Editor:

Given that Ryan Lowe felt that various articles against the liberal viewpoint were laughable, and given that he is an upperclassman in English, one would expect him to write a cogent, well-supported letter in favor of that viewpoint. Unfortunately, he did not.

He begins his letter (“The liberal slant on campuses is not hard to understand,” Sept. 11) by mentioning the “fact” that people who are “more educated about the world around them…abandon the incredibly outdated and unjustifiable ideals of conservatism.” This is not a fact at all. Many well-educated persons-some with college degrees, some without-adhere to a conservative viewpoint. Indeed, I know several such people personally. Most people probably do. So this part of Lowe’s argument is demonstrably false.

While we’re on that subject, let’s take a look at the “incredibly outdated and unjustifiable ideals of conservatism” against which he rails. What are these ideals? Lowe does not identify them, so the readers are left to wonder what he means. Is he against the idea of strong families? Government focused at the local level rather than at the federal level? Personal responsibility and accountability for one’s own actions? We don’t know.

Next, he states that “liberals compose a large majority of college graduates.” How large a majority is that? 75 percent? 90 percent? Higher? Once again, we don’t know. If such a claim is to be made, it must be supported by facts. The readers need to know what the numbers are and where they come from.

Finally, Lowe concludes that the majority of conservatives must be “uneducated,” “indoctrinated,” and “comically uninformed as individuals.” In doing so, he reduces the whole issue of conservatism to thinly veiled name-calling. That’s unfortunate because educated people really should know better.

There will undoubtedly be a lot of backlash from this letter, and much of it will be driven by emotion and not by careful examination of the facts. Indeed, it is possible that Lowe wrote the article this way specifically to invoke such a response and thereby prove his point. A realistic, logical and impartial examination of the issue, however, will reveal that not all educated people are liberals, nor are all uneducated, indoctrinated, and/or comically uninformed individuals conservatives. To suggest that this is the case amounts to nothing more than prejudice-hardly a liberal ideal.

Michael Scott Martin

Senior, Chemistry Education