The bourgeoisie is educated by its enemies
... spit flies, but the spit must be put in context ...
My comment
This sickness in the universities has festered for decades in Europe, Australasia, the UK and US. As a conservative academic I had horrible experiences confronting it in two universities, in Sydney and before that in London. Perhaps the US is in the best position to cure this disease because private sector funding is so essential for the survival of many of its most prestigious universities — whereas their counterparts in the UK have in some cases been very generously funded by Chinese nationals.
Also the speed with which the US separation of powers went into action to interrogate university principals in the wake of the upsurge in antisemitism on campuses is extremely impressive and a salutary reminder of the essential functionality of deeply institutionalised public accountability before the law with checks and balances to regulate every aspect of potential social disorder and discord.
Since I have recently brought Joseph Schumpeter back into the Social Science Files it would be fitting to explain that Schumpeter foresaw the problem but did not foresee the potential solution. He foresaw that the bourgeoisie would allow itself to be educated by its worst enemies, a thoroughly disgruntled cadre of ‘intellectuals’ in the humanities and the social sciences. I explain his argument in my book Capitalism, Institutions, and Economic Development in a section titled ‘Intellectual Resistance’ pp. 173-8. But Schumpeter did not consider the possibility that eventually the rich and tolerant donors who finance their alma maters might begin to fight back, in the US at least.
I have a string of excellent reports to display on this topic below.
But I want to start with excerpts from the three concluding pages of a book by one of the vocal Harvard defenders of Claudine Gay. His name is Benjamin Eidelson. He is a professor of law at Harvard University. If he has been advising Claudine Gay on the implementation of the horrendous policies of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) then this insight into the vapidity and triteness of the underlying legal-philosophical position might help to explain the cowardice of the testimony concerning ‘context’.
… If you don’t know that spitting on people is taken as a sign of disrespect, and your ignorance is itself not a consequence of disrespect for anyone, then your spitting on someone does not manifest an attitude of basic disrespect. But if you do know what spitting on someone means, then your disregard for the harms of violating the convention means that your action does manifest such disrespect, even if your aim is not to show disrespect for the person you spit on. …
… One effect of close analysis of the contingent effects of an action or policy, then, and of publicising the conclusions, is to add to the moral stakes confronting a decision-maker. Such analysis forces her to choose not only whether to adopt some given course of action, but also, simultaneously, whether to respect all of the persons affected as beings of genuine and equal value. …
… The vigour of public opposition to wrongful discrimination reflects a precious and hard-won point of consensus, but it does seem to have come at the expense of intellectual clarity about exactly what is objectionable, why it is, and the different degrees of badness that may be involved in different cases. …
[then … the book’s final sentence]
… As a whole, then, I hope this book makes a modest contribution toward clarifying the predicament facing those of us who are quite sure that we’re against wrongful discrimination, but remain uncertain just what that commits us to, and why.
[emphases added]
The source: Discrimination and Disrespect by Benjamin Eidelson, Oxford 2015
Read that again. This professor teaches the admirably unequivocal science of law, a product of centuries of evolution devoted in considerable part to ironing out all the possible little creases of equivocation in words like ‘wrongful’ and ‘discriminatory’. If Eidelson really thinks there can still be rampant and morally excusable uncertainty about the meaning of ‘wrongful discrimination’ (or genocide) he should reread H. L. A. Hart, beginning with three exhibits I posted here at Social Science Files:
If the US must have a civil war to end the deadlock over ‘values’ and restore rationality and intelligence to the process of properly educating future decision makers then the universities (rather than the streets and the nation’s formal political institutions) will constitute the best battlefields on which to wage the war. The university faculties have clearly been the source of the stupidity and hatred directed against the achievements of the West.
Yet the great irony is that the West’s achievements are formal clearcut deliberative mechanisms for implementing non-discrimination and equal treatment as the basic credo of civilised society. As anyone who has studied the long and torturous road trodden to arrive at the tolerant post-barbaric society will know, the ‘values’ of that credo are bourgeois values, and the system they delivered is capitalist democracy.
I almost forgot the punchline — if the civil war battlefield is to be the universities you can be sure the academics will at the very least know that spitting is wrong. Even camels know it. Spitting is, by nature, deliberately offensive. How can it be doubted in law or in the classroom that spitting and the celebration of genocide are wrong?
Do camels really spit? Yes, and it’s most unpleasant. They aren’t actually spitting, though—it’s more like throwing up! They bring up the contents of their stomach, along with saliva, and project it out. This is meant to surprise, distract, or bother whatever the camel feels is threatening it. You can tell if a camel is about to spit: its cheeks fill up and bulge.
Anyone who seriously ‘theorises’ that there can be valid equivocation about whether ‘spitting on someone’ is right or wrong probably does not yet deserve tenure at one of the world’s most esteemed centres of higher education. No wonder they cannot give a clear message about the wrongfulness of inciting genocide. The author of the book I just quoted is “so .. so .. so” progressive, and, therefore, “so” uncertain about what in kindergarten terms is right and wrong, namely support for explicitly genocidal military-political movements regardless of context.
