Deerfield’s next challenge: Political Diversity

The dire lack of political diversity on campus challenges my safe space. Being in the radical Republican state of Massachusetts has really influenced Deerfield’s stance on ideological representation–that is, non-existent. To create a truly thriving and accepting community, Deerfield must come together and rise beyond the bygone age of bipartisan political clubs like the Young Republicans and Young Democrats, to embrace the heterogeneity of our beliefs, and to form new, more varied clubs.

The less individuals agree on topical issues, the more effective we, as the Deerfield Community, can be as thinkers and students. According to the Harvard Business Review, “decades of social science research has found that the presence of diverse perspectives enable groups to search a wider space of solutions to their problems.”, so as a school to prepare the world’s next generation of problem solvers, shouldn’t DA give our students the best opportunities to find solutions? Also, according to a student who chose to remain anonymous, “The more wacky ideologies we have in our community the more spicier it is. ” Will Newton ‘22 later said, “If we just all agree and debate on same couple of issues, our community will be dumb. These days all I hear about in my political debates during my Algebra I class are issues I don’t care about, like the economy or foreign policy.”

Will is right. The more bipartisan and homogenized our collective political climate is, the bigger the tribalist ideological echo chamber becomes. Without a way to critically assess the virtues of an ideology from a third-party standpoint, our community will devolve into a cesspool of flaccid thinkers.

I dream of a time when political clubs are formed and dissolved daily. I dream of a Deerfield where the Young Theocrats and Young Communists can live in harmony, while the Young Monarchists peacefully rule over the Young Anarcho-Primitivists, as the Young Nihilists hold heated debates against the Young Capitalists. Let’s take the first steps towards a more magnificent Deerfield, by becoming accepting of everyone for who we really are, and what constitutes the very fiber of their being–their political ideology.