2008 Woodie Awards
Can we change the topic of conversation, please?
Susanne Johnson, susannej@smu.edu
Issue date: 1/23/07 Section: Opinion
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When a colleague and I co-authorized an op ed piece for the SMU Daily Campus Nov. 10, little did we realize the firestorm it would ignite. Because we both love SMU, and because we then deemed the proposed Bush Presidential Library, Museum and Policy Institute to be inconsistent with SMU's mission and its grounding in the United Methodist heritage, we expressed our conscience as a matter of record-definitely not because we had any self-inflated notions we could stop the whole thing. But when the lid was removed, steam came boiling out from the pot.
At her address during our general faculty meeting Jan. 17, Faculty Senate President Rhonda Blair wondered out loud if our motives were not merely political in nature. Some others have raised that question.
Equally as troubling as having my motives impugned in public is the way the word 'politics' is being used. Sadly, recent generations have lost sight of the ancient Greek appreciation for politics as a fine art. At its finest, politics is not tantamount to defending, criticizing or aligning ourselves with one political party or another. It is not the same thing as running for office, or campaigning for candidates of choice. Though politics requires the judicious and collaborative use of power, the core of politics is not power struggles played out in public.
Politics involves the art of dialogue around mutual concern for the common good. Historian Phillip Wolin goes so far as to contend that our basic birthright as human beings is our nature as political beings. By this he means our calling and capacity to participate in caring for the common good, including endeavors to shape institutions that attend to the common good. This is profoundly important, for these institutions in turn shape us.
The art of politics requires that we be persons willing to engage in mutually respectful dialogue and to negotiate and compromise with one another. Greeks believed we grow into the capacity for politics through developing "sophia," that is, wisdom and sound judgment.
At her address during our general faculty meeting Jan. 17, Faculty Senate President Rhonda Blair wondered out loud if our motives were not merely political in nature. Some others have raised that question.
Equally as troubling as having my motives impugned in public is the way the word 'politics' is being used. Sadly, recent generations have lost sight of the ancient Greek appreciation for politics as a fine art. At its finest, politics is not tantamount to defending, criticizing or aligning ourselves with one political party or another. It is not the same thing as running for office, or campaigning for candidates of choice. Though politics requires the judicious and collaborative use of power, the core of politics is not power struggles played out in public.
Politics involves the art of dialogue around mutual concern for the common good. Historian Phillip Wolin goes so far as to contend that our basic birthright as human beings is our nature as political beings. By this he means our calling and capacity to participate in caring for the common good, including endeavors to shape institutions that attend to the common good. This is profoundly important, for these institutions in turn shape us.
The art of politics requires that we be persons willing to engage in mutually respectful dialogue and to negotiate and compromise with one another. Greeks believed we grow into the capacity for politics through developing "sophia," that is, wisdom and sound judgment.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 3
George Purvis M.Div. Perkins, '67
posted 1/23/07 @ 1:41 PM CST
Thank you, Dr. Johnson. You display geinune conscience and courage by: 1)"going public" with the critically important article, written by you and Rev. (Continued…)
Benjamin Hufbauer
posted 1/23/07 @ 2:34 PM CST
In my recent op ed in the New York Times ("Archives of Spin," which was not my title, by the way), I suggested that *if* a presidential policy institute is put on a university campus that rigorous academic oversight is essential. (Continued…)
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