He ranted in a manner not becoming of a Harvard law professor:
Fortunately there is another professor of law at Harvard who can give us a more cogent and coherent account of what has been going on. So I will simply quote the ‘other’ Harvard law school professor and then past the links to the background material. Since all of you will be familiar already with the background story I don’t think there is much danger of physical injuries resulting from repeated ‘plops’.
The first exhibit is an article by ‘the other’ Harvard law professor…
Exhibit 1:
Claudine Gay’s Double Standard on Freedom of Speech Renders Her Unfit To Lead Harvard,
Yet she is only part of a deeper problem at Harvard in particular and higher education in general.
By ALAN DERSHOWITZ, Monday, December 11, 2023
in The New York Sun
When Claudine Gay was appointed president of Harvard, many of us expressed concern about her dismal record on civil liberties. As dean of the faculty, she was responsible for the firing — she called it non-rehiring — of Professor Ronald Sullivan, who had served, along with his wife as co-dean (it used to be called “master”) of Winthrop House, until he agreed to represent disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Several students then said that Mr. Sullivan’s role as co-dean made them feel unsafe. Despite the absurdity of the claim — Mr. Sullivan had previously represented a double murderer without complaint — Ms. Gay agreed that the students had a right to feel safe and decided not to reappoint Mr. Sullivan and his wife.
Ms. Gay said that he had failed to give a satisfactory explanation for his one-month-long representation of an accused rapist — as if representing an accused rapist requires any explanation other than the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. She also said he had failed in his “pastoral“ role in making the students feel safe.
As dean she was also a supporter of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracies that are at the forefront of enforcing rules against so-called micro-aggressions and other violations of free expression. Students and faculty walked on eggshells to avoid offending protected groups, including Black and gay and transgender students.
It was no surprise to me that Harvard was ranked dead last among major universities in supporting free speech. It repeatedly placed concern for the feelings of certain students above concern for freedom of expression. The situation became so bad that a group of faculty banded together to establish the Harvard Council on Academic Freedom, which I joined.
Ms. Gay was not part of that effort to protect free speech. To the contrary, her appointment as president was an important stimulus to creating a group dedicated to the defense of free speech.
Then came the barbarisms of October 7, Israel’s response, the proliferation of antisemitism, Ms. Gay’s disastrous Congressional testimony, and the near-universal criticism of it. Suddenly Gay discovered the First Amendment and freedom of speech.
Indeed, she became its champion, when it involved hate speech against Jews and their nation-state. Even macro-aggressions against Jews — like calls for the genocide of Jews— became a matter of “context.” In the past even the most trivial microaggressions did not require context. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracy saw to that.
It was this combination of lack of concern for free speech when it was directed against protected minorities and a sudden concern for free speech when directed against Jews that manifests a discriminatory double standard that angered so many students and alumni.
The time has now come for her to step down. She has failed as a protector of students, as an education leader and as a spokeswoman for Harvard. She has lost the faith of many alumni. She is the wrong person, at the wrong time, in the wrong job.
Yet she is only part of a deeper problem at Harvard in particular and higher education in general. The deeper problem is the systemic emphasis on race, gender, sexual preference and identity politics and education. This emphasis is manifested by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracy, the proliferation of special identity departments and programs, as well as race-based affirmative action, which persists despite the Supreme Court decision outlawing it.
President Gay is the personification of these problems. Indeed her appointment as president cannot be explained except by reference to these developments. She was appointed because she symbolized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Now she symbolizes its failure. She must go if higher education is to be saved from the extremists who now dominate it.
Several hundred Harvard professors have now come to Ms. Gay’s defense, arguing that the decision whether to fire her should not be based on pressure from alumni or politicians. Yet they have not addressed the compelling substantive reasons behind the widespread call for her termination.
Alumni and student views have always been taken into account as part of Harvard’s decision-making processes. These views should be debated on their merits. In my view, the merits strongly favor the resignation of Ms. Gay because of what she has done and not done in imposing a double standard on Harvard’s actions.
Three exhibits from the WSJ in order of publication (today’s editorial first)
Link 1:
America Gets a Harvard Education
Claudine Gay survives as president thanks to the school’s double standard.
Link 2:
The Ivy League Mask Falls
Antisemitism is one example of a much deeper rot on campus.
… and a good podcast
The Intellectual Corruption at U.S. Universities Comes Into Public View
The moral equivocation by three university presidents before Congress about antisemitism has revealed a deeper problem of political conformity and illiberal values on campus. Are DEI policies part of the problem?
I'm Paul Gigot with The Wall Street Journal editorial page, and I'm here with my colleagues, Collin Levy and Kim Strassel.
My thanks to the Wall Street Journal, The New York Sun … and Condorito
Dr Michael G. Heller
