Last Wednesday evening, April 22, New York Times opinion columnist and podcaster Ross Douthat visited the College as part of In the News. The program is run by the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and occurs each week in Page Commons. In the News events are dedicated to encouraging dialogue among Colby College students and visiting speakers who are somehow involved in politics and journalism.
After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University, where he contributed to The Harvard Crimson and edited The Harvard Salient, Douthat began his professional career at The Atlantic as a researcher and worked his way up to senior editor. During his time at The Atlantic, he established himself as a fresh, intellectually rigorous, principles-based conservative voice.
In 2009, Douthat was recruited by the New York Times, becoming the newspaper’s youngest-ever op-ed columnist at the age of 29. He has also written seven books and currently hosts the Times Opinion podcast Interesting Times. His work blends political commentary, cultural criticism, religious faith, and autobiographical reflection, and it has been widely engaged with across the political spectrum, but he is generally recognized as a proponent of and spokesman for conservative thought.
The event was advertised with posters that read “Go to Church, Start a Family, Put Down Your Phone.” Though the Goldfarb Center makes an effort to bring speakers with a variety of perspectives and political views to the College, Douthat is certainly one of the most outspokenly conservative people that In the News has hosted this semester. Many of his principles are based in his Catholic faith and his belief in the traditional family structure. He has written in opposition to gay marriage and classifies abortion as murder.
However, the conversation on Wednesday steered clear of those topics. In fact, Douthat was at first defensively noncommittal about even identifying himself as a conservative. Professor Joseph Reisert, chair of the Government department and one of the conversation’s moderators, asked the first question of the evening: “Give us a bigger picture of your ideas—what makes you a conservative rather than a liberal?”
Douthat’s answer was long, ambiguous, and not exactly defined by what he actually believes:
“Everybody thinks you need something from the past, right? There’s no… incredibly bright place to draw the line, but generally I tend to be identified with conservatism and the political right because of my identification with ideas, impulses, and issues that people often do see as sort of belonging more to the past… My identification as a conservative is strongest when I say to myself, ‘Am I a social and cultural liberal? No. Am I an Obama style technocrat? No.’ Right? ‘What do I identify more with, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in France, or a Frank Gehry building? The Cathedral of Notre Dame.’ Right?… ‘How many children do I have? I have five children.’ I’m probably conservative in some way.”
He seemed to be very aware that this answer was not a satisfying one, though, and later said that he “sort of avoided answering [the question].” In a discussion about maintaining optimism about the future in our current context of AI acceleration, an ever-worsening climate crisis, and Trumpism, Douthat further explained the nuance of his position.
“The conservative is supposed to be in the position of saying, you know, ‘Well, the future is going to be terrible unless we hold on to these things from the past,’ and I think I’m more in the position of saying ‘The future is open.’ There are a bunch of things in the past that are conservative—religion, family, marriage, community—that we can reach back to and draw on and reinvent… But this is not a matter of inherited custom… you have to do all those things with a kind of intentionality. It’s an active sort of choice and construction and reinvention that’s very different from just a kind of small-‘c’ conservative, ‘We’re just sort of maintaining an existing tradition.’ ”
According to Finnely Combs `29, Douthat’s indirectness was surprising. “I was expecting someone to come in sort of bullheaded… I’m more familiar with a preacher-y style statement of beliefs. I don’t really think he approached it that way,” they said. “Trying to pitch the least hostile aspects of conservative belief hardest, I think that was a tactic… I do think that he could sway someone who’s not very deeply rooted in their own beliefs.”
However, they did not find his style of argument convincing. “I thought he was well spoken, but not direct. I don’t think he took a clear stance on most of the questions that were asked of him and instead chose to circumvent them… His refusal to directly address and explain his beliefs to an audience of open-minded individuals who would intentionally place themselves in an arena of debate and thought, his refusal to respect the space in that way, by giving his entire true opinion, is cowardly and made me respect him less,” Combs said.
A 2020 article in Dissent Magazine stated that Douthat is “known for translating these internecine conservative debates into terms that liberal New York Times readers can understand.” He himself has said that part of his job at the Times is “to make religious belief intelligible to irreligious readers.” His demeanor during the conversation on Wednesday night may have been part of this “incomplete evangelization” effort.
Readers who wish to learn more about Douthat may find his New York Times column or podcast interesting. Students or community members who would like to spend time engaging in political discussion with knowledgeable professionals should consider attending a session of In the News.
~ Anna Izquierdo `29
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