October 2004 Issue
Inaugural Issue
EditorialIt gives me tremendous pleasure to inaugurate The Dartmouth Beacon. As our mission states, we intend to create a forum at Dartmouth for new, innovative ideas to better the standard of life of fellow students and global citizens - from an unabashedly conservative perspective...
Conservatism is to incorporate the progress of human thought, technology, and culture into a philosophy that acknowledges the fallibility of man and the imperfection of our world. The fallibility of man is not necessarily a pessimistic view of mankind, but simply a realistic cognizance that man cannot perfect himself or the world. Given the empirical results of man’s past grand visions for society, can one doubt this? The tenets of communism, Nazism, colonialism, and fascism have ensnared well-meaning individuals because of their proponents’ visions of utopia.
Thus, we conservatives wish to take the power from any one individual or institution and restore it to the people, as the US Constitution mandates. Further, seeing the constraints on man’s abilities, we seek to build a society that recognizes the inherent flaws in ourselves but our inherent equality in the eyes of our creator.
We realize that men are best not trusted behind the levers of power when they are in a position to control the outcomes of their fellow citizens. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” naturally, but power also corrupts in varying degrees. When government (or any other societal institution—the media, the church, the academy, etc.) usurps this authority, men lose control of their destiny. That is what the liberal philosophy, at its most dogmatic, seeks to achieve.
Dartmouth often struggles a place of diverse, thriving discourse in policy, religion, or society. The Dartmouth Beacon aims to create that discourse. We are an independent and alternative journal for relevant compassionate political, cultural, and economic thought at Dartmouth. Naturally, we approach the world from a foundation of conservatism because of the value it places on human dignity.
The Dartmouth Beacon has the broad mission of arguing specific ideas and policies to benefit the global community. As future leaders, we have the responsibility to enact those ideas that will help our fellow man.
When taxes, or race-control, or institutional sensitivity, or bureaucratic mandates, or speech regulation threaten freedom, citizens must step in and restore the people’s power and freedom, lest the denigration of government and society continue.
Conservatives also stress the need of a strong legal framework, without which mob mentality and anarchism ensues. Without checks—created and defined by the people—the system of freedom collapses and society can expect to descend into the Hobbesian vision of a life that is “short, nasty, brutish, and poor.” The legal framework should be simple, unfettered, and flexible, but powerful enough to withstand the whims of the activists.
But is there room for charity in such a system?
The Dartmouth Beacon will show that there is, and the movement is now thriving because of individuals who choose to make a difference. But let us not be content in our philosophical musings; the campus and the world require much action. It’s up to us to make it happen.
Cheers,
Bruce Gago ‘05
Editor-in-Chief