Another day, another column featuring a passive aggressive attack against college campuses as fomenters of discord and indoctrination centers as opposed to sources of education making students more well-rounded members of society and better prepared for career employment. The former is the exception; the latter is the rule. Yet every day…
Another day, another column featuring a passive aggressive attack against college campuses as fomenters of discord and indoctrination centers as opposed to sources of education making students more well-rounded members of society and better prepared for career employment. The former is the exception; the latter is the rule. Yet every day now Charlie keeps coming at us, preaching the ills of the campus setting as if a one-size-fits-all piece of attire. It is not.
The approach is becoming stale, tedious, and predictable. Let's give it a rest. Yes, as an educator, I'm biased. But we also don't need to be a chicken, or even a farmer, to recognize when the hen is laying poor eggs. The constant drum-beating against illiberal liberalism in higher ed doesn't pass the eyeball test when one takes a deeper dive on the issues than merely short-form cherry picking of examples. As an educator I see every working day with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears, that these kids have a much wider horizon that simply what goes on in the classroom or in student groups. They get their information from many sources, are no less capable of thinking critically than many older adults who, frankly, haven't been doing a very good job of it themselves, and draw their own conclusions less because of any sort of indoctrination and more out of a sense of evolving generational identity that has its own roots and common denominators, not some juiced-up agenda that others are force-feeding them. We give them too little credit for seeing where our generation or two has severely f...ed up our society and our globe. They have different ideas because maybe, possibly, perhaps our ideas, and our practices of them, haven't turned out to be such good ones in the first place. Too often we are Mr. Black Kettle calling them Mr. Black Pot. We should look in the mirror first and do self-assessment on our own contributions to how and why they have emerged as they are doing so.
My invitation to Charlie, and others beating the anti-higher ed drum, remains open to follow me around for a day or a week and see how it really is in our field and at our host institutions, especially the many of them outside of the bright lights and the big campus setting -- and even there, where activists remain a clear minority compared to those who go to that setting for other purposes. Funny how, like the politicians who also draw conclusions without necessarily gathering enough hard evidence, they don't need to do their due diligence of fact-finding before drawing conclusions and attempting to indoctrinate others with their own chosen perspectives and version of reality. Sound familiar?
As a retired university professor (Temple), married to a retired university professor (University of Pennsylvania), and mother of three, I could not agree more. The WSJ keeps beating this tired drum, too -- an op ed piece about it today, in fact.
Higher education in this country is a huge and highly varied ecosystem. The RWM take the words and actions of a very small percentage of students (and faculty) from a VERY small percentage of institutions, and blow it all out of proportion, making the exceptions the rule. So tiresome.
It isn't tiresome at all, because it is happening. The right has become an illiberal menace to our democracy. We cannot ignore the illiberalism coming from the left. Have we not learned the lessons of the failed Weimar Republic?
The illiberalism from the right is coming from those who hold real power and they are a majority in the House. They are currently holding this country hostage to their nihilism. The illiberal left is a bunch of college kids and two or three House members with exactly zero power to effect policy. There is no comparison at all to the power of the left during the Weimar Republic. That left precipitated the hard right take over of Germany. That's not even close to what's happened in the US.
I think maybe the point being made here is that illiberal, non-conservative kooks took over the GOP because they were dismissed as a small faction that wasn't representative of the whole party, and while everyone was being dismissive of them, they vacuumed up power by appealing to base instincts among an ~ 40% of people who labeled themselves as conservative. If no one pays attention to, warns about, or takes seriously a movement of a similar type on the left, then there is a less than zero chance that the left will eventually find itself in a similar state. There IS a (currently) minority on the left that is populist, shallow, performative, and illiberal, and there are signs that these ideas are making inroads among younger voters. A lot of this does occur on college campuses, and it has been for years. And as with the surrender of the real conservatism in the GOP, if no one centrist pushes back on it, it will take over and grow. Pointing out that "most people" on campuses aren't "all that illiberal" isn't particularly relevant: yes, maybe there are a bunch of critical thinkers and centrists and still-liberal kids on campuses: but they aren't pushing back very hard against the folks who are having pro-terrorist rallies and hiding behind terms like "anti-Zionist" and "anti-colonialist" when what they really are doing is saying they're pro-terrorism and for the destruction of Israel. I don't think that anyone can point this out too much. If there are so many good kids with great critical thinking skills on campuses and among the liberals, then they would be plainly visible somewhere else besides, and not need defending in, the comments of section of a Bulwark article.
"If there are so many good kids with great critical thinking skills on campuses and among the liberals, then they would be plainly visible somewhere else besides"
Not sure this follows.
First, it doesn't seem like an issue that is getting broad coverage that is reaching into students' lives. My son is on a campus with 50K students and hasn't heard about or run across any pro-terrorist rallies. They might be there, but even if he was so inclined, there isn't an - anti-terrorist, both sides have blame and a point - organization to join and rally around.
Second, it is by no means a given that leftist students being assinine is a major threat to Democrats or democracy. Conceivable, sure, but great critical thinking skills can come to a different conclusion, and certainly can conclude that spending time and energy rallying on campus against such things isn't worth the effort and potential cost.
I think a major difference between the left and the right when it comes to the fringe capturing the party is that for the right, a big chunk of their base was already primed and ready for the dog whistles to become louder, and for an embrace of nativism. I don't see that on the left (in reverse). The broader left isn't going to embrace Hamas or champion Venezuelan economics.
