In recent months, there have been both disturbing and hopeful developments around the barring of non-leftist voices on Western college campuses.
The bans are no longer just on fascist clowns like Milo Yiannopoulos, but on serious scholars. My old professor, Harvey C. Mansfield, a man of profound learning, was invited and then disinvited to Concordia University in Canada to give an address on the role of great books in contemporary education – because of his alleged (and, I can personally vouch, nonexistent) sexism, homophobia, etc., etc. Jordan Peterson was invited and then disinvited by Cambridge to do research for a semester, for roughly the same crimes against “social justice” ideology. Next up: Roger Scruton, perhaps the most profound and persuasive conservative philosopher in the West. He had an unpaid position to advise the British government by chairing an innocuous “Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.” This time, he was fired after an unethically doctored interview was published by the deputy editor of the New Statesman, George Eaton. Eaton marked the occasion of a scholar’s downfall by posting a photo of himself downing a bottle of Champagne.
And then Middlebury. Ah, yes, Middlebury, a fine school that has, in recent years, capitulated to the outrage mob. Middlebury’s latest strike against free discourse is the sudden disinvitation of one professor Ryszard Legutko, a reactionary Polish philosopher and sometime politician, who despises liberal democracy (which you’d think the “social justice” crowd might approve of). Legutko, however, has no time for gay equality or visibility, because of his sincerely held orthodox Christian convictions, but he is nonetheless a serious scholar, specializing in ancient political philosophy, in particular Plato. He was also a hero of the Polish resistance to Communist rule and the editor of a samizdat publication. He was invited to speak at Middlebury, flew across the Atlantic, only to discover as he arrived in Vermont that his talk had been canceled for “safety” reasons.
But the good news is that there are inklings of a pushback. At Middlebury, the students who were planning to protest Legutko were far more liberal than their college administrators: “It is absolutely, unequivocally not the intent of this protest and those participating in this protest to prevent Legutko from speaking. Disruptive behavior of this nature will not be tolerated,” wrote one of the student organizers. The inspired idea was to create a glorious festival of gay visibility outside the lecture, while Legutko spoke — but not to shut him down, as the mob did with Charles Murray. Perfect.
So when the administrators abruptly canceled the event, the students who wanted to engage Legutko did something remarkable. They asked their political science professor if he would host Legutko in their regular seminar. The invitation was unanimously supported by the students, the professor agreed, and the students spent one hour developing arguments in advance against Legutko, then heard him lecture and tackled him in vigorous debate. There was no “safety” issue whatsoever. In fact, students in other classes migrated to that seminar, the crowd growing as time went by.
After Legutko’s invite, the administration convened an emergency meeting with students. And in another encouraging sign, a rebel student secretly recorded it. Check out his video here and here. You can hear PC students arguing that gay students are too fragile to engage arguments against homosexuality, so distraught by even the idea of it that they could not study anything at all. Seriously. All those pioneering activists for gay equality, who risked their lives and careers for their cause and brought their arguments directly to the face of their opponents, should shudder at the insult.
Legutko, of course, is no stranger to having his speech threatened. In Poland, the Communists did it, with the power of the state. Communist students would berate professors in class with the same arguments against a liberal education that today’s “social justice” activists make. Legutko remembers them: “Why teach Aristotle who despised women and defended slavery? Why teach Plato whom Lenin derided as the author of ‘super-stupid metaphysics of ideas’? Why teach Saint Thomas Aquinas, who was propagating anti-scientific superstition? Why teach Descartes who in his notion of cogito completely ignored the class struggle?”
In America, with the First Amendment, he is far freer. But it’s quite clear that college administrators, following critical race, gender, and queer theory, did all they could to silence him, just as the Polish Communists did. In the same samizdat tape, one professor, responding to the outrage at even inviting Legutko to speak, told the students: “You should be outraged and we should acknowledge that and apologize for it.”
I’ve long believed that at some point students would rebel against their new ideological overlords, like students always have. The desire to learn by engaging uncomfortable arguments rationally has been a deep one in the human psyche, since Socrates was executed for it. It is the root of liberal democracy. It is what universities are for. More and more are deciding to back the Chicago Principles, which guarantee that no speech can be suppressed on campus, within First Amendment limits. Sixty-two other institutions of higher learning have now adopted this principle, and the list is growing. If you’re a student denied a free education by the social-justice fanatics, ask your college administrators if they would agree to sign on.
