Carleton Conservatives

It is never easy being in the minority. However, I found the video Carleton Conservatives to be a little whiny for my taste and it is lacking any real substance. Like what is it about being a conservative that makes you who you are as an individual or exploring how being a conservative makes you a better person or helps to build a better society or makes you feel closer to your faith or whatever. The video narrative also perpetuates the stereotype that there are only two types of people: conservative and liberal. And, I flat out reject that premise because people are diverse and complex in their experiences, thoughts and beliefs. For instance, there are Green Party liberals, progressive liberals, moderate liberals and there are liberals who hunt and fish and there are religious liberals, et cetera. There are many shades of the human experience and to cast people into two opposing camps is a big part of the problem we face trying to live together peacefully. I look forward to your next video that transcends rhetoric and attempts to enlighten the viewer.

I went to Carleton. While there, I found myself becoming more conservative because the majority of the people around me where de facto liberal. I wanted to have a different opinion so I grew more moderate. Which brings us to the problem of the modern conservative movement in America. Conservatism today cannot work without entertaining some form of martyr complex. There always needs to be some outside force that is larger and stronger to fight against (i.e. the liberal media). Without such things, the conservative viewpoint begins to look more and more paranoid and detached. This is what happened to me at Carleton, except that i realized what I was doing and began to look at actual political processes rather than simple ideology. The danger of the Carleton political culture is not that it treats conservatives badly. Indeed, the CCU does bring a lot of grief upon itself by being explicitly contrarian. But rather, the political culture creates ideolgues. David Strom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Strom) is a good example. In a world where collaboration is becoming paramount, such a polarizing climate makes it difficult to teach people how to work with people that think differently. Conservatives at Carleton do have a place. However, the movement needs to recognize its inherent weaknesses, get over itself and provide examples of how it can be relevant in today's world. But, this type of introspection is difficult if you feel like you are already targeted for extermination and don't believe in dinosaurs.