A Centrist Strategy for Higher Education Reform
- sofiapbaker
- May 29, 2023
- 1 min read
When most Americans hear the expression “liberal conservative,” they think of it as an oxymoron at best, at worst a particularly sticky variety of political fudge. Our hyperpartisan politics views liberalism and conservativism as almost genetic predispositions, much like Sergeant Willis in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe:
I often think it’s comical—Fal, lal, la!
How Nature always does contrive—Fal, lal, la!
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal, lal, la!
Our most extreme partisans—so far from Sgt. Willis’ gentle musings, alas!—even regard members of the opposite tendency as suffering from some form of mass psychosis or from a systemic moral blindness. For hyperpartisans, every boy and every gal is either a little crazy or a little moral monster. Children, they believe, need to be yanked out of state indoctrination mills or turned into Anti-Racist Baby…