I see what you're saying, and I respectfully disagree precisely because of my experience with conservatives, who I also believed were extremely unlikely to embrace isolationism and Russia-humping and a thrice-married rapist who holds Bibles upside down, and yet here we are. I think you are likely a thinking person, and so you assume that other people who stand with you on your side of the aisle are there because they are thinkers, too. Many conservatives who had principles believed that those among them, on their side of the aisle, were there because of their principles, and so dismissed the fringe until it was a tidal wave.
It is truly not every day that I am called naive! With the preamble that you make good points and I'm not here to poke at you with this tidbit: everyone who knows me and therefore typically refers to me as a tyrannical skeptic-bitch found this comment immensely fun.
Got to agree to disagree on this one. On the right it was an obvious sickness that was flamed and used for decades. Those who are sane on the right can stand around and think Trump is an anomaly but they are just ducking their own guilt (except Stewart Stevens.). There is discussion about how the far left won’t come out to vote for Biden and it’s because the Dems aren’t giving them the red meat that the Republicans fed the Jerry Faldwells and Pat Robertsons for decades.
I don't know that TikTok and other forms of social media aren't the driving force for this movement, and not the campuses themselves. Anecdotal evidence suggest it's social media. That I do take very seriously.
I think that's right. Insofar as this is a problem it is probably being driven more by Russian and other trolls on TikTok, Instagram, etc. Than by liberal professors on campus.
I think it's likely a combination of both social media and some influence from college campus / peer pressure. For the record, while TikTok has a ton of it, it's also extremely prevalent on Instagram. Even Linkendln has it's fair share which I don't think is a whole bunch of Gen Z's.
There's definitely something getting stirred up on TikTok, I've noticed, especially the last few days. Lots of angry bots in the comments and lots of RW media chasing down students asking if they would behead babies. It's horrible.
Yes it can. It's happens routinely. I was on campus during the Viet Nam/draft protests when that movement was a powerful nationwide campus phenomenon. I don't see anything close to that when it comes to anti Israeli protests as it currently manifests. That could very well change if the war with Hamas expands and the US has to start military operations in support of Israel. Right now, I'm just relieved that Old Joe is doing everything he can to prevent that from happening.
I too have been wondering about the relative silence from never trumpers on the influence of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. It's not just the Bulwark either.
Absolutely agree that we cannot ignore the illiberalism coming from the left. And I have to remind myself that in era of social media, 8 years is a long time and things could have changed since I retired. My point was more that the RW suspicion of and hostility to higher ed. institutions is not consistent with the reality of these places and the people who work and study there. Colleges and universities reflect our society just as much as they shape it.
A few college students hardly compares to the complete takeover of one party in a two party system. It's the hyper focus on a small number of powerless people that feels unfair.
"The real unfairness isn't the atrocities, it is the people who are spoken to in unkind ways from supporting the atrocities." is a brutally careless nihilist point of view, Anne.
It's tiresome, not because we don't need to hear it, It's tiresome because people are painting all students, and all of the left and all the Democrats with the same brush. As a Biden voter, I take offense at the idea that I have a left problem. I support Israel and the attack by Hamas devastated me.
Saying that I somehow have control over or am responsible for what democratic socialists students say is absurd.
This is the same type of rationalization that the GOP used to have about their own right flank.... until the Frankenstein monster grew and devoured the party.
Except, the equivalent from back then repudiating it would have been filled with quotes from outsiders while the GOP circled the wagons. The one up there is all Democrats. You might find the response inadequate, but it's simply not the case that anyone is ignoring this.
Okay, but here are a bunch of people in the comments section of a centrist publication telling everyone to chillax, it isn't that many people, and offering what really seem to me to be wishful narratives on how "it really isn't that many people" or "this is just a bunch of kids on campus who are misguided." Sort of seems like there are some wagons of denial making at least a semi-circle to me.
I think the difference is that there was a whole right-wing infrastructure feeding the monster. And it wasn't just Fox, Limbaugh, and the rest of talk radio. Many of the Republican party leaders used dog whistle appeals to the people they now fear.
There isn't the same thing on the left. MSNBC and CNN aren't Fox. There is no left-wing talk radio. And Democratic party leaders have renounced those supporting or excusing Hamas. And not in the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" fashion popular on the right.
MSNBC has hosts which are non-stop supporting lies fed by Hamas. Look at the hospital coverage.
The far pro-genocide left has strong support from Russia, the Saudis, and Iran. There is a funded infrastructure for pro-genocide student groups "for Palestine".
But aren't these very small percentage of our institutions some of our most "elite" colleges, which disproportionately feed the powerful, decision making roles in American institutions?
Yes, it's largely the Usual Suspects. But I will tell you this: the Higher Ed Critics all want *their* offspring to go these universities for the obvious reasons. Furthermore, the RW can boast its share of elite credentials: Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron DiSantis, J. D. Vance. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito? Princeton. Chief Justice John Roberts? Harvard. I rest my case.
Well it is something of a conundrum, I imagine, wanting to give your child every advantage while wishing that didn't involve patronizing this incestuous relationship between elite society, prestigious institutions, and US News and World Report. At some point (and this definitely applies to my life experience) I'm guessing most progressives try living according to the "put your money where your mouth is" philosophy before they eventually get discouraged and tired of making their life more difficult for something that doesn't appear to be working, and gets harder with every new thing they learn.
