Backward or Upward?

A comment on a particular sentence in Belinda Chiu’s e-mail, when she refers to the petition candidates’ “messages about wanting to make Dartmouth better are really ‘code’ for going backwards.”

Someone comes up to you and asks, “Would you like to go backwards… or forwards?” Well, you don’t want to go backwards, do you? That’s bad. Backwards is bad. Forwards, that’s good, right? Right. Forwards! The problem is that the march of time doesn’t necessarily improve circumstances regardless. Nor does it necessarily aggravate them. External criteria not chronological order determine right or wrong turns. That’s uncontroversial, I hope.

Say what you will about the petition candidates, but neither has waged a “good ol’ days” campaign: they’ve focused on pretty specific issues. To bring in the backward / forward dichotomy, as if the choice is between luddites and the Jetsons, doesn’t address the issues by which we usually gauge the status of the College.

She goes on to address specifics but not before framing it in this way. She lists the positive aspects of life at the College– the implication being: what kinda cranky whacko would be against this place? You don’t want to go backwards do you? Clever intent, poor execution. I doubt that it’s convinced many alumni, but it’s a vacuous rhetorical trick, tiresome on all political stages.