These are strange days indeed when I find myself coming to the defense of The Primary Source. While I seldom agree with what I read in Tufts' journal of conservative thought, I do, unlike Benjamin Silver, the author of the Feb. 5 op-ed "We had a deal!", actually read the biweekly publication. I can happily report back to him that the writing is not wholly deserving of the term "trash" with which he labels it. Liberal or conservative, one can respect the quality of composition that some — though not all — put into the publication, and for that I am content to sift through the rather shoddy journal sitting in a dusty corner of Carmichael every two weeks.
But whether Silver refrains from reading the Source is mostly beside the point I wish to make in this brief response. After reading "We had a deal!" I found myself wondering: Of what deal is Silver speaking? He writes that his compromise not to read the Source "has changed [...] completely" following a portrayal of our newly inaugurated president as the Messiah on the cover, for this he cannot ignore. (Closing his eyes, we are left to assume, was to no avail.)
He "can think of no one at Tufts who should not be offended by The Primary Source's utterly disrespectful cover." Well, here's one. May a non-believer who voted for Obama look at a conservative satirical cover and not be offended? I'm actually more offended by Silver's implicit equation of "Christians, Muslims and Jews" with his aforementioned reference to every student at Tufts.
Silver is uncertain whether this portrayal was "an attempt at humor, criticism, both or something else entirely." Allow me to apprise him of what has evidently eluded him: It was an attempt at humor and criticism. (For what it's worth, he at least mentioned this in his guess.) Whether or not he found it humorous is another story and, I hasten to add, irrelevant to the fact that Tufts "(still) reluctantly supports this publication." The Tufts Community Union Senate, I'm glad to say, does not base its decision to fund The Primary Source on what he doesn't understand, doesn't find funny or is offended by.
Should the editors of The Primary Source "explain themselves" for "their thoughtless lack of discretion"? Silver doesn't hesitate to invoke his right not to read The Primary Source but comes dangerously close to claiming another, infinitely more pernicious right: the right not to be offended. Such a right, I must inform him, does not exist in the United States. Indeed, the most sinister part of Silver's short polemic comes near the end, when he claims to be against "strong censorship." Strong? As opposed to mild censorship, of, say, covers he doesn't like? And how revealing are the two subjects of criticism he chose to take up arms for — religion and the American president. In these times, I should say the last thing we need is more wariness in freedom of expression in the public discourse on these two subjects.
Returning to the mysterious "deal" Silver mentions in the title, I'm sad to say it seems that of which he speaks is emblematic of the overly sensitive and insipid left in this country: a deal which says people's feelings matter more than others' freedom of expression. Criticize the writing and artwork in The Primary Source in their own terms, not in those of whether such expression should be condoned or not. The Primary Source doubtless will not apologize for the cover, nor should it. This incessant whining about hurt feelings is unproductive and asinine at best and positively damaging to free speech at worst.
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Nick Perricone is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
