Life Rafts

Lifesaving Truth Can Come in Small Packages

Last November, a group of Yale undergrads published an op-ed provocatively titled, “We’re Jealous of Our Conservative Peers.” Compared to the supermajority of campus support for Harris-Walz (82 percent of students, 98 percent of faculty), they noted that “conservatives are confined to a glum minority. We hear often about how they have it tough, facing ostracization, mockery, and pressure to conform.”

And yet, “we envy them.” They explained:

While liberal students are cushioned by a sense of majority, conservatives must grapple constantly with difficult questions. They are forced to interrogate their own beliefs in ways their liberal peers need not. It’s challenging, but it cultivates resilience, critical reflection, and the capacity to engage in community despite serious disagreement.

While liberal students can get away with parroting mindless mantras,

Our conservative peers are not afforded the same argumentative safety net…. they must frame their contentions precisely and gracefully. This pressure to defend unpopular ideas is a catalyst for intellectual growth.

I found these thoughts intriguing for two reasons. First, the authors express respect for their minority peers, commending their courage and intellectual rigor. And second, their commendations capture well what Salvo aims to equip readers to do—grapple with difficult questions, interrogate truth claims, and defend unpopular ideas.

Reason

We humans are both rational and social creatures. Our minds are equipped to seek truth but our relational needs fuel desires to belong. Mark Perez, coauthor of Clear Thinking in a Messy World, describes what he calls “a system of domination” that emerges when individuals holding a minority view concede to the group rather than contend for their position. This is what produces groupthink, and we are all susceptible to it.

The antidote to groupthink has two components. The first is clear thinking grounded in accurate information. In this issue we bring you two feature articles arguing against what may be the most irrational wave of groupthink ever to sweep Western civilization: transgenderism. In “Transgender Patient Zero” (p. 28), Bruce Woodall tells the story of a medical experiment gone terribly awry. The harm inflicted on the patients is egregious in itself, but the fact that this cautionary tale is not taught to present-day medical students constitutes academic dereliction of duty. And in “The Brain Binary” (p. 34), Leonard Sax lays out the results of AI analyses showing innate differences in male and female brains—differences that are detectable even in utero.

Courage

The second component is courage. Until about five minutes ago, historically speaking, everyone knew that human beings came in two varieties, male and female. Most still know that, but too few are taking a stand athwart the sexual revolutionaries. We bring you someone who is. Seth Gruber (p. 58) explains how sexual revolutionaries have instituted practices that trace back to ancient idol worship and child sacrifice, and like the prophets of old, he calls on the people of God to take up courage and stop conforming to the culture.

Living It Out

I received a letter recently from a Salvo subscriber expressing gratitude for our “economy of words that still contain a world of insight. Each article,” he wrote, “is a bit like an inflatable raft. Small package … until you pull the cord.”

What an apropos analogy! Inflatable rafts save lives. So do clear thinking and courage. We hope you find in the following pages clear-thinking truth for the cultural nonconformist. And may the courage with which you live it out inspire respect among our liberal peers.