Every semester K.L. hires a fresh batch of student workers to replace those lost by graduation, academic suspension, or the lure of juicier campus jobs. This week, for the first time since I've been here, he hired an attractive female student worker. J.M., our crusty old computer tech guy who has an eye for the fillies, said with a reformer's zeal, "It's about time. I always got annoyed that K. hired the most plain looking girls on campus, even though he would get applications from some pretty ones." He was quite serious about making physical attractiveness a consideration in hiring. Even though I'm old fashioned in many ways, this was a bit unreconstructed even for me.

This got me to thinking that the fundamental difference between liberalism and conservatism is over the extent to which human nature is malleable.