The bans are no longer just on fascist clowns like Milo Yiannopoulos, but on serious scholars. My old professor, Harvey C. Mansfield, a man of profound learning, was invited and then disinvited to Concordia University in Canada to give an address on the role of great books in contemporary education – because of his alleged (and, I can personally vouch, nonexistent) sexism, homophobia, etc., etc. Jordan Peterson was invited and then disinvited by Cambridge to do research for a semester, for roughly the same crimes against “social justice” ideology. Next up: Roger Scruton, perhaps the most profound and persuasive conservative philosopher in the West. He had an unpaid position to advise the British government by chairing an innocuous “Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.” This time, he was fired after an unethically doctored interview was published by the deputy editor of the New Statesman, George Eaton. Eaton marked the occasion of a scholar’s downfall by posting a photo of himself downing a bottle of Champagne.
And then Middlebury. Ah, yes, Middlebury, a fine school that has, in recent years, capitulated to the outrage mob. Middlebury’s latest strike against free discourse is the sudden disinvitation of one professor Ryszard Legutko, a reactionary Polish philosopher and sometime politician, who despises liberal democracy (which you’d think the “social justice” crowd might approve of). Legutko, however, has no time for gay equality or visibility, because of his sincerely held orthodox Christian convictions, but he is nonetheless a serious scholar, specializing in ancient political philosophy, in particular Plato. He was also a hero of the Polish resistance to Communist rule and the editor of a samizdat publication. He was invited to speak at Middlebury, flew across the Atlantic, only to discover as he arrived in Vermont that his talk had been canceled for “safety” reasons.But the good news is that there are inklings of a pushback. At Middlebury, the students who were planning to protest Legutko were far more liberal than their college administrators: “It is absolutely, unequivocally not the intent of this protest and those participating in this protest to prevent Legutko from speaking. Disruptive behavior of this nature will not be tolerated,” wrote one of the student organizers. The inspired idea was to create a glorious festival of gay visibility outside the lecture, while Legutko spoke — but not to shut him down, as the mob did with Charles Murray. Perfect.
So when the administrators abruptly canceled the event, the students who wanted to engage Legutko did something remarkable. They asked their political science professor if he would host Legutko in their regular seminar. The invitation was unanimously supported by the students, the professor agreed, and the students spent one hour developing arguments in advance against Legutko, then heard him lecture and tackled him in vigorous debate. There was no “safety” issue whatsoever. In fact, students in other classes migrated to that seminar, the crowd growing as time went by.
After Legutko’s invite, the administration convened an emergency meeting with students. And in another encouraging sign, a rebel student secretly recorded it. Check out his video here and here. You can hear PC students arguing that gay students are too fragile to engage arguments against homosexuality, so distraught by even the idea of it that they could not study anything at all. Seriously. All those pioneering activists for gay equality, who risked their lives and careers for their cause and brought their arguments directly to the face of their opponents, should shudder at the insult.
Legutko, of course, is no stranger to having his speech threatened. In Poland, the Communists did it, with the power of the state. Communist students would berate professors in class with the same arguments against a liberal education that today’s “social justice” activists make. Legutko remembers them: “Why teach Aristotle who despised women and defended slavery? Why teach Plato whom Lenin derided as the author of ‘super-stupid metaphysics of ideas’? Why teach Saint Thomas Aquinas, who was propagating anti-scientific superstition? Why teach Descartes who in his notion of cogito completely ignored the class struggle?”
In America, with the First Amendment, he is far freer. But it’s quite clear that college administrators, following critical race, gender, and queer theory, did all they could to silence him, just as the Polish Communists did. In the same samizdat tape, one professor, responding to the outrage at even inviting Legutko to speak, told the students: “You should be outraged and we should acknowledge that and apologize for it.”
I’ve long believed that at some point students would rebel against their new ideological overlords, like students always have. The desire to learn by engaging uncomfortable arguments rationally has been a deep one in the human psyche, since Socrates was executed for it. It is the root of liberal democracy. It is what universities are for. More and more are deciding to back the Chicago Principles, which guarantee that no speech can be suppressed on campus, within First Amendment limits. Sixty-two other institutions of higher learning have now adopted this principle, and the list is growing. If you’re a student denied a free education by the social-justice fanatics, ask your college administrators if they would agree to sign on.
by Andrew Sullivan, NY Magazine/Intelligencer | Read more:
