Greg Lukianoff is interviewed at the WSJ on his new book Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate:
“The people who believe that colleges and universities are places where we want less freedom of speech have won,” Mr. Lukianoff says. “If anything, there should be even greater freedom of speech on college campuses. But now things have been turned around to give campus communities the expectation that if someone’s feelings are hurt by something that is said, the university will protect that person. As soon as you allow something as vague as Big Brother protecting your feelings, anything and everything can be punished.”…..
Conservatives and libertarians are especially vulnerable to such charges of harassment. Even though Mr. Lukianoff’s efforts might aid those censorship victims, he hardly counts himself as one of them: He says that he is a lifelong Democrat and a “passionate believer” in gay marriage and abortion rights. And free speech. “If you’re going to get in trouble for an opinion on campus, it’s more likely for a socially conservative opinion.”
Parents and alumni dismiss free-speech restrictions as something that only happens to conservatives, or that will never affect their own children.
I see, so if it happens to a conservative, it’s not really happening to the liberal parents and alumni. Where is the outrage from the conservative parents and alumni? They should join FIRE and fight back.
It is actually a valid grounds for refusing to adhere to the social compact.
Esp. If the institution is a public one, and the view widespread in the public.
Oh, don’t be an ass. There’s at least as much of an argument that liberals are refusing to adhere to the social compact — hell, Obama said as much when he called for “fundamenta; transformation”. Back in the late Sixties, when women’s liberation was demanding more women at work, more equitable laws, and protection against discrimination, the “social compact” everyone aspired to was “Leave It to Beaver”, with mom in pretty starched dresses and a lace apron turning out home-baked cakes, and Dad in his study or doing his more or less unspecified job.
Hmm, I read his comment as, “It is time to start punching them in their big, fat mouths, when they do this.”
A bit of repetition in there:
Even though Mr. Lukianoff’s efforts might aid those censorship victims, he hardly counts himself as one of them: He says that he is a lifelong Democrat and a “passionate believer” in gay marriage and abortion rights. And free speech. “If you’re going to get in trouble for an opinion on campus, it’s more likely for a socially conservative opinion.” Even though Mr. Lukianoff’s efforts might aid those censorship victims, he hardly counts himself as one of them: He says that he is a lifelong Democrat and a “passionate believer” in gay marriage and abortion rights. And free speech. “If you’re going to get in trouble for an opinion on campus, it’s more likely for a socially conservative opinion…”
Thanks, fixed.
My views on most things are pretty much out in the open. Liberal/progressive types may find them unsettling, perhaps even offensive to their candy assed perspective of the world.
I don’t really worry about harrassment from them, though. Somebody from that crew who thinks that they can intmidate me doesn’t know me very well, and they are ill prepared for the task. To successfully harrass me, you better bring a lunch, because it will take a while, and you better bring a gun, because I certainly will.
Won’t it be lovely when all the talk is over and we can just get to it?
I don’t much care what goes on at universities (as long as they’re not doing something illegal like engaging in human sacrifice or whatever), as long as I’m not forced to subsidize it via taxation.
You should care. Universities mold social opinion through indoctrination of the next generation; through that generation’s control, after graduation, of the government, the press, and business; through the books that professors and graduates write; through the curricula that they produce that are then used at lower educational levels; and through a myriad of other ways.
Permitting colleges and universities—publicly funded or not—to become enclaves which embrace a lockstep ideology is permitting the country to become totalitarian (and more stupid) by degrees, without violence. It is allowing a “soft” revolution to take place.
I should add, perhaps, that most institutions of higher learning, even those ostensibly privately funded, are nowadays publicly funded through government grants—so there is leverage for the public to affect even the so-called “private” institutions as well as those which are “public.”
Everyone should care about what happens on Universities and grade and high schools for that matter. They are all one party states run by Progressives. In them you can see the totalitarian mindset Progressives really have and how they’d run this country if there was no opposition.
Totalitarian Utopianism seems like an oxymoron, but that is what they aspire to.
If and when the GOP can free the party from the libertarians and the evangelical conservatives, then and and then can the party get back to a footing of governing on behalf of the nation and not special interest radicals — maybe even win an election!
The ONLY social contract the federal government has responsibility for is protecting the national sovereignty and individual rights. That whole “welfare clause” thing has now long been abused by ever kind of special interest group ultimately corrupting the constitution and the federal government.
“Conservatives and libertarians are especially vulnerable to such charges of harassment.”
First, lets not use ther term “conservative’ so broadly and loosely! Whats at play now the GOP is the social conservative AND the libertarian movements. Both sides are one hundred eight degrees apart. One side wants to use the government to legislate national social values based upon their particualr brand of evangelical christianity. The other side wants to use government to essentially legislate itself out of business leading to anarachy lite.
On the other side of the room sits the democrats. A bunch that has come to a high degree of ‘political’ unity over the past 50 years and are masters at understanding and manipulating the vulnerablilities of human nature and victimization. They better understand the shepard and the passive flock principals of human nature.
The shepards of the greater flock portray the shepards of the lesser flock to be wolves disguised in sheeps clothing thus, giving them the leverage of fear to be spread among thier flock.
The two opposing radical groups fighting to take control of the GOP are easily cornered most everytime they open their mouths by the shepards of the majority.
“If and when the GOP can free the party from the libertarians and the evangelical conservatives…”
Then it’ll be as large as Cincinnati’s Charterite party, and just as successful on the national stage!
“The ONLY social contract the federal government has responsibility for is protecting the national sovereignty and individual rights.”
That sounds like a pretty libertarian sentiment to me. In fact it’s essentially the essence of libertarianism, i.e. that the government exists to protect negative rights and not enact wealth transfer.
Successful parties look for converts. Unsuccessful parties look for heretics.
It is pretty obvious which one Zeke advocates.