Third Place Gold Medalist Matt Menezes’ Essay

From Hypocrisy, the Way to Utopia

A community “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the prop

osition that all men are created equal” is of course a laudable ideal. Every community would like to believe it promotes liberty and egalitarianism amongst its inhabitants. The notion, though, is more subtle than most complacent citizens would like to admit. True egalitarianism means blindness to all but basic humanity, and reservation of judgment of an individual, the equal of any other, until one sees what they do with their granted liberty. It means judging actions, not beliefs, and encouraging the people to venerate their brethren and learn all they can from them. Only when a man can be judged as a man, and only a man, be he democrat or republican, of any faith or none at all, can that man be considered free and equal, and his community can truly profess to be a reflection of Lincoln’s highest ideals.

Boulder County is a community of self-professed liberalism. Merriam-Webster English Dictionary defines liberalism as follows: “a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties.” This would imply an open-mindedness that extends equally to all philosophies and walks of life. However, walking down the halls of Monarch High School during the recent Presidential Election, anyone who had the audacity to wear a John McCain supporting tee-shirt could be seen being hostilely verbally accosted by fellow denizens of this “liberal” community. Herein lies the rub: In Boulder, it is fashionable to be “liberal” (in reference to left-wing over right), therefore anyone who professes conservatism (right-wing over left) is an outsider. But the ideal of a “liberal” community, one dedicated to liberty and equality, does not have room for this kind of one-sided political absolutism. If dissenting ideas are not welcome, then social liberty is simply not present. A community that only tolerates one system of beliefs dispenses with the idea that all men are created equal by discounting their beliefs without taking time to investigate them.

The best way to foster tolerance and egalitarianism is always through diversity and education. If people of different beliefs are brought together in an environment where they have no choice but to tolerate one another then they will unavoidably learn things they had been afraid to find out and grow more appreciative of alternate world views. In order to facilitate this association between conflicting beliefs, schools should worry less about being “politically correct” and catering to the beliefs of the parents of their students and instead, through mandatory civics classes, discuss without bias the beliefs, accomplishments, and detriments of all philosophies. Only through broad historical and cultural awareness can young, impressionable people be afforded the liberty to choose the ideology that best suits their own hearts. By creating an environment where everything is presented frankly, at face value, a community will come to benefit greatly from trusting equal men and women with the freedom to make informed decisions.

Given the current proclivities of Boulder County, critics of the civic education program prescribed above will likely say that extensively informing citizens about ideologies other than those held by the majority won’t stop those who elect to hold minority beliefs from feeling pressure to conform to the local dogma. Those critics would be correct were it not for the fact that if citizens were universally educated broadly, with acceptance and full disclosure, bigotry could be eradicated within a generation. Of course there will be people who conform to the majority for security. This is unavoidable. What can be controlled is the power to instill fear that a bigoted majority has the potential to wield. It is controlled by striking at bigotry itself. By leaving nothing in the realm of the unknown to be misunderstood or feared, fear itself, and therefore bigotry, can be conquered. Education is always the weapon of choice for combating intolerance, because intolerance stems from ignorance and misunderstanding. By implementing a program of universal civic education on philosophy, political systems, and religions, Boulder County, and any other community for that matter, can fulfill its aspirations toward liberty and egalitarianism. By demanding that citizens be informed before they are forced to make a decision, a community can avoid the quashing of personal liberty that a tyrannical majority unavoidably brings about. Education is the path to egalitarianism, and egalitarianism will foster genuine liberty.

Liberalism, as we have seen does not simply mean casting a vote for a left-wing party. Only if a society encourages respect amongst its equal citizens can those citizens be truly liberated from unfair judgment. Bigotry is the principle foe of Lincoln’s ideal, and any community would do well to render it impotent by leaving nothing in the dark for the ignorant to fear. By education, ignorance can be done away with, but that requires a colossal effort on the part of the citizenry to suspend their distrust and disbelief and come together to truly reflect a community where liberty and egalitarianism win the day.