"The Dangerous Safety of College" by Frank Bruni

 

"The moral of the recent melee at Middlebury College, where students shouted down and chased away a controversial social scientist, isn’t just about free speech, though that’s the rubric under which the ugly incident has been tucked. It’s about emotional coddling. It’s about intellectual impoverishment.

Somewhere along the way, those young men and women — our future leaders, perhaps — got the idea that they should be able to purge their world of perspectives offensive to them. They came to believe that it’s morally dignified and politically constructive to scream rather than to reason, to hurl slurs in place of arguments.

They have been done a terrible disservice. All of us have, and we need to reacquaint ourselves with what education really means and what colleges do and don’t owe their charges.

Physical safety? Absolutely. A smooth, validating passage across the ocean of ideas? No. If anything, colleges owe students turbulence, because it’s from a contest of perspectives and an assault on presumptions that truth emerges — and, with it, true confidence."  Bruni

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SST exists to provide a space in which diverse ideas can be expressed, not as attacks on writers, but as a search  for explanations of reality.  If you insult people at SST you will be banned.  If you are unnecessarily vile in your language you will be banned.  You will not be banned on SST for having  opinions that are outside the orthodoxy now emerging in the world.  pl  

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-dangerous-safety-of-college.html?ref=opinion

Comments

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Colonel,
Here is a link to Murray's take on the matter:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/03/06/charles-murray-into-middle-mob-what-happened-when-tried-to-speak-at-middlebury.html
The protesters seem to think that there will be no consequences of their actions. Just like our so-called government in Turkey where the beginning-of-the-end is in play.
Ishmael Zechariah

[Keith Harbaugh]

Here are some links dealing with Charles Murray's aborted 2017-03-02 lecture at Middlebury College.

The subject of the attempted talk was his book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.
https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/030745343X/

A 43 minute video of the events in the auditorium, tagged to start with the introduction of Murray, is
https://youtu.be/a6EASuhefeI?t=18m42s

*** Video Recording of Charles Murray and Prof. Allison Stanger (1:15:10)
http://www.middlebury.edu/newsroom/archive/2017-news/node/545928
The first 25 minutes of this video is Murray giving the talk he planned to give to the students, and then
26:15 Allison Stanger begins her three questions:
•27:30 American "exceptionalism"
•35:20 free markets
•41:10 equality
53:25 Questions begin from Twitter
1:00:10 discussion of Ashkenazi Jews
Throughout this video the racket made by those trying to disrupt this conversation is heard.

Facebook post by Allison Stanger describing the events at the attempted Charles Murray lecture at Middlebury College
https://www.facebook.com/allison.stanger.5/posts/10209936010371446

Reflections on the revolution in Middlebury
by Charles Murray
AEI, 2017-03-05
http://www.aei.org/publication/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-middlebury/

Middlebury Students: College Administrator and Staff Assault Students, Endanger Lives After Murray Protest
beyondthegreenmidd.wordpress.com, 2017-03-04
https://beyondthegreenmidd.wordpress.com/2017/03/04/middlebury-students-college-administrator-and-staff-assault-students-endanger-lives-after-murray-protest/
This purports to be an anonymously written response from those who disrupted the event to the MSM coverage.

How Middlebury College Enabled The Student Riot During Charles Murray’s Visit
by Peter W. Wood, President, National Association of Scholars
The Federalist, 2017-03-07
https://thefederalist.com/2017/03/07/middlebury-college-enabled-student-riot-charles-murrays-visit/

Is Intersectionality a Religion?
By Andrew Sullivan
New York Magazine, 2017-03-10
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/is-intersectionality-a-religion.html

[AEL]

Does freedom of speech include the right to be heard?
Probably not.

However, while one is shouting down another, they obviously are not listening.

How much does that matter?
Probably not much.

These events are not designed for an actual exchange of ideas.
Nobody in the room is going to have their minds changed.

Rather, they are ritual performances to demonstrate status, power and social positioning. (both for the organizers, speaker and protestors).

[Fred]

IZ,

There have been no consequences to any of these protesters at any college unless the recipients of the harassment sued; then it is generally a modest financial penalty to the school in question. These are the types of colleges that provide the "best and brightest" to various government agencies, colleges and school systems around the republic. A self-indoctrinating educational system. They still wonder why Trump won.

[TonyL]

It is great to see the student protest against a racist's speech. It is disappointing to see how they did it.

[Babak Makkinejad]

On what basis is a claim made that anyone is racist?

[Babak Makkinejad]

Frank Bruni:

Only a few poor souls anywhere, at any time, interest themselves in the discovery of Truth - be it in programming, in theater, or in Art History.

The rest of the student body are in search of a meal ticket or something that would enhance their worth in the marriage market.

All of this is just a storm in the teacup.

[Bill H]

"It is great to see the student protest against a racist's speech."

It would be indeed, if that's what they were doing. They were trying to prevent it. I'm not arguing a constitutional issue, which applies only to government, I'm arguing the difference between open minds which result in discussion, and closed minds which result in a new dark age.

