Ripped jeans are a closet staple because, even though they’re brand new, they look like they have history, and this distressed look is attractive. Surprisingly, the same principle can be applied to the recently founded Emory Whig. The Whig, a student-run conservative publication, mimics an old conservative aesthetic to incite backlash and feed its founders’ egos.
On Nov. 20, the nascent Emory Whig published its first set of controversial articles. These included Whig Editor-in-Chief Robert Schmad’s (23C) entertaining rant against premarital sex and another writer’s confession that this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests turned him toward conservatism. On Dec. 4, a few others were published, including an appeal to free speech following pro-Trump chalkings being erased at Emory’s Oxford campus and a helpful guide to disagreeing with people. Read them if you’d like, but you won’t find many ideas there that you wouldn’t see on Fox News or online discussion boards. As former Wheel Managing Editor Isaiah Sirois (19C) noted, the authors are mere “provocateurs” who use “hyperbole for hyperbole’s sake.”
While the articles’ content provokes outrage, the Whig’s website design manufactures gravitas. Where most websites today seek a modern look, every text on their site is in the Baskerville font ripped straight from the 1750s. At the top of the page, an eagle bears a scroll declaring “Leading a Horse to Water,” implying that the Emory community is a thirsty horse in need of their guidance. Below the site’s title is its founding date written in Latin numerals; a casual viewer might not know that the publication is only a few weeks old.
This obfuscation is no accident. Conservatism is an ideology broadly seeking to preserve the past and resist change. Consequently, its younger adherents find themselves defending a past they have never lived. When that past is an unjust one, this minor dilemma becomes a potentially treacherous endeavor. The 1950s nuclear family ideal that Schmad defended in a recent article, for example, is built on sexism in a society that actively oppresses minorities.
Faced with a conflict between an adoration for the past and the moral failure inherent therein, it becomes easier for the young conservative to invent a more defensible history. I suppose this is why the Whig borrows their name from an extinct political party and espouses an aesthetic that screams age and maturity. They quote George Washington and cite centuries-old political analyses while bemoaning the sexual revolution of the 1960s. But, unlike older conservatives fighting to preserve the societal norms they grew up with, young conservatives can never understand the world they lionize. Schmad was born decades after the sexual revolution and can only guess what life was like before it.
The young conservatives’ motivation for historical invention is simple: they seek to use that aesthetic to feed their ego. Annoyed by their peers’ monolithic progressivism, young conservatives seek to define themselves by the past and prove themselves better than everyone by virtue of their conservatism. The past’s gravitas enamors them, convincing them that espousing conservatism will make them somehow better than liberals. The controversy they invite is far from a deterrent; in fact, it’s part of the goal. Greater public anger means that more people are thinking and talking about their ideas, which fuels their rank egotism.
Maybe this is why the Whig’s site seems like an imitation of an old newspaper. Maybe this is why Schmad, like many esoteric online memes, bizarrely quotes serial killer Ted Kaczynski. Maybe this is why, as Siriois argues, the Whig seems intent on provoking the Emory community and drawing attention to themselves instead of fulfilling their mission of bringing free speech to Emory.
Emory does not have a strong tradition of conservative thought, at least publicly. The College Republicans disbanded and reformed a few years ago after poor leadership caused the club’s downfall. I haven’t found any mention of a past Emory publication at all similar to the Whig. Consequently, the Whig’s editors must advertise faux prestige and authority for their conservatism.
From Instagram comments to annoyed responses on their site to Wheel articles, the Whig has received plenty of backlash for their articles. Not only did the founders expect this backlash, they probably counted on it. The only way for them to feel that the Whig has failed is for everyone to ignore it. So, after this article, I don’t intend on thinking much about the Whig, and neither should anyone else.
Martin Shane Li (22Ox) is from Rockville, Maryland.
