Monday’s Wall Street Journal featured an opinion, “You Can’t Cancel Me, I Quit” (paywalled I am sure), by author Mary Eberstadt. Her piece followed on the heals of the incident at Stanford Law School and a piece (also paywalled) by that school’s invited speaker, Federal Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan.
Judge Ducan’s opinion piece has generated a lot of response, both within The Journal‘s pages and without (a Washington Post reaction does not appear to be paywalled). He explained how he was shouted down at an invited talk, an incident that was aided and abetted by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion dean at the school. Ms. Eberstadt does not reference Duncan’s article directly but rather focuses on her own scheduled talk at Furman University, where she was invited to speak by the Tocqueville Program. She ended up cancelling and her essay explains her reasons why.
Among those reasons, she cites threatened* and real** violence risked by those who would speak on unpopular topics. Her final decision, however, hinged upon the words of Liel Leibovitz (journalist and visiting professor at NYU) who, as quoted in her piece, explained:
The terrible power our pursuers hold over us, the power of intimidation and of setting the terms of the debate, dissolves the moment you realize you’re free to disengage.
In other words, the solution to the deterioration of the cultural situation at our nation’s institutions may be for the few remaining reasonable people to simply to walk away.
It got me to wondering what is lost in all this. Certainly it seems that much would be. How much do today’s university students miss by being cut off from a sizable segment of the world’s discourse? And does that even matter? In Ms. Eberstadt’s case, she explains that “it’s better to read than to watch.” The student members of the Tocqueville Program were all sent a copy of her book, Primal Screams, gratis. Further, additional copies were made available at the University President’s office for any other students that would understand her position, agree or disagree with it as is their wish.
Although it may not in future remain the case, at least for now you can buy whatever books you want – whether they echo the popular sentiment or offend it. Certainly reading a well-written and well-edited written work, to my mind, is superior to listening to a talk; but all these things have their place. Especially if you’re willing to stray way from YouTube, and into the realms like BitChute or Rumble, you should be able to view talks by just about anyone you fancy. Point being, I’m not sure if society as a whole is actually being deprived of measured discourse, particular for and among those members who are willing to seek it out.
For those who are more passive in their news-and-current-affairs consumption, how much does the throttling of one side’s opinions really affect them? The type of person who got up early on Sunday Morning to watch The McLaughlin Group surely will have no problem seeking out a range of viewpoints. Those that turn on the TV only when the sports come on – did they ever benefit from a more civil and balanced discourse? Even if not, we might admit there is value to the “editorial” function that helps all of us focus on what’s important. Not everyone can be a policy expert. A properly functioning media can help us distill down the 24/7 debate into a half-hour format.
The most severe damage is to the University system itself. One might wonder how long and how much it can degrade its foundation of centuries of tradition before the facade collapses. I am, myself, to the point where I might happily cheer on such a collapse but, practically speaking, the world does not have a replacement waiting in the wings. From a purely technical standpoint, I think the next generation could be “educated” and “cultured” outside of the old academic edifice. The non-academic world, however, does not yet know how to interpret such non-traditional learning. Therefore, corporate America will continue to place a premium on degrees from the top-rated Universities, even as the value of those degrees is objectively slipping away. Meanwhile, the political arm of academia is pushing to ingrain “credentials” as the primary means of evaluating the quality of an individual contributor as well as to solidify themselves as the arbiter of that credentialing.
No, I think universities still have an awful lot of missteps in them before they put themselves out of business. I say that while watching in horror as the goings on at Standford, Furman, and elsewhere hit the papers.
Thinking this all over, though, I reminded me of my own youthful experience.
During my tenure in college, I attended but one lecture by an invited speaker. That speaker was G. Gordon Liddy.
For anyone too young to remember, Liddy organized the break-in at the Watergate office of the Democratic National Committee on the behest of President Richard Nixon. When caught, he was charged with, and convicted of, felonies for burglary, conspiracy, and refusing to answer to the Senate committee investigating Watergate. As the leader of the caper, he received the stiffest penalties of any involved. The foot-soldiers who carried out the crime were also charged and Nixon, of course, was forced to resign the presidency.
When Liddy came to my school, he was fairly fresh out of prison, having served almost five years. He was remaking himself as an author*** and management consultant and was, at that time, identified by The Wall Street Journal as “the top speaker on the college circuit.” He would go on to host a talk show and act in films, as well as being portrayed in films about him. He showed up as a character in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, two made-for-TV movies, and as recently as 2021, in Gaslit, a Watergate-themed drama based on a podcast (how 2020s is that!!!?). One might also recognize a bit of Mr. Liddy in the “superhero” The Comedian from the Watchmen franchise – a resemblance that creator Alan Moore has acknowledged.
G. Gordon Liddy passed away two years ago yesterday.
Now, back in the early 80s, nobody thought of him as the “good guy.” Nixon was considered, almost universally, a villain for his Watergate involvement, even if you otherwise liked his politics. To the extent that his employee Liddy was just “following orders,” these were unlawful orders, and I think everyone felt Liddy fully deserved his conviction and prison time. With all that, we could bring ourselves to listen to someone speak, even if that was someone whom we didn’t exactly admire.
He was, as I recall, a good speaker. Mixing a bit of been-there/done-that leadership advice with a political-incorrectness that can only come from someone whose incorrectness was more than political, I recall that he received a solid welcome and a resounding thanks at his conclusion. I wish I remembered some of the Q&A as I vaguely recall that being that highlight of my night.
What I don’t recall, at all, is the protesters. There was no anguish about the University taking the side of Nixon and Liddy by virtue of the invitation to speak. No outcries that he was part of a “coup” and that rewarding him for that was tantamount to the destruction of American democracy. Nobody, even, was out there holding signs accusing him of being a bit of a jerk – which he certainly was.
Again, if I could remember the Q&A, I’m sure there were people there who didn’t like him and challenged him with questions. He answered those people too and we all came away the better for it. Forty years, though, is a long time to have kept the details intact.
So in the 1980s we were able to engage civilly with someone with whom we largely disagreed. We could take what entertainment and wisdom he offered us and consider it a positive experience. I thought we were pretty judgemental back then – the college campus probably leaned a little left with more than a tinge of anarchy thrown in to boot – but we also prided ourselves on our tolerance.
Comparing and contrasting both our motivations and our actions to today, it seems very clear to me that society has taken a very bad turn.
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*Her opinion piece references a Boise State University Professor Scott Yenor talk on “Dostoevsky and Conscience” at Furman at which the reception was very hostile. His sin was to criticize the gender affirmative action which takes place in science, engineering, and medicine.
**Professor Allison Stanger was hospitalized after an attack in 2017 justified, according to her attackers, by her hosting of Charles Murray at Middlebury College in Vermont. Murray stands accused of being “racist, sexist, [and] anti-gay” as well as a white supremacist.
***He wrote a 1980 autobiography and, perhaps seeking to raise his value to college students, in 1983 he authored an article for Playboy called “Ten Things That Make Me Laugh.”