Applying that to this specific situation – well, you get one shot at trying to provide your kid a good college education, and with the way parents stress themselves with guilt these days, they probably drive themselves nuts worrying that they'll deny their offspring a ticket to financial security because they happened to be in the thrall of an idealistic opposition to college elitism at the time. Better to just advocate for change but in the meantime work with the imperfect world you've got. My son is nowhere near that age, and I'm no Ivy Leaguer myself, so I don't think I'll have to deal with that particular self-guilting exercise, but still, I can imagine.
As for the idea that these institutions produce their share of right wingers, you'll get no argument from me. Part of that is undoubtedly attributable to disillusionment with the left based on what they see on campus. Now, don't misunderstand; I don't find that to be a moral justification for running to embrace the right wing fringe, so I'm certainly not trying to lay all the blame at our feet. But from a practical standpoint (which is how I usually tend to evaluate things) I always do warn that extremism just breeds more extremism, and I think that has shown itself to be the case in recent years.
That being said, I have no doubt that a lot of the right wing crankery these places churn out is little more than a cynical ploy to profit off of ignorance and disinformation, and that if anything it just makes it easier to look at themselves in a mirror if they imagine all of their opponents as obnoxious little proto-Nazis. But I don't let that get in the way of criticizing my side, because I agree with David French on this one – criticism of the right needs to come from the right (which is why I support the Bulwark), and criticism of the left needs to come from the left. And I am hoping that this is a wake-up call for many of us who are too worried about giving the right a boost if we call out bad things on the left, because that's how Republicans got themselves into their mess.
They are certainly incubators for very ambitious, entitled people and always have been. But there are also many Good Eggs who come through these places.
I'm old enough to remember protests against the Vietnam war, college students were called enemies of America, communists, etc., that culminated in Kent State and National Guardsmen shooting and killing 4 students.
The Israel/Palestine issue is a tragedy for both sides, for ALL the people involved who have no say in what their governments do, yet have to suffer the consequences.
And let's just remember that the reason the right supports Israel is because they need it for the rapture, after they convert all the Jewish people to Christianity. We remember the Crusades, right?
Yeah I really agree that people complaining about the protests are mostly missing the forest for the trees. Most people want an end to the mass bombing of civilians and even if a few freaks are defending Hamas, the vast majority are against killing.
I find that college kids think they know everything when they get there, but by the time they leave, they realize that they really know very little, at least that's what one hopes.
I like when Charlie compared the attacks to 9/11 as a way to describe the shock and anger and outrage Israelis are feeling, and after Iraq, we're in no position to finger wag.
There's always been so much emotion and history wrapped around the Israel/Palestine problem, that trying to discuss the nuances on social media is virtually impossible since Musk took over. Especially with young people who are passionate and can't see the forest for all the trees, as you said.
I'm on Tik Tok a lot and there's a whole wave of young idiots on there promising not to vote for Biden, while Biden is fighting to get humanitarian aid (success) and avoid civilian deaths in the ground attack (YTBD). And like Twitter, lots of bots around to stir the pot.
Citation needed - I’ve never heard of that happening on a college campus. (Outside of Charlottesville or some other neonazi thing that’s not actually part of the college)
If evangelical Christians have cynical motives for supporting Israel, does that diminish the right of Israelis to defend their own existence? And is wanting to convert people just as bad as wanting to kill them?
"A tragedy for both sides" -- except that one side wants to have a small part of the region as its homeland; the other side has been largely dominated by people who want the region to be Judenrein and who believe it's their sacred obligation to impose Islam by force.
The Crusades were a response to several centuries of widespread Islamic conquest, starting with Muhammad, who is said to have personally participated in the slaughter of Jews who would not submit to him. Subsequent Islamic rulers boasted about how many people they had killed. One battle near Poitiers in 732 was crucial in halting the Islamic conquest of France. The Spanish Reconquista took a lot longer than the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Crusaders to the Holy Land aimed first to stop the attacks on Christian pilgrims going there. Of course, they brutally turned against Jews along their path (and even the wrong kind of Christians). And in some times and places, Islamic rulers were indeed more tolerant of Jews than Christians were. (Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, not the 8th century). The history of Christian anti-Semitism and other kinds of intolerance is shameful – though Christianity was not born in violence. Islam was. The idea of Christian “holy war” may have been largely patterned after the Islamic jihad.
A religious hatred of Jews is more widespread and virulent in the Muslim world today than in Christian-majority countries. The reason that Iran wants to destroy Israel is not because Israel hurts Iran or because the mullahs care about the Palestinians. It’s because Israel is predominantly Jewish.
But Israel has Arab-Muslim citizens, some of whom serve in the Knesset. Israelis have a say in what their government does. They can certainly criticize their government. They can vote out the government and vote in a new one. Hamas does not permit that right. The PA is not much better.
I think you’re missing the fact that most Palestinians have living relatives who used to live on land that was taken by the British and turned into Israel in 1948. The wars right now are really inspired by what happened in the last 50-75 years.
Even the pro Israeli Jewish side of this issue is much more concerned with the holocaust than the crusades or the Islamic empire. You may be a student of history, but most of the people on both sides of this war come from refugee families who are much more animated by recent history.
I'm not missing that fact. But Israelis too are animated by recent history – including multiple attempts to eradicate their nation, countless terror attacks within Israel, and barrages of rocket attacks from Gaza after Israel pulled out. Arab Muslims can live and prosper in Israel. But there are no Jews in Gaza.