[Tyler]

AEL,

Lmao at this equivocating mess.

Its not for you to decide what kind of exchange will go on. Nor for your side to throw stop signs at cars.

[Tyler]

TonyL,

Its great to see that even in the face of getting BTFO you guys on the Left think calling something racist is your "I win" button.

[Tyler]

Google "Alt Knight" if you want to see the right wing response to this kind of mob insanity.

Urban hoplite warfare is gonna be awesome.

[BuddhistHarmony]

Universities, colleges, & schools can & should be the places for civil debate & there's no excuse for resorting to physical violence except in self-defense. Murray, Milo, & whomever else is best debated civilly

As for debating Murray, here's a research article by US Army military intelligence Captain & Economics PhD (UCSanta Barbara) Kangas, who sources & foot notes data from actual geneticists & psychologists (the latest research shows that IQ & most personality traits are about 50% genetic, 50% environment mix -- and
that actually the 2 greatest factors in 'success' for most people was not actual IQ but SocioEconomic status & 'Emotional IQ' aka EQ 'social skills' --see Trump, Reagan & Bill Clinton as examples of high social skills EQ.. with IQ being secondary factor]
that debunks Murray
--Murray himself is neither a geneticist nor psychologist but a professor of Political Science :
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-bellcurvescience.htm

Note also that Murray's Bell Curve is flawed: " the studies [Murray] cited are almost always ones funded by the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi group whose founder advocated sending all blacks back to Africa. Even Murray himself seems embarrassed by some of his sources:

"Here was a case of stumbling onto a subject that had all the allure of the forbidden. Some of the things we read to do this work, we literally hide when we're on planes and trains. We're furtively peering at this stuff." (16)

Murray's life bio doesn't sound racist, just misguided -he credits scoring very high on the SATs due to his own high IQ that got him out of his small town Republican life in Iowa into Harvard so he projects high IQ as the determining factor in life (though in really it's high education because the 'successful' careers such as medical doctors, engineers, scientists, etc that are highly paid & require university educations & higher IQ)

Murray's book Bell Curve actually ranks East Asians & Jewish as having the highest average IQs & success, though culture plays a huge part in it since East Asian culture values education above all else (and statistics show 80%+ of East Asians major in medical doctor, engineering, science, or math careers whereas most US major in business or liberal arts such as psychology, history, political science, English, etc)

Murray's bio here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(political_scientist)
"Murray credits his time in the Peace Corps in Thailand with his lifelong interest in Asia.[13] "There are aspects of Asian culture as it is lived that I still prefer to Western culture, 30 years after I last lived in Thailand," says Murray.[13]

[He married a Thai Buddhsit]
"Two of my children are half-Asian. Apart from those personal aspects, I have always thought that the Chinese and Japanese civilizations had elements that represented the apex of human accomplishment in certain domains."[13]

His tenure with the Peace Corps ended in 1968, and during the remainder of his time in Thailand he worked for the American Institutes for Research (AIR), which was part of a covert counter insurgency agency run by the US military in cooperation with the CIA.[14][15]

Recalling his time in Thailand in a 2014 episode of "Conversations with Bill Kristol," Murray noted that his worldview was fundamentally shaped by his time there. "Essentially, most of what you read in my books I learned in Thai villages."

[jonst]

what, precisely, if possible, makes him a racist? In your eyes?

[Dr.Puck]

I believe that in all ordinary circumstances of communication courtesy surpasses disruption. Also, the best argument is an actual argument, not a volume change or adjective/noun combination.

(Semi-ironic note is that because of its second-to-none language schools, Middlebury has long fed grads into the intelligence community.)

[LeaNder]

Just like our so-called government in Turkey where the beginning-of-the-end is in play.

It no doubt looks a bit like Tayyib will succeed versus polls. Sadly.

He can and does use events around election campaigns here in Europe to his own advantage. Even if I ignore recent events in the Netherlands. Where the lady seems to have entered incognito. Upcoming elections!!! The one party, foundation (Pipes, Horowitz?) supported man with his bleached hair? Who hires and fires his supporters, if they don't function the way they are meant to do.

Forget Tayyib's Nazi charges against both Germany and the Netherlands as Nazi remnants... I am pretty used to that by now.

Without having looked closely into matters, in Germany and Switzerland there seems to be evidence that the organizers didn't put their cards on the table. Rumors only? According to Swiss news a couple of days ago one such event seems to have been declared a family festivity. Seems to have worked over here similarly in some places. If true, this is deceptive. But if so, why? Council of Europe, Venice Commission's take on the referendum?

Over here the UETD once again pulled quite a bit of attention as active behind the scenes. Both events in Cologne and nearby Leverkusen took place. In Leverkusen a prominent spokesperson of the UETD was present and caught on camera, while he had denied involvement before. In any case the political positions harden. Loads of German speaking members of the AKP on political talk shows recently.

http://uetd.org/

In the department of 'politainment' Anne Will had only two guests facing each other yesterday Akif Cagatay Kilic (AKP), who grew up in Germany but used both responses in German, his German sounds perfect, and in Turkish meeting the CDU head of the Chancelier's office.

