6:11 PM Fri, Oct 16, 2009 | Permalink
By Robert Whitcomb  Email this author | Email this entry |
Once again, people in a university community have shown themselves impressively fearful of what they, above all, are supposed to be defending -- free inquiry and discussion.
Student protests have prompted a Harvard University group to fearfully withdraw an invitation to the head of an anti-illegal-immigration movement group --Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist. Threats led the Harvard Undergraduate Legal Committee to withdraw the invitation to speak Saturday because it was "not compatible with providing an environment for civil, educational, and productive discourse on immigration." Orwell would have treasured that.
Gilchrist did, it is true, speak at the Harvard Law School last winter. But now the world's richest and most powerful university displays a climate in which people with strong and articulate views on a certain public-policy issues are sometimes forced away because their views do not accord with others.
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Most people like you -- as long as you agree with them. But if you have a different point of view AND express yourself articulately and with passion -- Look Out! Unwilling to share, and fearful of losing their "power" (money, influence, prestige, etc.) they will first, ignore you. If that doesn't work, they'll try to marginalize you. If that doesn't work, they'll have you arrested. And if that doesn't work....
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This is another example of what is called a "fraudulent consensus". This arises when people of like minds mingle only with each other. The opinion develops that we are the "best and the brightest" and we all agree. The corollary is that anyone who doesn't agree must be at best poorly informed, at worst, just stupid.
Since there must be at least one person in that group who disagrees, the public develops the opinion that they must lack courage. Courageous or not, they may fear a denial of tenure.
Those who care about such things will recall that no one was expelled after the incident at Brown where newspapers were destroyed because the contained notices of a speaker opposed to slavery reparations.
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