There had never been a Palestinian nation before 1948, or a "Palestinian people" for that matter. There were “Arabs” in a region that had been controlled by various empires for millennia -- since the Hebrew kingdoms were first conquered. There had also been a continuous Jewish presence for thousands of years. When diaspora Jews saw a need for a nation of their own, it was natural to think of the ancestral Jewish homeland -- which was sparsely populated when the Zionist movement began.
Zionists bought land and famously “made the desert bloom,” and that attracted more Arabs back into the area – certainly including ancestors of today’s “Palestinians.” The Zionists obviously expected they could live in peace surrounded by much large numbers of Arabs. Why did that not happen? Was the friction wholly the fault of the Jews?
When the UN eventually established an Arab state and a Jewish state in the “British Mandate,” the Jews accepted it, but all the surrounding Arab states were violently opposed. They told Arab residents of Israel to leave ahead of their attack – expecting to finish off Israel in short order, and then the Arabs would go back to an Arab state.
It wasn’t Israel that forced those Arabs out. They chose the side of those who wanted to destroy Israel. But the Arab states that told them to leave didn’t seem to have much interest in their well-being afterward. Subsequent territorial enlargements by Israel were a consequence of further attacks with an intent to annihilate Israel.
I’m not endorsing every action taken by the Israeli government, or by radical West Bank settlers. But why is that bad things done by Palestinian Arabs must always be rationalized as an understandable response to something done by Israel – while anything wrong done by Israel can never by explained as a response to attacks on it from without and within?
And the long view of history actually is important to understanding today's events. The long view undercuts the "oppressor/victim" narrative in which Jews can only be considered oppressors and Arabs can only be considered their victims.
The long view is also important given that the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah believe they are following the example and instruction of the 7th-century warlord they call "the perfect man.'
Seriously, religion is the root of all evil. I'm currently reading a book that describes the schism between Catholism and the Elizabeth I Church of England. King James I had two outspoken Catholics arrested, beaten, tied up, and while they were still alive their torsos were cut open and their intestines were set on fire. And then they were hanged. So crimes in the name of Religion has been going on FOREVER.
I beg to differ. Antisemitism is not only occurring on the left on college campuses and Gen Z social media, but I see it influencing my own teenagers. My wife's 1st cousin is a professor at Oxford University who specializes in Chinese history. When I first posted my support for Israel, shortly after the 10/7 attacks, my wife's cousin blasted my post, and went on about Israeli occupation of Palestine. I was completely taken aback, as I've enjoyed our conversations over the years and his otherwise thoughtful dialogue. As for my three teenagers in the home, all of them receive a continuous barrage of antisemitic messaging in their progressive Gen Z social media feeds. On Sunday, we watched "Schindler's List" as a family, to help our kids understand what Jews have been up against. I have taken significant time giving them a full understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. When the false flag "Israeli" bombing of the hospital in Gaza happened, it took days before we could resume the conversation, because the accusation convinced my own kids that Israel was indeed a war-mongering occupier.
Israel IS, in some ways, a warmongering occupier. But they also have a right to defend themselves. The issue is complex, and you, like Charlie and so many others, seek to reduce it to something simple. Good vs. evil. It’s this ridiculous idea that if someone is going to be in the right on an issue then they must be 100% pure in all ways. It’s the same trap a minority of far left students (and it IS a minority) are falling into.
The college students who support Palestine and oppose Israeli colonialism decided that meant that nothing any Palestinian does to Israel is wrong, no matter what. That, of course, is entirely incorrect. Hamas’ attack on 10/7 was an atrocity that is not excused by any wrongdoing on the part of Israel. Targeting civilians in terrorist attacks, especially brutal ones like these, is never justified.
Same with Charlie and others on this site, Mona in particular, and the same with your comment. Israel has every right to defend itself. That doesn’t excuse Netanyahu’s government openly supporting settlements in the West Bank and allowing Israeli settlers to murder Palestinians there indiscriminately. It doesn’t excuse high ranking government officials from making statements that amount to calls for genocide against the Palestinians. It doesn’t excuse cutting off water for 1 million children living in Gaza.
People are also conflating Israel’s right to self defense with some sort of blanket right to destroy Gaza regardless of the number of civilian casualties. Israel has no strategy right now other than vengeance. Killing civilians is sometimes unavoidable in war, and international law permits it when it cannot be avoided and the value of the military objective justifies it. But for that to be the case, Israel has to have a plan for its operation that justifies all of the civilian suffering it will inflict. It’s very clear they have no such plan, which is why President Biden has been pushing them to stop and think things through.
Biden seems to be the only person in this entire mess who realizes there are two sides, neither of which is wholly innocent, and that you can evaluate the situation on its merits without erasing the facts.
I think you are right. We have a huge problem accepting shades of gray. Is Israel perfect? Of course not. Do they have a right to react collectively when their children are murdered? I think so, withing the norms they constructed for themselves and internationally recognized standards. Is it ok for them to be furious right now? Yes! But as we taught my daughter via Daniel Tiger, doing things when you are upset can lead to bad results. It's best to calm down then react. Based on Israel pausing on their efforts to clear Gaza, it seems like that's what they are doing.
When we try to distill everything into good/evil, you miss important nuance. George Washington can be both a great statesman and a terrible slave owner. I can be a good dad and bad at being a spouse (although I work hard to be good at both!). We can be bother thoughtful and rash in different circumstances.
I will relentlessly reference Crimean Tatars and their near 70 years of peaceful protest in response to being ethnically cleansed from Crimes by the Soviets. By not getting violent, they have faced setbacks like the annexation. However they maintain the moral high ground. I think a lot of Palestinians try to do this.
