolor photograph and many pages of biography of a young man whose major accomplishment to date has been to write hate literature and to create divisiveness. If Dinesh D'Souza weren't a member of a minority, would you take him so seriously?
See your essay, page 20: "I felt a sense of confusion and of loss. I looked around me and saw the smug faces of white kids and felt bitterness and hostility." Why? A subject of which he knew nothing had been mentioned. He had chosen to go to college in a foreign culture. He could expect to be puzzled daily due to the strangeness of his studies and surroundings. The bitterness and hostility were therefore without justification; but they continue to this day.
The New Yorker of May 20, 1991, presents a dispassionate review of D.D.'s latest. "Toward the end of his article the reviewer says, "It is not pleasant to see a man who did so much to poison the wells now turning up dressed as the water commissioner, and it will be apparent to most people who read Illiberal Education that the book's promise of balance is a false one. For D'Souza is as committed to having his facts support his convictions as are any of the academic politicians he inveighs against."
Surely you can find more worthwhile material to put into the Sibley Magazine of the Year.
Brewster, Massachusetts
The article by Timothy J. Burger '88 encouraged me to read Illiberal Education. It provoked distressing concern about education at Dartmouth. Such concern is a matter of reading competence, not politics. Simply stated, is D'Souza able to understand what he reads?
For example, in the chapter, "Travels with Rigoberta: Multiculturalism at Stanford," he describes I, RigobertaManchu as being "transcribed and translated" by Elizabeth Burgo-Debray. The tide page of the English edition of the book (the original is in Spanish) states clearly that the translation is by Ann Wright. Then, in part of his attempt to summarize the book, D'Souza states that "her parents are killed for unspecified reasons in a bloody massacre, reportedly carried out by the Guatemalan army..." In fact, Rigoberta's parents were killed in separate incidents, at different times and places, and their deaths are related in separate chapters. Finally, almost immediately after noting that one chapter bears the title "Rigoberta Decides to Learn Spanish," D'Souza argues: "She rebels against Europeanized Latino culture in all its manifestations." Learning Spanish is an odd way to rebel against things European. Unless, of course, D'Souza, a fierce defender of Western culture, managed to receive a B.A. from Dartmouth while believing Spanish is not a European language. Presumably, then, he may also think Christianity is not a Western religion, since Rigoberta is a practicing Catholic.
Although such an ability to misread may have been a useful qualification for being a member of President Reagan's White House staff, it should be an embarrassment to Dartmouth.
Baltimore, Maryland
DINESH D'SOUZA '83 REPLIES:
I appreciate Robert Weil's observations. Charles Armes's presumptions reveal the extent to which some people will apply the stigma of affirmative action to all persons of color, whether or not we benefit from specific racial-preference programs. Moreover, given the tone of his letter, he is hardly one to complain about bitterness. As for me, I am hardly sulking. My book IlliberalEducation has been 15 weeks on The New York Times's bestseller list, as of this writing, and it has garnered favorable reviews across the political spectrum, including from Yale historian C. Vann Woodward in The New York Review of Books and Marxist Professor of Afro-American Studies Eugene Genovese in The New Republic. I'll take their scholarship over Armes's prejudices any day. John Sinnigen incorrectly spells the tide of the book he is writing about, I, Rigoberta Menchu, as well as the name of the translator-editor Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, so his complaints about veracity are not off to a good start. His letter is filled with non sequitors. My account of the death of Rigoberta's parents is entirely accurate, and not inconsistent with them being killed in separate incidents, or this being reported in separate chapters. Rigoberta explicidy says that she learns Spanish, the language of the European oppressor, in order to use the weapons of the conqueror as a tool of the revolution. Thus her rejection of European values is total, and her adoption of Spanish avowedly strategic. Finally Rigoberta rejects the Catholicism of Pope John Paul II and the Vatican in favor of a liberation theology heavily infused with Marxist and socialist dogma. Since she is a self-styled revolutionary, she would no doubt be embarrassed by the conformism of Sinnigen's label "practicing Catholic." My complaint, of course, is not with Rigoberta's ideological zeal but with Stanford's judgement in elevating her to the curricular status of Plato, Locke, and Machiavelli. Once again, the incivility and humorlessness of Sinnigen's tone is striking, raising the question of why the issues raised by Illiberal Education cannot be debated by some people in a candid and yet gentlemanly manner.
Ox Gourd
I recently read a fragment of your interview with Dinesh D'Souza in the Summer issue. While appalled as I have always been by his errant pedantry, I am particularly concerned by his gross inaccuracy regarding the Jack-O-Lantern parody of The Dartmouth Review, which was published during our undergraduate days.
I was editor of the Jacko at the time. Air. D'Souza claims that "some of the Review editors worked on that issue," and that a "temperamental affiliation" was shared by the two publications.
The first contention is a lie; the second, yet another indication that the Review and its ideological brigands harbor delusions of humor. My anger would prompt a longer response, were it not for my abhorrence at the inordinate amount of time that the conservative brat-pack has already taken from the honest, ongoing debate that must take place between right and left.
