A Place for All (those who agree with me)

I read a few articles this week about San Francisco, where some now wish to boycott all firms associated with the border wall. The justification for this is that these companies’ actions would be divisive and not in accordance with San Francisco’s values, “basic principles of compassion and dedication to human rights.” Which sounds very nice, but I have a couple of problems with it.

First of all, I fail to see what makes San Francisco so compassionate. Are we now imputing values to a city? A city with a murder rate, rape rate, burglary rate, and so on? Obviously, the entire city isn’t pristine, nor is every individual in the city. What we’re really talking about is the opinion of the group of people pushing the legislation – and I’m not sure why their interpretation of these values takes precedence over everyone else’s.

Secondly, why is a border wall a rejection of compassion or human rights? It’s a security measure. Are metal detectors in stores a rejection of compassion and human rights? I mean, yeah, it displays a certain level of cynicism, and we can discuss whether it’s a good policy measure, but in no way does it seem blatantly immoral to me. I grew up nearly 200 miles from the border, and we still had problems with illegal immigrants trespassing on people’s property. Now, we can argue over immigration laws at a later date, but it in no way seems wrong to me to enforce the laws that we have – and no one can do that but the government; it’s not like private charity and “compassion” can solve this particular problem.

But honestly, that’s not what really bothers me about this article. There seems to be a much more glaring problem here. That is, these people have decided that their city will not do business with those who violate their moral code. Now, I take some issue with this because I’m not sure a city, as a public institution, should be deciding what morality is. But my larger issue is that this seems to be an even stronger version of the same argument made by some Christians who don’t wish to participate professionally in gay weddings or provide their employees contraceptives and abortion services.

Except that when the Christians (Evangelical and Catholic) do this, they are prejudiced and intolerant, and when the people of San Francisco do it, they are heroic and progressive. Now, when the exact same argument is accepted for one group of people and rejected for another, I think we have license to assume that what is at stake is not the argument itself; the decision has been made in a backwards manner, before the discussion even starts. And the divide seems to be that whoever agrees with the people in charge has the right to act and do business according to his beliefs, and whoever does not agree with the people in charge does not have that right. And this trend, if it’s allowed to get very far, becomes very disturbing.

So much for the West Coast; let’s go east. Last year (right before finals period), I and the rest of Harvard received an email from Drew Faust, Harvard’s president, concerning single-gender social organizations. The email stated that such organizations encouraged practices that were “unwise” and “unenlightened,” and worked against “core institutional values.” Thus, anyone participating in such a group (in Greek life or various other groups) can no longer hold leadership positions in recognized college groups or athletic teams, and cannot receive endorsement for fellowships.

This is upsetting for a lot of reasons. First, it is a clear instance of social engineering; the move is described as “culture change.” The leadership of Harvard has decided that it doesn’t like the morals of its students, and has decided to leverage its control over their resumes to change this. Because apparently, despite being adults in an institution designed to help us forge our own paths and discover new ways of thinking, we can still be penalized for hanging out with the wrong friends. It’s also funny that the Harvard community’s values apparently clash with those of a significant number of students, those by whom these social organizations “are comprised principally, if not exclusively.”

Saint Augustine wrote that for years he prayed “Lord, make me chaste,” then secretly added “but not yet.” I would submit that today we declare “we welcome everyone,” then secretly add “but not them.” This coercion of values is especially disturbing when the only values that anyone seems to care about are “tolerance” and “non-discrimination” – which are not even virtue proper; they are conventions, or very particular applications of other virtues. In the articles and the email, these words came up over and over and over and over again as “core values.” No other values merited a mention: truth, integrity, honor, charity, hope, prudence, temperance, justice – all forgotten.

Our country was founded in the belief that freedom of thought, respect for others, and respect for the free exchange of ideas are not worth giving up in the name of comfort or security. Are we now willing to give these things up in the name of tolerance that only extends to those who agree with whoever is making the rules – in other words, tolerance in name only?

“The Wall, US border, separating Mexico from the US, looking east, along Highway 2, Sonora Desert, Mexican side” by Wonderlane is licensed under CC BY 2.0