Suffering the Impudent Snobs: How to Avoid a Conservative Culture of Victimization
On November 13, 1969, then-Vice President Spiro Agnew stood before a crowd of fellow Republicans in Des Moines, Iowa, and lambasted one of the most persistent political enemies of the Nixon administration — the press corps. President Nixon had just delivered an important address on the war in Vietnam, and Agnew felt that the message to the American people had been distorted by the press. “When the President completed his address…his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism,” Agnew complained. “The audience of seventy-million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed, in some way or another, their hostility to what he had to say.”
“Every American has a right to disagree with the President of the United States, and express publicly that disagreement,” he conceded, then added a caveat: “But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have a right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a presidential address without having the President’s words and thoughts characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.”
Agnew left unclear where exactly in the Constitution he found the latter two rights, or what exactly his government intended to do to protect them. But the speech was more about politics than policy. He was tapping into something fundamental in the conservative base of the Nixon administration: the idea that they, though they were large in numbers, were the victims of the country’s elites — that they, “the Great Silent Majority,” were being disrespected by a rowdy minority in the establishment, “an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals,” as Agnew deemed them.
And his message was effective. Agnew, the hitherto moderate governor of Maryland chosen by Nixon to attract Democrats to the ticket, became a champion of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Following Nixon’s reelection in 1972, Republican polls showed him miles ahead of California Governor Ronald Reagan in the race for 1976. At least in part due to his principal message that conservatives were being victimized by an unfair intellectual elite, he became the conservative heir apparent.
And therein lies something of a contradiction.
Conservatives have always derided the various “cultures of victimization” on the left, and rightfully so. When a group of people comes to believe that they are being victimized — and comes to define that victimization as an inextricable part of their own identity — the tendency is to focus their attention on complaining about the victimizers, not furthering their own interests. They feel that they will not achieve great things on their own because they cannot achieve great things on their own. And given that the victimizers are more often than not large, indefinable groups of people, they cannot entirely remove the limitations to their success. So the cry of the victimized usually becomes a cry for sympathy and help: “I am a victim. I cannot achieve success in life because some people are out to get me. You should feel guilty about that. I demand you give me stuff.”
Agnew’s message was not much dissimilar from this, and his appeal among conservatives shows that the right is just as capable of formulating a culture of victimization as the left. There is some difference, of course, between the cries of victimization on the left and the ones that sometimes come from conservatives: The cries from the left usually come in the form of minorities believing they are persecuted by the majority. Conservatives are usually majorities believing they are persecuted by a minority. That dynamic makes playing the victim card a bit less appealing (it is almost certainly less likely to gain you sympathy), and that dynamic holds true almost everywhere — except on the college campus, where outspoken conservatives often are the minority.
Which brings us to Wabash. If you are a freshman reading this, then congratulations: You have made an excellent choice in schools. If you are a conservative freshman, then you are in good company. The student body of this school is likely a bit more conservative than most. You may well be in the majority. If you an outspoken conservative, that will not be the case. Wabash has its share of passionate partisans, and more of them are liberal than conservative. If you are among those on this campus who are willing to stand up and argue for their beliefs in a public way, you will likely be outnumbered. The vast majority of your professors will disagree with you. A good number of your peers will as well. You may think them irritating. You many think them impudent snobs. But you should never think yourself a victim.
In order to avoid becoming Wabash College’s own Spiro Agnew, you may want to consider the following advice:
First, understand that your professors are not out to get you. They may be out to get your ideas, but most of them are incredibly fair (though often tough) when it comes time to grade. There may be a strange exception or two, but by and large, the professors at Wabash are very professional men and women who want to help you learn.
One of the first professors I had as a freshman was Dr. Stephen Morillo, a man who is for many — especially The Phoenix cartoonist — the very embodiment of the “liberal professor.” I was introduced to his ideas in the first week of September, when we had placed hundreds of crosses on the college mall to represent all of the young lives lost to abortion. Dr. Morillo sent out an all-campus email sarcastically thanking us for the display, saying he assumed the crosses memorialized the victims of Bush’s wars, Hurricane Katrina, abuse in U.S. prison camps and various other evil conservative things that were in the news in 2006. This prompted an “I don’t really want to start an email war, but…” email from Dr. Webb, which in turn prompted a miniature email war.