Truth is a small thing, for Mr. D'Souza and his ilk, but there are those of us who love it.
San Francisco, California
Baudy Language
I just received the September 1991 Alumni Magazine with the article "Electric Body Language" in it. Of course, if you had e-mailed it, I'd have had it much sooner.
Dartmouth's e-mail connectivity has opened up many convenient opportunities, and I have taken advantage of it in several ways: keeping in touch with friends on campus, arranging a visit by Anthropology Professor Dale Eickelman '64 to the Dartmouth Club of Nashua's annual dinner, exchanging ideas with officers of other alumni clubs, and even sending a note or two to some of my favorite professors! And now I wonder: is this the first e-mail letter to the editor?
I'd like to point out one minor error in the article. The e-mail "smiley" symbol and the variations on it that you listed weren't developed in Kiewit. They've been in common use on the Internet for years, and it is doubtful that anyone can pinpoint their origin.
On the other hand, Dartmouth may very well be the birthplace of e-mail itself. I recall a conversation I once had with President John Kemeny, in which he said that he believed that in the early days of the Dartmouth Time Sharing System a resourceful undergraduate discovered that his girlfriend at another school had access to Kiewit, so they started leaving notes for each other in special files in order to save on their long-distance phone bills!
Lowell, Massachusetts rschwartz@ofScewang.com
Your article on e-mail Couldn't have been better timed. I've just started supporting computer users at the RAND Corporation, where we use e-mail heavily. I thought you might be interested in a somewhat expanded version of e-mail faces that circulated here recently. Unfortunately, I can't claim creative title to any of this material.
:-c Real unhappy :-C Just totally unbelieving :-, Smirk :-r Sticking tongue out :-( Frowning ;-) Sardonic incredulity % - Drunk with laughter :-x Kiss kiss :-# My lips are sealed :-P Tongue hanging out in anticipation &-I Tearful "Hmmmm."
Thanks for a good read and the update on what Dartmouth students really do with their Macs.
Santa Monica, California Nathan_Gilliatt@rand.org
I just finished reading your insightful article on Blitz Mail at Dartmouth. Having just moved to the University of Virginia, I spent the first few months suffering from blitz withdrawal. Now that I've finally discovered the University's e-mail secrets, I no longer feel so isolated. Of course, I spend most of my time blitzing friends at Dartmouth, who are probably dismayed to discover that they are not yet free of me, electronically speaking. BlitzMail has reacquainted me with the art of the note something I practiced avidly in high school, passing little bits of paper around the room to communicate information that couldn't possibly wait until the bell rang. It has been a delightful revelation.
Charlottesville, Virginia bab7g@virginia.edu
The three letters above appeared magically on a delighted editor's computer. No,they're not the first electronic letters to theeditor; a few technologically oriented alumnihave e-mailed letters to us in the past. Ifyou're similarly inclined, you may send messages to jay.heinrichs@dartmouth.edu. Ifyou're not so inclined, and are thoroughlyconfused by Mr. Gillian's e-mail faces, tryturning the page sideways.
Slice of Ham
As an alumnus who has been making an annual trek to the College Grant since before Nelson Ham's arrival on the scene, I was delighted to read the story about him in the September issue ["The Gatekeeper"] and have sent copies to various family members who have accompanied me over the years.
I'd like to add two revealing anecdotes about Nelson.
Seven or eight years ago, Sarah (aged approximately two) left her favorite doll under a bunk in the Hell Gate Hilton. The loss was discovered after we had left the cabin and were close to the gate, and little Sarah was dreadfully upset. Nelson comforted her and assured her that he would retrieve the doll. He did so and it arrived shortly in a neat package addressed to Sarah.
The summer before last, two daughters and I found on arrival at the Hell Gate Hilton rather late in the day that the botded gas supply was exhausted. The river was in spate, necessitating the use of a boat (the old pedestrian suspension bridge having been taken out by the ice). I drove off to the gate, and Nelson followed me back (a half-hour's trip) and installed a new tank and then stayed for dinner although he would not join us in a drink, being an ardent teetotaler. We discussed a number of topics. As the editors of this journal may know from my prior correspondence, I am far from a raging liberal; but we found Nelson's political views were rather to the right of William McKinley's (assuming they were indeed his views). However, he presented his position in so whimsical, charming, and even diffident a posture that he would not have alienated the most militant and trendy liberal. (Robert Sullivan and some of The Dartmouth Review editors take note!)
Although I did not have the good fortune to run into Nelson this summer, I hope to do so in future years as he wanders about the Grant thinking deep thoughts and doing good deeds.
Fairfield, Connecticut
Dead Tribe
Mr. Robert Sullivan '75 has written a self-described "diatribe" against the loyal alumni who wish to keep the old traditions, ideals, and objectives.
He is right, of course the Tribe is dead.
Kansas City, Missouri
Ear Shot
Correction needed on the photo caption, page 45, the summer issue: Jim Lyall's ear may be visible just behind his wife, but the man in the center of the picture is Si Leach '31.
Green Farms, Connecticut