But the point of an event like 10/7 is to provoke a rash response. So far, Israel seems to be trying not to do badly. This is good for humanity.
Wow. You assume and project a whole lot. Nowhere in my comment did I support Israeli occupations of the West Bank. Nowhere in my comments did I defend Netanyahu’s government. Quite the contrary, I have used the example of Netanyahu’s far right governing coalition to teach my family about the geopolitical consequences of electing far-right people in government (and what it could mean if MAGA Trumpism returns to power in 2024). AND - just as we have significant political differences here in the US, the same goes for Israelis. Most Israelis DO NOT support West Bank Israeli settlements. The people who were attacked in the kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip weren’t West Bank occupiers. That would be as absurd as China bombing San Francisco in retaliation of a Trump 2024 re-election. One has nothing to to do with the other.
I was going off of your comment, which spends a lot of time being shocked and horrified that your kids might hear something anti-Israel (which you seem to equate with being anti-Semitic) or that someone might push back on your support for Israel, and no time at all saying anything about the plight of the Palestinians.
However, I never said you supported Netanyahu or settlements. I referenced him as an example of Israel behaving badly. Far too much of the discussion, even on normally good sites like The Bulwark, has been reduced these days to either “Israel has the right to defend itself and if you criticize how it does so then you’re an anti-Semite” or “Palestinians are oppressed, so even the slaughter of Israeli children is OK because they’re settlers, not civilians.” Neither of those positions is acceptable, but people only seem upset about the latter, not the former.
I respect your position on the issue and your informed perspective. But in part I'd say that you are making my point for me. Charlie makes it sound like college campuses are THE source of (dis)information for a generation of young people without adequately providing other examples or sufficient context for their choices. As we both note, they get their information in various ways, from various origins. College is just one of them, and the ongoing implication that radical faculty and administration are behind it simply isn't the case so much as the exception when one looks at the totality of the picture.
One certainly can debate whether young people adequately engage in critical thinking and reasoned drawing of conclusions. There is a discussion to be had there. But for my part at least I'm getting tired of the constant defending of our academic turf from people who aren't necessary qualified to attack it. I'd say more damage has been done over the years by right-wing talk radio hosts who have willingly carried water for some pretty bad actors and left the rest of us to live with the results and clean up the messes. But then perhaps I'm not engaging in sufficient critical thinking and have an agenda of my own on that. As always, these things are two-way streets if one insists on going down them.
I have a counterproposal, Charlie. Show us precise quotes where you take a pro-higher ed position on what is done right in that environment and by those instructors and administrators who are doing their work in good faith and very well so, and by the many student groups and movements that focus on doing good work for others and both giving back and paying forward, often quietly and without seeking to attract attention. The loudest voices aren't the only ones that should be reported, especially when they often are the smallest in size.
Since the roads leading to Rome on all this are your original posts, we're looking to you for balance in this area and to paint an accurate portrayal of the environment, not merely a subtle, becoming daily notice that there are some bad actors at a few specifics campuses, with the inference that if it is happening there, it is happening elsewhere too. Better still, bring the goods and show us evidence of widespread abuse of authority and a clear majority of students who are anti-democratic agitators and revolutionaries. I'm not seeing it, thus I call BS on the bigger picture point. It's not hard to read the anti-higher ed bias into your wording when it's been cultivated for so many years, in your books (Fail U.: The False Promise of Higher Education), WTMJ radio commentaries over time, and in these many pages. You've given us a body of work there to draw upon. So we do. It's fine to call out those bad actors where they exist. And, yes, they do, in some places and to some degree. No such environment is 100 percent pure. But let's not lose sight of the rule in calling attention to the exception. That's all I ask. The comments here clearly indicate that there are good points on both sides of the equation. So let's have that discussion instead. We could use your support when there is a positive message to share.
Nor is he responding to mine. Perhaps if I had enough time to comb through every column he has written, the transcripts (if they exist) of every radio broadcast in which he opined on the topic and made snarky overtures with sympathetic listeners, and all the passages in the cited book, among others. I don't. That doesn't negate the impressions received over time and a multitude of statements that take a broadly negative view of the topic. I'm not the only one here who is pointing that out. He might want to consider that input, from everyday readers. I suspect our time would be better spent actually addressing the topic than playing Gotcha games.
Do tell us exactly where it is "all the rage," because I'm in the Humanities environment and am hearing exactly nobody talking about it on any sort of a regular or sustained basis. Granted my own experience is not necessarily that of everyone else. But if it truly were such a heightened presence in so many departments and with so many faculty, administrators, and students, we'd likely have more precise and visible examples of its presence. If you have evidence that CRT is a guiding principle among more than a small, distinct minority of those people, please share it. I'd welcome the opportunity to see it. The rest of us are too busy just trying to keep up with our designated work load, which grows each year as we consistently are asked to do more with less.
Did you get millions to study your area like Ibrahim X? Have your ideas been spread to many schools via various “education experts?” Did you sell millions of books like Robin DiAngelo?
Yeah…CRT is just some back water idea…not popular at all.
Have you ever worked on a college campus and seen with your own eyes what goes on there? Or do you let others do your thinking for you?
