Free discussion cannot exist when one side does not listen to the other. In their infinite wisdom, Harvard's liberal leaders have decided on the answers. They do not need to listen, because no one could possibly teach them anything.

THIS smugness makes the PC ideology defeat itself. By dividing the world into the correct and the wrong, PC advocates ignore many of the real issues behind campus controversies.

When was the last time you ever heard anyone discuss South Africa and Harvard without talking about divestment? Harvard could take any number of actions besides divestment to improve the situation in South Africa. What about recruiting Black South African students, or sponsoring forums for anti-apartheid activists? Instead, the PC have framed the debate so that only divestment matters; until Harvard divests, nothing else may be discussed.

Even if Harvard did a million things to help end apartheid in South Africa without divesting, the liberals would still rain condemnation on the administration for not dealing with the "real" issue.

Or consider the issue of minority faculty. Harvard protestors have been vehement in their call for more minority faculty, and savage in their attacks on the administration for not hiring minority faculty left and right. But they never bring up the fundamental issue: few minorities enter academia, so there are few minority scholars out there for Harvard to hire. The PC have limited the issue to one side: more minority faculty hiring. The rest is moot. PC causes suffer because of PC narrowmindedness.

PC TACTICS are equally self-destructive. The ideologues' shrill voices and closed ears drive away the very people that they should try to convince. They preach to the converted. Talking to those who agree with your views may be pleasant, but it does nothing to change anyone's mind.

COCA's fake draft card mailing was a great attention-getting stunt, but it offended and annoyed many who received the notices. Most of the people they sent draft cards probably agreed that American involvement in Central America is troublesome. Those who disagreed, who are the very people COCA should try to persuade, were only irritated by what they viewed as a reckless, anti-military gimmick.

Another example of the alienation of the unconverted occured during the ROTC debate last spring. At an anti-ROTC rally, a member of ARAC read a vicious ad hominem poem attacking a council member for her support of ROTC. The PC are kidding themselves if they think they can persuade the other side by scaring them or slandering them.

Because the PC totalitarianism is so strong, COCA never had to suffer for its overzealous gimmick. Being good Harvard liberals, most students still agreed with their cause, and those that did not were ignored. The point of the PC ideology is to change the world, but if the world is too offended to listen, nothing will ever happen.

HARVARD should take a lesson from John Stuart Mill. If we do not listen to abhorrent ideas, our own are valueless. They become totems that we carry around simply because everyone does. To quote a popular cliche, the essence of intellectual progress is the clash of ideas: when there is only one "correct" idea, everything stagnates in a bath of tepid, kneejerk liberalism.

I am not naive enough to think that if Harvard had a conservative campus then we would have freer debate. Every institution has its truths and standards against which everything else is measured, and as they go, PC is not bad. Imagine if our standard were football success, or keg parties, or sexual activity. I am quite sure it would be much worse than it is now.

But the situation at other schools cannot excuse the totalitarianism of the PC crowd. Until they start listening to what they don't want to hear, we will continue to have a campus devoid of debate. Passers-by Harvard Yard will just hear the sound and fury of the PC-dressed in their uniforms of ripped jeans and old plaid shirts--signifying nothing, preaching at each other about tolerance, while the PW sit in Lamont and read the National Review.