His probably best argument was that Merkel had been handed 5.000 of PKK terrorists in Germany at the G20(?) anyway some summit event. The CDU representative somehow doubted that, although Kilic affirmed that he had been present and thus knew it was true: 5.000 files handed to Merkel at such an event. Shouldn't there have been boxes full of files?

And of course in the back of these events is the case of the German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel, whom Tayyib apparently charged with being a German spy.

*****
Without doubt the expats are important. They elected the 'REIS/The Chief' around 60 percent. And the film made it into the movies right in time to help a little. ;)

not proofread, and too long anyway.

[English Outsider]

"Fascist" and "Neo-Nazi" also have their buttons. They are wired up to some powerful explosive charges too. Any of those buttons will get thousands out on to the streets and millions cheering them on. They are also guaranteed to work with almost all the intelligentsia and with most place-holders.

Only problem is that since 2014 it's become impossible to look away from the fact that "Neo-Nazi", "fascist" and "racist" are a dead accurate description of the people and policies all those millions and most of the intelligentsia have been supporting abroad.

Seems to me the so-called "left", or "progressives", or "Clintonistas" or whatever the current term might be, have wired themselves up to their own explosives.

[Tex.DeAtkine]

As my pastor use to say repeatedly for you go away from my homily feeling comfortable then you have not been listening

[Edward Amame]

jonst

"Try to imagine a GOP presidential candidate saying in front of the cameras, "One reason that we still have poverty in the United States is that a lot of poor people are born lazy." You cannot imagine it because that kind of thing cannot be said. And yet this unimaginable statement merely implies that when we know the complete genetic story, it will turn out that the population below the poverty line in the United States has a configuration of the relevant genetic makeup that is significantly different from the configuration of the population above the poverty line. This is not unimaginable. It is almost certainly true." - Charles Murray

That seems like a pretty classic example of racial biology to me.

I agree with TonyL, Bruni, and Col Lang regarding the protest. It wasn't always like this. And it's not always the left shutting down ideas it doesn't like at colleges and universities.

https://www.juancole.com/2004/12/character-assassination-yes-im-aware.html

[turcopolier]

TexDeAtkine

Welcome aboard. pl

[Fred]

AEL,

In this case the students agreed with you as not only were their minds not going to be changed but they did not want an actual exchange of ideas. They also enacted the ritual performance which demonstrated their power and social position and the lack of it by both the conservatives students and the professor, the faculty in general and the college administration in particular. That is just the kind of conduct that should be rewarded by the taxpayers with an increase in federally funded grants and an assumption of all student loan debt.

[Fred]

Edward,

You are linking to a decade old article by juan cole that has zero references to Charles Murray. Is this guy beyond redemption too?
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-03-11/news/1995070104_1_marchers-montgomery-wallace

[Eric Newhill]

Edward,

I read Murray's "The Bell Curve" several years after it was published. Found it in a used book store and recalled all the hoopla when it was first released and was curious. I found the research to be very well done - better than most on the topic - and the arguments supporting the findings and ramifications of them to be very solid. Actually, it all makes perfect sense.

Other than the findings going against liberal core beliefs, I can't understand why Murray is so demonized. Murray has stated that he, himself, was surprised at the findings. I wasn't what he expected.

This all reminds me of hardcore Islamics issuing a death fatwa against someone "insulting" their religion or a western scientist getting in trouble with the church for saying that the earth goes around the sun as opposed to the opposite.

If the students have a problem with Murray's work they should debate the science and methodology with him. Not banish him and any mention of his work.

[Bob Blake]

Perhaps it is my lack of due diligence which explains my frustrations with commentary about the "snowflakes" and their physical displays of moral outrage. Would it not be more interesting to attempt to deduce, if possible, how and why there are so many snowflakes. From whence did they spring? Did they get accepted at some college and turn into snowflakes once they arrived on campus? Or perhaps did their evolution from the age of 1 to 18 have something to do with their mode of thought? What events in their previous lives taught them to respond in such a manner? An intellectual archaeological dig through the past 18 years might be of more practical use. This is not to suggest finding someone or something to "blame" for their intellectual state. The purpose of the "dig" would be to understand and delineate the hows and whys. Here is one level down so to speak of the dig that I would suggest might have greatly influenced them - Do the math. What happened in this country when the 18 year olds were toddlers? I close my comment with this statement - I personally find the intellectual responses of the the snowflakes to be morally repulsive and without merit. But then I am an old guy who came of age in the late 60's.

[steve g]

Tyler
Aye mate!! Malcolm Mcdowell and his
droogs don our bowlers every midweek
at our favorite tavern quaffing the latest local
craft suds polishing our tactics and conceal
and carry weapons waiting for the moment.
Comes spring and summer the time nears.

[steve g]

Tyler
Aye mate!! Malcolm Mcdowell and his
droogs don our bowlers every midweek
at our favorite tavern quaffing the latest local
craft suds polishing our tactics and conceal
and carry weapons waiting for the moment.
Comes spring and summer the time nears.