Welcome to the new year of Opinions with The Kenyon Collegian! Thank you to those who read our section last year; it is good to have you back. And we appreciate you for nobly spreading the word about this section’s excellence to our new readers, whom we welcome all the same. 

I love this section for a host of reasons, but mostly because I love opinions. They can do so much for us. They can be stupid and unimportant, simple conversation starters or perhaps even icebreakers. But they can also be meaningful launching pads for the kinds of discourse that sustain a learning community like Kenyon. All of these reasons support this opinion, our first of the year: Kenyon should be more opinionated. But my caveat is that we should be the right kind of opinionated.

You may be surprised to see the opinions editor admit that opinions are not an absolute good, even aside from casual bad takes — like defending the use of AI to summarize books or generate writing. But is it even a good thing to be opinionated? Like your friend who obviously cares which restaurant the squad goes to but is passive-aggressive when they get outvoted. Or someone who overshares their judgments on small things, like my teammate who tells me that most of my outfits are “chopped” (not kidding). And my least favorite, which are bad political opinions. These tend to rely on conjecture rather than evidence, or clearly intend to antagonize those who disagree rather than attempting to understand a problem or prescribe a solution. None of the above is what I mean when I say we should all be more opinionated. 

What I want in this section, and on our campus, are the right kind of opinions. And that doesn’t mean I have to agree with them. It means evidenced, balanced, respectful but authentic opinions. Such opinions are fully thought out, not feared and therefore should be shared —  ideally in written form and published in this section. 

But if we are to encourage a free exchange of opinions, we must also be willing to listen and engage with those opinions with which we disagree and dislike. Difference of opinion is inevitable, even at a place like Kenyon. However, we must have something important in common; otherwise we probably wouldn’t be hanging out together in Gambier. So to be rightly opinionated, we should give those who disagree with us the benefit of the doubt. Giving the benefit of the doubt, or checking our anger, allows us to become more understanding and better functioning members of a community. After all, we are here on the Hill to engage with and learn from one another. 

But if you’re not into this section for all this liberal arts discourse, that’s cool too. You can just write an article about the black mold in your New Apartment, but at least take a picture as evidence. Same goes for North Campus Apartment party etiquette — the world is your oyster. Oh, and there’s no need to be respectful if the opinion is about large groups of people cutting in line at Peirce Hall. Then you can just scream until the problem goes away. 

Robbie Lifson ’27 is a political science major from Sudbury, MA. He can be reached at lifson3@kenyon.edu.