The Future Ruin Created By The Campus Anti-Free Speechers
It is truly amazing that we need to have Enlightenment values resold to us, but we very much do.
What people don't understand is that the speech squashing is an important shortcut -- it's a way for people to have unearned power over others. This means that they don't really have to accomplish anything; they -- ideally -- have to be the right color and identify as victimized, or they have to be in the movement to force others to conform to the speech codes (which means taking on a measure of self-loathing for being white -- or especially, white and male).
Earned power comes the hard way.
And sure, some people are born richer or prettier or a color that makes things easier. My mother told me I'd have to work harder, being Jewish, because some people would hate me for it. I did that; I didn't whine that I should get a handout or have things made easier. In fact, if anything, my mother's comment to me made me the driven, hard-working person I am today, and I'm grateful for it.
About the current campus speech squashing, Michael Bloomberg and Charles Koch write at the WSJ:
Across America, college campuses are increasingly sanctioning so-called "safe spaces," "speech codes," "trigger warnings," "microaggressions" and the withdrawal of invitations to controversial speakers. By doing so, colleges are creating a climate of intellectual conformity that discourages open inquiry, debate and true learning. Students and professors who dare challenge this climate, or who accidentally run afoul of it, can face derision, contempt, ostracism--and sometimes even official sanctions.The examples are legion. The University of California considers statements such as "America is the land of opportunity" and "everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough" to be microaggressions that faculty should avoid. The roll of disinvited campus speakers in recent years continues to grow, with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education identifying 18 attempts to intimidate speakers so far this year, 11 of which have been successful. The list includes former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is scheduled to give the commencement address at Scripps College this weekend. Student protests have vilified her as a "genocide enabler" and 28 professors have signed a letter stating they will refuse to attend.
Colleges are increasingly shielding students from any idea that could cause discomfort or offense. Yet without the freedom to offend, freedom of expression, as author Salman Rushdie once observed, "ceases to exist." And as Frederick Douglass said in 1860: "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."
When a professor last year decided to write online about the trend toward intolerance on campuses, he did so under a pseudonym out of fear of a backlash. "The student-teacher dynamic," he wrote, "has been reenvisioned along a line that's simultaneously consumerist and hyper-protective, giving each and every student the ability to claim Grievous Harm in nearly any circumstance, after any affront."
We believe that this new dynamic, which is doing a terrible disservice to students, threatens not only the future of higher education, but also the very fabric of a free and democratic society. The purpose of a college education isn't to reaffirm students' beliefs, it is to challenge, expand and refine them--and to send students into the world with minds that are open and questioning, not closed and self-righteous. This helps young people discover their talents and prepare them for citizenship in a diverse, pluralistic democratic society. American society is not always a comfortable place to be; the college campus shouldn't be, either.
Education is also supposed to give students the tools they need to contribute to human progress. Through open inquiry and a respectful exchange of ideas, students can discover new ways to help others improve their lives.
I love this WSJ commenter, Addison Gardner, who wrote:
The only speaker assured of an openminded reception, today, is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who'd be greeted with cheers and a hotel fruit basket.
via @adamkissel
And by "fruit basket" would that be a random selection of gays and lesbians for Imadinnerjacket to throw off his hotel's roof?
I mean, we have to be open minded and accepting his culture, right?
I R A Darth Aggie at May 13, 2016 7:09 AM
Well, on a positive note, prohibitions against "cultural appropriation" mean that we won't have people on campus throwing gays and lesbians off rooftops like they do in Muslim-majority countries -- per Islam's commands.
Amy Alkon at May 13, 2016 7:23 AM
College male: " I believe women should have no rights and gays should be hanged."
College girl: "What a primitive asshole you are. You must be a Republican."
College male:" I am a Muslim. Those are my religious beliefs."
College girl: " I am so sorry. I apologize. I hope you don't think I am an Islamophobe."
Nick at May 13, 2016 8:43 AM
'Tis a wonderful thing to be on the side that's doing all the oppressing.
Patrick at May 13, 2016 8:52 AM
I wonder if the administration simply needs to acquire more teeth, because some of this stuff I'm reading makes me wonder what the problem is.
Not that I care to hear anything that Albright has to say, but why didn't the admin just write the professors back and say, "Then don't attend"?
I guarantee you that at least a few of them would end up attending.
And if students want to have their protests, let them. But at a respectful distance away so that those who want to hear Madeleine (God knows why) can hear her. This may require some assistance from campus security and the local police, but hey, at least you're not laying down.
It's no skin off the college's back if the graduating class doesn't want to attend their own commencement. They can have their diplomas mailed to them.
Patrick at May 13, 2016 9:02 AM
@Patrick: 'Tis a wonderful thing to be on the side that's doing all the oppressing.
Yep, until they find out that somebody even more radical comes along and decides to silence them. But for 18-year-olds whose grasp of history begins with their birth dates and ends this weekend, that kind of complexity is a little tough to fathom.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at May 13, 2016 9:14 AM
"I wonder if the administration simply needs to acquire more teeth ..."
You misunderstand Patrick. They just don't want to be on the record for rejecting these people. The protests and letters are just a convenient scapegoat. They could end all of them the next day, as some administrators have demonstrated.
Ben at May 13, 2016 9:48 AM
Unfortunately, this intolerance has infected academia also. The world of scholarship is supposed to be about discovery, challenging the status quo, good argument, good methods, good facts. But HAH! If you are trying to publish something that is not pc, look out. For example, the Atkins diet, based on avoidance of carbs, has proven to work for many people, but the hostility to it from the start has been astonishing.
In biology, the dogma was that only genes determine development. But it has turned out that epigenetics (genes being turned on or off or modulated) is very powerful and can influence one's offspring. Research showing this could not get funded for decades and only wildly powerful studies were sufficient to demonstrate it. Stomach cancer and H. pylori. Blood pressure and salt. Second-hand smoke and cancer. You name it, if you buck the official line you will have a hard time, even be fired. Even if you turn out to be right. In some fields like climate change, there are even official enemies lists of skeptics. It is censorship and political correctness in this case slowing down scientific progress.
Craig Loehl at May 13, 2016 11:39 AM
Progressives must at all times be challenged and forced to acknowledge that "political correctness" is a muzzling device used only to suppress the TRUTH, because the truth contradicts the narrative, and thus induces cognitive dissonance in the true believer, and doubts in the yet-to-be-convinced.
SJW's (including feminists) always lie ... because they have no other choice.
Jay R at May 13, 2016 12:52 PM
Nick, you just don't understand Islam. Fortunately, the new mayor of London can educate you about why all the stuff that sounds bad isn't part of real Islam.
Szoszolo at May 13, 2016 2:04 PM
Unrelated to the topic, but my doctor was trying to talk me out of Atkins Dieting. He claimed that Atkins died of a heart attack.
"No, he died of traumatic brain injury. He fell on some ice."
But my doctor insisted that he knew Robert Atkins personally.
Which doesn't mean he knows how Atkins died.
Patrick at May 13, 2016 2:13 PM
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