So I wasn’t much looking forward to spending my first semester at Wabash with Dr. Morillo. But, as it turns out, I was subjected to only the occasion liberal aside in History 101, and Dr. Morillo’s passion for the subject far outweighed whatever disagreements he had with his students. In fact, he embraced disagreement. For our first paper assignment, he asked us to write something that either added to what he had taught in class or disputed it. If we disagreed with his conclusions, he encouraged us to use evidence from our primary source text to oppose him. If he disagreed with your conclusions, he would tear into you paper (as he did to mine), but if you used your evidence well and made a compelling enough case, he would give you a decent grade (A-). Disagreement is essential to academic argument, and most of your professors will understand that and embrace your differences accordingly.
Enjoy the fight. Many of your professors will attempt to tear down your every assumption about the world. This need not be a bad thing. It will make you frustrated at times, but it will also make you stronger.
I came to Wabash a conservative Christian. After two years, I am now a conservative Christian who understands quite a bit more why he believes what he believes. You will be challenged in your assumptions about everything from the existence of God, to the founding principles of the United States, to the role the United States plays in the world, to economics, to what is good and what is evil, to whether good and evil exist at all. Don’t complain when professors challenge you. Use it as an opportunity to consider their arguments and your own. You cannot make a truly effective case for why you are right unless you understand why others are wrong.
Also, understand that the victim card will probably not work for you. Unless your ancestors were held in slavery or denied fundamental human rights because they were conservative, few are going to feel too sorry for you when you whine about not feeling comfortable in the classroom. There is a proportion problem when conservatives start complaining about their miserable lot in life — because so many others have had such a worse lot. While the argument can be made that much of the alleged victimization of modern minorities is imagined, there can be no doubt that widespread and brutal victimization against them existed in the sometimes too recent past. It would be stupid and classless to attempt to compare their suffering to whatever problems conservatives may have.
Last semester, there was a forum held for various minority students to express their grievances, and for the Wabash community to come together to listen and think of solutions. The Wabash Conservative Union was invited to express our complaints and speak alongside the minorities — two of whom had the experience of finding a racial threat carved into the door of their dorm in College Hall. Our Editor-in-Chief, Sean Clerget, very wisely declined the invitation because he knew that to elevate our minor problems to that level would be insulting. So try to keep things in perspective, and recognize that you really don’t have it too bad.
And finally, learn to laugh. Liberal professors are funny! Many of them have strange obsessions with race, class, and gender, and they can manage to find examples of their obsessions in almost anything. Any instance of some white object hitting some colored object (such as a game of pool) becomes a sinister example of racism. Any cylindrical object (such as a gun) becomes a phallus representing male domination. Any cylindrical object that also happens to be black (such as a greased flagpole) becomes a representation of some old sexually-charged racial stereotype.
After two years at Wabash, I have yet to learn how to respond to such arguments. So I have simply learned to laugh, and I do it often. In the end, levity may well be the best way for conservatives to avoid a culture of victimization.
The ability to brush off his opponents with a laugh was never one of Spiro Agnew’s strongest suits. His style was to complain. Conservatives are fortunate that he was ultimately forced to resign in disgrace, and eyes turned to Ronald Reagan, who mastered the art of levity and captured the “can-do” spirit as opposed to the “woe is me” mantra — because when conservatives adopt a culture of victimization, they are in danger of losing much more than classroom arguments and national elections.
There was perhaps one solution to the media problem as outlined by Spiro Agnew. It consisted of regulating speech in the media, and forcing broadcasters to give time to both sides of a political debate. It was supported — at least on the level of radio broadcasting — by the Nixon administration. It was called the “Fairness Doctrine,” and today it is almost universally condemned by the right.
When conservatives fall into a culture of victimization, they are in danger of losing their most fundamental principles.
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