Sevi Responds on “Inter-group Dating” (and some of us are above calling names)

Michael Sevi responds to Alison Jeffe’s take on the “Inter-group dating” discussion (Alison had reported on the event for the Review):

Ms. Jeffe – I thank you for so precisely summarizing the complexity of our conversation: “How can someone be on principle open to all races and religions [and yet] make an arbitrary choice to date only people within their race or religion? It just doesn’t make sense.”

Exactly! This is the very contradiction with which our conversation dealt. But the truth is that this contradiction does exist – take ten of the most “open-minded” people at Dartmouth and, as our discussion proved, nine of them would feel at least a little uncomfortable about bringing home a person of a different race. Simply pointing out that this is a contradiction does not negate its existence, especially in this case when no one questioned the fact that it is a contradiction, and the entire point of the discussion (at least as I saw it) was to explore this inconsistency and try to come to some kind of resolution about it. Thus, there is no need to point out the “contradiction of the discussion’s apparent ‘premise'” when investigating this contradiction was in fact the premise itself. Finally, I apologize for misspelling your name.

For what it’s worth, I disagree with Sevi (well, not on the misspelling thing); if nine of ten felt “at least a little uncomfortable” about inter-racial or inter-religious dating, one could hardly call the group among “the most ‘open-minded’…at Dartmouth” – they haven’t even make it over the lowest hurdle. The “inter-group dating” discussion is a great example of the narrow and unreflective agendas that drive many of the seemingly-progressive efforts on campus. That’s why we ran the story in the Review and why I am disappointed to this day that it didn’t spark more discussion than it did.

Maybe some of last week’s reactionary idiots will have something to say about this…unless, of course, they’re already onto the next cause, like winning equal benefits for transgendered partners in the Vatican City or fighting the systematic discrimination against pedophiles.