The op-ed page of Student Life, Washington University’s student newspaper, is usually an excellent source of incoherence; however, in last Tuesday’s edition the editors relented and allowed their page to be marred by wisdom.

The aberration was the commentary by Jonathon Sternberg, who was responding to Washington University’s prevailing attitude about the war on terrorism, an attitude which, in his words, is “a very negative sentiment” that the “Free World is not right, and in fact is very wrong.”

The sentiment, which responds to the slaughter of 6,000 people by wielding cigarette lighters and turning up the volume to “Imagine,” is not unique to Sternberg’s school. Across the country thousands of college students cling tenaciously to the theory that America is a disruptive global presence and that any use of the military betrays the mean-spiritedness of a doltish government.

Writing in the Sept. 27 edition of the Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s student newspaper, student Jason Scorse: “Although I condemn the terrorists and what they represent, I equally condemn the terror that has, and is still, being committed by the U.S. government.” Oh? Would that “terror” be the food drops on Afghanistan? Would that be the 1998 war in Kosovo to save ethnic Albanians from genocide? Was it the American effort in Bosnia in the mid-1990s? Or the humanitarian mission to Somalia that led to the death of U.S. marines? Maybe President Clinton’s persistent effort to broker a peace accord between Palestine and Israel? Or would American “terror” be the …

Never mind. The sentiment has a few distinct traits, one of which is condescension. Liberal college students, lamenting what man has made of man, live by the conviction that theirs is the first generation to fathom war and peace. (This is immediately problematic because the protesters of Vietnam thought they were the first to fathom war and peace. But I digress.) In a Sept. 14 column with the unintentionally hilarious title, “To Live Without Fear We Must Not Retaliate,” Washington University student Nick Adams, musing about humans and their habit for war, wrote, “We should have progressed beyond this activity, knowing that violence begets violence.” But “very few of us, including our world leaders, have learnt this lesson.”

The condescension is versatile; it is endemic to the liberal student mentality, which means it is omnipresent. Last semester, when, in a commentary for The University News a freshman asserted that race relations were better than ever and condemned those who would say America remains extravagantly racist, liberal columnist Paul Woody surveyed the damage and answered his call to duty.

In a column that surely won the salute of his comrades at Harvard or UC Berkeley, and one that I found particularly memorable, Woody responded, “I am hoping that Emerson does not leave college before being introduced to the world in which a majority of Americans live. After my experience at SLU, I am looking forward to meeting Matt Emerson the senior, and I am optimistic that four years at a Jesuit University will open his mind as much as it did mine.”

Concealed within the condescension is unlimited faith in the power of the intellect to overcome what economist and sociologist Thomas Sowell has called the “tragedy of the human condition.” (In a similar understanding, the great Jesuit Karl Rahner spoke of a Christian pessimism, which recognizes man’s inherent, unalterable sinfulness.) Many people would like the United States to tailor their martial tendencies to the tune of international tribunals and multilateral coalitions. This is generally the position of pacifists. They should read some Sowell.

In his book The Vision of the Anointed, Sowell explains that there are no ultimate remedies, no utopian solutions, to maladies like social and economic inequalities and war; rather there are only trade-offs. For example, the United States and its allies tomorrow could announce a new policy of unconditional pacifism, which would “end the violence” and at the same initiate America’s inevitable slide into slavery. Is that a trade-off you are willing to live with?

Here is a thought experiment for those students who cannot cope with U.S. military action. Consider if the United States discovered that Saddam Hussein, despite our watchfulness, had created a stockpile of missiles tipped with anthrax or small-pox. Do you really think any effort to “understand” why Saddam Hussein deplores the U.S. would help us deter his use of those weapons? Do you really think Hussein would bend to the breezes emanating from an international tribunal?

Since Sept. 11, firefighters, policemen, politicians and a multitude of other organizations and citizens have overflowed with courage, generosity, compassion, patriotism and wisdom.

To understand the contribution since Sept. 11 of many of the nation’s college students, look at the above nouns and then find their antonyms.

Matt Emerson is a sophomore studying political science.