True story (not that I make any of them up -- I don't need to). Today when I walked into class, the first student I saw was wearing a hoodie with something written on the front. It was not "Liberate Palestine." It was not "CRT Forever." It was ... "Celibacy Rocks." Yeah, really. That's where they are at more than CRT where I work. What else they wear, and talk about, is usually the Green Bay Packers, and how they suck without Aaron Rodgers and what a diva act he had become. If you can find CRT in there somewhere, let us know. That's in addition to the chalk writing on the sidewalks, offering free food at a Christian mission near campus and urging people to go to Homecoming activities. Sorry, no CRT there either. The point is that they have their own agenda and really don't give a sh.. what their professors think or say or do. And most professors who want to keep their paychecks coming at a state school know to steer clear of such things when it is too easily exploited by those who oppose them and, as noted, not what the students want to hear in the first place. We have much more in common with the Brady Bunch than with Berkeley. Are there some individual exceptions? Sure. Like anywhere else, some people have trouble putting their personal passions aside. But are they a clear majority or minority presence? Figure that out for yourself. It's not hard to do if you keep an open mind. On my campus, if you are looking for CRT evidence, you will have a long search ahead of you. Plan to budget extra time for that.
I don't disagree that it's a complex issue and that there are 2 sides to be considered here, but it is very concerning how quickly/easily people supporting the Palestinians seem to be able to jump over the atrocities in order to get in the lane they wanted to be in the first place. Jews = Bad
Honestly...it's a very similar mindset to the MAGAs...where they already have the answer in their head and there's just nothing that's going to dissuade them that their side is right and righteous. Let's go back and talk about Hillary Clinton instead of talking about Trump...because the Clinton's are bad people justifying everything Trump does.
Where's the outrage from them for Hamas holding innocent civilians hostage, etc? Again....that's very MAGA like...in that the only important atrocities occur at the hands of their perceived enemies.
I know this response is very high level and broad brush, but it reflects how I'm seeing things.
I agree that social media is a huge influence here. Our younger kid, a college freshman this year with a general (and unusual for our family) lack of interest in politics, has jumped on the Israel-brought-this-on-themselves argument. Not at college. On TikTok.
I appreciate you trying to educate your children on how Jewish people have suffered from prejudice and hate by watching Schindler's List (GREAT movie). Another one I recommend is "Exodus" about the creation of Israel after WWII and trying to help Jews escape out of Europe (available on You Tube for free). Based on a book by Leon Uris.
Now, what have they learned about the Palestinians?
Thank you for the reference... and please don't patronize me about what "they learned" about the Palestinians. I gave them the full picture, to include talking about the West Bank Israeli settlements, the differences between Hamas and the PLO, the first and second antifadas, 1947/48, 1967, 1973 etc etc etc. I'm a retired military intelligence officer, and deeply informed about the history of the Middle East.
That was rude and unnecessary. In addition, the Middle East has never been stable. The land now called Israel is on the ancient spice route which brought waves and waves of people through the area over a thousand years. It has been dominated by all sorts of groups over the years including Persians, Romans, Ottomans, British to name a few.
Your thoughtfulness in providing information to your children is impressive. Do you have reading recommendations for this old person? I grew up with WW2 vets in the family including one who participated in the liberation of Dachau.
Schindler’s List, enjoyed the novel, never saw the film (I hear it’s excellent.) I’m sorry if you sent your kids off to college and they came back with different opinions then yours. Obviously their wrong and you’re right (as was my father about us getting into Vietnam.) Maybe next movie night try one of the director’s other films, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a crowd pleaser.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that this represented a majority of the students on any campus. Remember that the More In Common survey found that the "progressive activist" left is only about 8% of the country – but they clearly have an outsized voice in our public discourse. The same thing is true on campuses. Surveys repeatedly show that majorities of students on college campuses feel that they can't freely speak their minds these days.
Nobody is saying a college education is bad, but there is clearly a problem with the environment being fostered at some of our "elite" universities by academic admistrators who push toxic, divisive ideas dressed up as DEI and "anti-racism". We hear story after story of administrators deferring to ludicrous demands by students in the name of some twisted version of progress, often referencing their own privilege as a shield against criticism that they should exercise better judgement. We hear accounts from anonymous professors who say they fear for their jobs if they push back against some of the things they're seeing.
I'm clearly going beyond the original point of anti-Semitism now, but this is part and parcel with an ascendant, racial-essentialist vision of progressivism where every issue can be adjudicated by virtue of the identity categories of the parties involved, and where they rank on the power and oppression scale. If you want to say that this isn't a problem, then what's to account for what's happening in various progressive institutions around the country, who are having difficulty functioning and doing their actual work because their workplace cultures have been overtaken by young employees demanding to dismantle internal hierarchies and inequitable power structures within the organizations themselves?
Understand that I'm not a conservative. I'm saying this as a progressive who is extremely concerned with the ideas getting taken seriously on the American left these days. And it feels like every time I turn around I see some pathetic individual with a podcast or some other kind of platform who claims that they've always been a Democrat but now they're starting to sympathaize with the Trumpist right because of what they've been seeing on the far left. I have little respect for those people, but they have a voice and influence, and if the rest of the left doesn't start to push back and demonstrate clear separation from the toxic elements of our side of the cultural divide, we may find one day that Democrats will be the ones trying to figure out how to govern from the minority.
I'd float a suggest that the rise of racial essentialism is nearly entirely due to failure of socialism to gain traction in the US and the complete dominance of capital.
When we can't view inequality as an inherently class based phenomenon, we turn to the next best proxy, which in this country is race.
If we could break through the stranglehold of capital, work to relieve economic inequality, and empower workers, a lot of the racial anxiety would go away.
