I am writing in response to a recent article, “A Response to ‘Looking Forward to a Progressive Future,’” and the effects it has had. The response to this article shows us that we are currently witnessing the death of diversity—of thought.
Today we find this in the media, in The Heights, and at BC. The writer of this article, a fellow student who will not be named because she was already publicly attacked, had an opinion, and she shared that argument with her community. She talks of how the article of which she writes, in her view, was incorrect in how its author, Mr. Razis, “openly attacks Father Leahy and the Boston College administration as a whole,” with regards to the LGBTQ center. She states her views based off of Catholic morals, guidelines, and practices, and that’s it. She doesn’t openly decry homosexuality, nor does she go out of her way to personally harm anyone. For that, she was attacked.
Comments on The Heights’ Facebook page and website flooded in soon after publication, along with many Ad Hominems. From “stay in your damn lane, sis,” to “check out this sad lesbian’s article,” these jabs were points of ignorance, not conversation. They did not hold any value to further the talk, and served only to put down a woman who wrote an article with an intention of furthering a discussion. Why can we not talk? Or have some simply lost the ability to listen?
This useless prattling is killing diversity of thought—disproportionately for those on the right. Responses to right-wing articles include things like calling the author an “alt-right catholic,” but it’s never the same for the left-wing pieces. Responding articles that disagreed with the first found no personal attacks in their comment sections—nor any attacks for that matter.
Even reading The Heights one sees this bias. In pieces like Michael Razis’ “Looking Forward to a Progressive Future,” we read how President Trump’s “inane policy whims,” irritated the author, and how Mr. Razis found “consolation in seeing Heights headlines” that supported his views.
You do not see the same support for the right. No Republican-slanted articles take joy in how The Heights makes them feel “more safe,” or “more calm,” as states Mr. Razis. When the sparse right-article does make it through, like the first discussed, it is surely attacked; and not for its facts, nor for its logic. The criticisms get personal, so that the actual argument gets ignored.
Can we no longer hold a public opinion, if it disagrees with those who have a hold over media and loud voices? Those on the right watch as those like them are attacked for mere thought, and grow disconsolate over the fact that conversation is dead. Engaging with those who disagree with you allows for the potential to see why you are right, or why you are wrong. Yet the latter, for some today, seems all but impossible. Let us not attack; let us talk.
Jack Lewis, MCAS ’21
Featured Image by Zoe Fanning / Heights Editor
