December 18, 2007
Thomas Sowell, one of my favorite columnists, writes about the problem of student intimidation of professors in higher education in Academic Intimidation. Reading the entire piece, you will see how the problem of intimidation is link right back to the . . . do you want to guess?
Correct! The Sixties!
I bet you didn’t even have to strain a single brain cell for that one!
Mr. Sowell writes:
“How did we get from there to where professors are being advised to not even have their phone numbers listed?
The answer to that question has implications not only for the academic world but for the society at large and for international relations.
It happened because people who ran colleges and universities were too squeamish to use the power they had, and relied instead on clever evasions to avoid confrontations. They were, as the British say, too clever by half.
"Negotiations" and "flexibility" were considered to be the more sophisticated alternative to confrontation.â€
Of course, as we all know, "Negotiations" and "flexibility" leads to a third way, and currently, “[a]uthority in general, and physical force in particular, are anathema to many among the intelligentsia, academic or otherwise. They can always think of some "third way" to avoid hard choices, whether on campus, in society, or among nations.†And the third way can be distilled to impotence and enabling.
During the 60s this ‘third way’ allowed the radicals to run ‘roughshod’ over the academic authority and the repercussions and concussions are still being felt.
Getting to the title of my post, “Now, WWEHD?†or rather “What Would Eric Hoffer Do?â€
Eric Hoffer, the blue collar philosopher and longshoreman, author of The True Believer (which outlines perfectly how and why the insanity of the Global Warming/Climate Change faith came into being) taught a seminar at Berkley during the 60s.
In an interview in the book Hoffer’s American by James D. Koerner,. Hoffer approached the radical 60s environment differently:
“Right at the beginning,†he says, “when these animals were running around threatening the faculty and call them awful names, calling them mother****ers, I let it be known that any punk who came to my class and called me a mother****er I was going to personally throw down those eight flights of steps, and then I was going to jump after him to be sure he found the bottom.â€(74)
Was Hoffer advocating violence? No. A threat of violence, yes, because as he concluded: “[E]verybody was very polite.â€(74)
First it must be understood that good, reasonable and informed people don’t go around intimidating anyone through organized or random violence. Nor do good, reasonable and informed people tolerate such behavior. People that do are the problem. “In Hoffer’s view, all excuses for the toleration of violence and crime are simply other names for cowardice--masks for fear.†(74)
Fear causes people to take the third way and that is “Playing nice-nice†with bad people. Who are the bad people? Well, I look at it this way. I know pornography when I see it. Why should recognizing bad people be any different?
So, think about it: WWEHD?
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Posted by: cookie at July 24, 2011 11:14 PM (FgD4L)
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