Well said. I think young people, Gen Z, are being painted with a very broad brush of antisemitism. You can recognize Hamas is a terrorist organization, support Israeli’s people right to exist, And know Palestinians also have an Equal right to live, work, and exist in their homeland. I will not, and do not agree to pressure to support the Israeli government in their apartheid regime against the Palestinian people. Doesn’t mean I am antisemetic. Just as I would not accuse a person of being anti American because of their opposition to the Trump administration.
Well, when half of the respondents under the age of 35 said they felt that the Oct 7 attack by Hamas was completely justified, I think a broad brush is appropriate.
That's a rather narrow and solitary data point among many other data points that are favorable to Israel in the same poll. In particular, later on a significant majority of those under 35 identify antisemitism in Palestinians. And always, ALWAYS, consider the reliability of a single poll.
Not passive aggressive. Accurate. The leading academic institutions lost any pretense of prestige by harboring some of the worst COVID disinformationists. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UC San Francisco -- the disinformationists use their academic freedom to give deadly advice. UPenn fired a professor who did research that was essential to the eventual development of some COVID vaccines. But "free speech", "academic freedom".
Why should it surprise anyone that we get disinformation about Hamas and Israel from some of the same institutions? Facts are no longer objective. If supporting genocidal anti-Semites is a part of generational identity, we will have a lot of problems in this country in the next 50 years.
My invitation to follow me around on campus and after hours to see for yourself what it is like for a typical college instructor, and among typical college kids, is open to you as well. You cite five schools out of thousands across the nation. Kindly show us that what happens there is representative of all those others elsewhere. Please tell us also what percentage of educators with "academic freedom" are among those who engage in the behavior you cite compared to those who do not. Also define exactly what you understand "academic freedom" to be relative to how typical faculty, staff, and administration carry it out in the college environment. I'd like to see how well informed you actually are, compared to what generalizations, stereotypes, and myths are circulating without adequate evidence to back them up.
Medical training is very individual. Students, residents and fellows spend a lot of time with attendings both individually and in very small groups. As a result, there are a tremendous number of people involved in medical education. Many of those experienced or retired physicians are also donating their time, rather than holding a paid position. Some are given an "adjunct" title in exchange for their time. There are definitely a few quacks who spread misinformation, but they don't really represent the medical school or the training hospital with which they are very loosely affiliated. The two Stanford doctors you may be thinking about actually belong to the Hoover Institute, not the medical school or hospital. There's also an MD at UCSF who's a contrarian adjunct claiming expertise in multiple fields unrelated to his formal training.
When it comes to COVID disinformation? I don't think it's a bridge too far during a pandemic for an institution to say, "He may have learned medicine here, but we didn't teach THAT. It's wrong." But again, I think medical boards would have more power and influence here.
He didn’t learn medicine there, though. He only for his undergraduate degree. Are colleges supposed to police every 22 year old they’ve ever graduated?
I do agree that medical boards are the better option here, but if you want it to be schools it should at least be the school that gave him an MD.
I’m sick of it too. There seems to be a pleasure in smearing the antics of the minority in our faces. Every day we get another dose of, “See? See? I told you.” No party is 100% pure. Ours is a big tent that houses some nutjobs. We know this. No need to be reminded of it on a daily basis.
A movement that can't bear criticism is a weak and unsustainable movement.
Charlie's comments are hardly a tedious drumbeat; he talks about many other things too.
Minimizing abuse -- and exaggerated criticism of the people who point out the abuse -- are two time-honored, even clichéd, ways of excusing and enabling abuse.
We need to clean our own house first.
(Although I have to say that I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable saying "our house" -- the ceaseless "no problem here, move on" drumbeat is making me feel more and more like this is not my house to worry about. I wonder how many other people are being pushed away and perhaps pushed farther?)
I think we need a better understanding of whether we're talking about some dust and light clutter or if we're talking about sewage starting to well out of the toilets.
And Charlie may talk about many other things, but he does spend quite a bit of time on this general topic. Not as much as JVL spends on Baseball, but probably a bit more than he spends on watches. Of course, only one of those two topics is existential for JVL, so that might explain the difference.
No one is saying they can’t bear criticism. They’re saying the criticism is wrong.
Correct criticism: “This small minority of left-wing students who have abhorrent beliefs is bad.”
Wrong criticism: “I will use this small minority of left-wing students who have abhorrent beliefs to critique the left as a whole, as if they all believe this stuff or at least as if a huge portion of them do.”
By all means critique the problem. But don’t exaggerate it.
How many people calling for the extermination of Jewish people is too few to care about? I mean I thought the whole lesson of WWII and "Never Again" was we paid attention to shit like this and called it out. Protest for Palestinian rights as much as you want, but the calls for wiping out the state of Israel, the Jews, and support for Hamas are many steps too far. This isn't only happening on campuses but colleges seem to be safe spaces for this hate to spread.
If you are looking for 100 percent consensus on issues that involve literally millions of opinions, you'll never be satisfied. It seems self-evident that we cannot condone extermination of people and terrorism in our midst. Personally, like you, I find it completely repugnant and abhorrent. But not everyone sees it the same way, and in a democracy we accept that as the price of the freedoms that we cherish. Our role is to counter them with facts and evidence and use our power of persuasion that comes with them to influence the argument, not to say or imply that those people should not be free. For my part I embrace that challenge without resorting to demonizing and stigmatizing groups stereotypically or citing exceptions and trying to make them the rule. It's hard enough to make inroads without resorting to or initiating infighting among people who should be pulling together for common causes and beliefs.
