This
book begins with perceptive criticisms of the “Three Great Untruths” that
permeate contemporary American society:
1) the belief that humans are fragile and should avoid experiences or
ideas that are unpleasant or slightly dangerous, 2) the belief that individuals
should always trust their feelings, and 3) the belief that people can be
divided neatly into two camps, good and evil. These ideas, the authors observe, not only contradict
ancient wisdom from a plethora of cultural sources but also result in harmful
outcomes. Moreover, perhaps to persuade
youngsters and academics who dismiss out of hand the notion of “ancient wisdom,”
their introductory chapters note that these great untruths also contradict the
findings of cognitive behavioral therapy -- the preferred psychological
approach of author Greg Lukianoff. So
far, so good.
Where the analysis becomes irritatingly infected with
political bias, diminishing its value with a thousand ideologically-driven
cuts, are tedious and unconvincing attempts to show that these misguided
beliefs are present equally on the right and left sides of the political
spectrum. This narrative permeates their
work despite the fact that all the authors’ detailed examples of campus speech codes,
campus violence, and speaker intimidation concern leftist demands for ideological
conformity.
The book is almost worth purchasing for its extensive
account of would-be revolutionaries consuming their own at the very progressive
Evergreen
State College near Seattle. The
authors (who both confess they’ve never voted for a Republican for President or
Congress) describe acts of intimidation and extreme incivility by crazed,
race-fixated students against a biology professor who, though sympathetic to the
intentions of a no-whites-on-campus day, nevertheless declined to join in the
group’s misguided means of achieving its objectives. The up-close threats, vitriol, and involuntary
confinements directed toward this professor and others tarred as white
supremacists lasted for three days. Even
the ridiculous College President who kowtowed slavishly to the uncivilized mob
was insulted and ordered about by these young racial Robespierres.
To provide “balance” and indicate similar incivility on the
right the authors cite “off-campus” groups, regularly described as “alt-right’
and “white supremacist,” that send online threats to political opponents, one
to a professor who called for “white genocide.” This subtle academic term, the authors explain,
was taken literally by the ill-informed online bigots. Another professor’s commencement address, they
note, sparked a flurry of fifty hate-filled internet responses, as if that number
of electronic threats were extraordinary given the speaker’s use of the celebratory
occasion to call President Trump “a racist and sexist megalomaniac.” Contrast those cyber-insults with the vile
face-to-face confrontations and threats that were endured by an instructor at
Yale’s Child Study Center who offered the modest email opinion that the school
shouldn’t be so paternalistic as to prescribe Halloween
costumes for adult students. Both
she and her husband were harassed and insulted by an on-campus mob. To make matters worse, the couple received no
backing from colleagues or administrators and eventually resigned over this
picayune questioning of PC orthodoxy,
In short, Haidt and Lukianoff have transferred the bogus
U.S.A. – U.S.S.R. “moral equivalence” argument to an educational setting, ignoring
the fact that there are zero examples of conservative incivility on campus like
those routinely practiced by leftists. Thus, while extreme leftists, including
faculty members, speak freely at universities, none need the body guards
required by Ann Coulter or meet with acts of violent suppression and harassment
like just-the-facts conservative speaker Ben Shapiro. Yet the
authors assert, without providing specific examples, that “right-wing” attempts
to squelch speech on campus are about as frequent as leftist efforts. If true, I suspect many of those (doubtless
non-violent) petitions involve the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic speakers that
have proliferated on campuses in recent years -- speakers like Iran’s
Holocaust-denying former Prime Minister Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad at Columbia. Such pleas are
really pro-Israeli and not technically right-wing. Moreover, to weigh equally objections to Condoleezza
Rice and Ahmadinejad represents a profoundly skewed moral calculus.
Haidt and Lukianoff further soften the clear ideological component
involved in the censoring and vilification of conservatives by focusing
attention on a multiplicity of other causes like social media that have
contributed to the belief that “offensive speech” (as subjectively perceived by
a single individual) is itself a form of violence which may be countered with
actual violence. While it is doubtless
the case that social media helps fan the flames of hyper-partisanship, the book
ignores the historical fact that leftist regimes have invariably suppressed
dissent and vilified political opponents.
It’s also important to note, as the authors don’t, that while leftists can
easily live in ideological bubbles isolated from sophisticated conservative
viewpoints, the same isn’t true for conservatives who are inundated with
liberal ideas from grade school on. Finally,
throughout the book the term “alt-right” is regularly teamed with the label “neo-Nazi”
to imply a false connection between conservative thought and the KKK. Actually, the latter groups’ numbers, as even
Professor Alan Dershowitz
has observed, are miniscule, and their cultural impact largely limited to ineffectual
tweets whereas the left, as the late Charles Krauthammer repeatedly observed,
has long occupied the cultural
high-ground of the media as well as education and the entertainment
industry.
If Haidt and Lukianoff weren’t bending over backward to avoid
being burned at the academic stake by their more zealous colleagues, they would
have observed that no conservative mobs are harassing the incendiary
Congresswoman Maxine Waters like folks on the left have screamed at Mitch
McConnell, Sarah Sanders, or, just recently, Tucker
Carlson and his family at their home.
They might also have focused attention on the clear leftist bias of
big-Tech companies like YouTube that
has employed mysterious “algorithms” to limit access to straightforward,
conservative Prager University videos (like Victor Davis Hanson’s five-minute
overview of the Korean War) while placing no such filters on non-scholarly and
often offensive rants emanating from the likes of Bill Maher.
Finally, if Haidt and Lukianoff wanted to present a more
accurate analysis of the maladies they correctly identify, they might have
considered whether President Trump’s election was as much the electorate’s response
to leftist oppression as the authors view recent acts of political incivility
as unfortunate reactions to Trump’s abrasive rhetoric. A less-biased analysis would also mention at
least one unhelpful Obama comment, like his implicit embrace of the false “hands
up, don’t shoot” Michael Brown narrative when he said the incident “stains
the heart of black children” who “feel targeted by law enforcement --
guilty of walking while black or driving while black.” Instead, Obama is
uncritically presented as a champion of viewpoint diversity.
While there are many positive points in this book about
demonizing opponents, listening to opposing views, and even a critique of the idea
that equal opportunity demands equal outcomes, the authors’ unwillingness to
even consider the totalitarian impulse that is baked into the DNA of leftism makes it a difficult read. And while there is much to praise when topics
like overprotective parenting and even cognitive behavioral therapy are considered,
the links between these matters and the book’s primary focus on the suppression
of political speech are tenuous and function more to divert attention from the factor that most promotes the “three great
untruths” -- leftism. But perhaps diluted
versions of the truth is all that can, with trepidation, be expressed among academics
and students who regularly vilify and threaten individuals who don’t support
authoritative dicta vis-à-vis Halloween costumes.
Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in
Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy:
"Who's to Say?" is also available
on Kindle
No comments:
Post a Comment