" It's hard enough to make inroads without resorting to or initiating infighting among people who should be pulling together for common causes and beliefs." - I would really like to tease this particular thought apart, because I hear it among my left-leaning friends who have lobbed it at me as a response to my criticism of the pro-Palestinian position they've adopted, and also sometimes when I've failed to exactly toe the party line on, say, gender ideology issues. You'll forgive me if at first glance, and even with a great deal of thinking about it, a line like this sounds a lot like a rephrasing of "don't argue ideas on their merits, or point out that anyone on your side is adopting an illiberal stance, even if they are and you believe that they are and you also believe it's necessary to discuss it, because doing that is "initiating" infighting, and we need to all act together for a common cause [which we don't get to have a healthy discussion about, see above]" And you will also forgive me if that sounds circular, and also, effectively, illiberal
No, actually, I won't forgive you for ignoring the bigger picture of what I stated and misrepresenting what I mean to say. I've never said that people can't debate the merits of issues or have differing points of view. Quite the opposite, I've always been about airing all sides of the equation and coming together, to find common ground and build something out of that, leaving "R" and "D" behind and seeing what best represents "W" (We the People). We get infighting when people insist on divisively throwing up barriers to communication that are grounded in untruths and half-truths rather than honest assessments of situations and how we all can benefit from that. I'll stand on that high ground twelve times out of ten, circular or not and illiberal or not in your eyes; sorry that you aren't willing to join me there instead of engaging in creative license to reinterpret the point.
No, what you said is that every position is equally valid - including the extermination of the Jews - and that we shouldn't condemn people for thinking this way, just try to persuade them that they are wrong. And if we aren't successful, well, then we just have a difference of opinion.
That's not really an accurate summation of my position. See above: "Personally, like you, I find it completely repugnant and abhorrent. But not everyone sees it the same way, and in a democracy we accept that as the price of the freedoms that we cherish." I share your implied sense that there is a moral high and low ground there. But when in doubt, we consult the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech is guaranteed, even when the message is beyond defense to rational, reasonable people. I share your feelings on the mindset issue but also understand that, yes, every topic is equally valid for discussion under that premise. My belief is that, in the end, facts prevail over opinions and good judgment trumps bad when maturity and life experience are factored in. People can think or say what they like. Our role is to be the adults in the room to guide the discussion to an appropriate resolution.
News flash: yes they have the right to say their opinion.
Just like Charlie and I have the right to say they are completely wrong, ignorant and naive. If you think that hacking women, children and babies to pieces is acceptable - which the far left does - then we have the right to call you barbaric and not worthy of our society.
Yet here you are saying Charlie shouldn’t be saying that.
Again, you flat-out mischaracterize both my words and my position statements on them. At this point I have to question your reading comprehension skills. We'll have to agree to disagree on the topic and live to fight another day.
You characterize the far lefts anti-semitism as overblown by Charlie/The Bulwark; you claim that it’s not a big deal. It’s small potatoes.
Yet thousands are chanting for Israel to be sent to the sea…but sure. Nothing to worry about.
No, you are one of these people who write dozens of words, don’t EXPLICITY say something, but you overall point is clearly saying something…yet then you hide behind “I didn’t say that EXACTLY…How dare you say that I said that”…again, while you’re overall point is just that.
You play word games. But we know what your point is.
Can you clarify for me, then, specifically, what you meant when you said: It's hard enough to make inroads without resorting to or initiating infighting among people who should be pulling together for common causes and beliefs? As in: what specifically is the "infighting" that is being "initiated?" And what is the "common cause" that we should all be "pulling together for?" I really genuinely believed, based on the context of this discussion, that "infighting" meant Democrats calling out the illiberalism of a salient vein of Democrats who cheered for or didn't condemn the acts of a terrorist organization, and that the "initiation" was writing more articles about it than you think necessary. And that "pulling together" for a "common cause" sounded like you believed that the common cause is not under discussion and shouldn't be, or that having a few anti-Semites (the worst kind, the kind that don't think they are) isn't worth getting in a tizzy about because we need to pull together for something that is grander. But I obviously have it all wrong, so walk me through it. What's the infighting, actually? What's the common cause that we pull together with terrorism-glorifiers for? What's the initiation of this infighting, if it isn't the discussion of these issues? Why, in other words, did you write those words here in response to this particular piece of writing if you meant something else entirely?
Sorry for the delayed reply. Long day of teaching, grading, and lesson planning for tomorrow -- and not a hint of political activism in any of it. Just a usual day of honest public sector work for an honest day's public sector pay, from morning until well past the midnight hour.
Which is a lead-in to my point. To clarify requires me to go back to my original premise, on higher education and the increasingly frequent branding of that arena in these pages as hotbeds of extreme liberalism -- as if automatically true in most or all cases without context and without necessarily bringing evidence of same beyond carefully chosen anecdotes and survey results with incomplete analysis and data points. Somehow that morphed into position statements on the issues involved in the Gaza Strip and how people stand on that, which was not the focus of my initial post. I was intent on seeking a more nuanced and accurate depiction of the public college environment, especially at smaller campuses where protest movements are seldom seen and heated discussions and interactions are few and far between. (As for small private schools, I will concede that their mileage sometimes varies.) The common cause is a good education for young people who increasingly need it for a bright future; we all benefit from that over time in both a society and an economy that require it. It saddens, and sometime angers, me that the bomb throwers both within and from without want to make our jobs harder than they already are by introducing or overemphasizing elements of discord that just aren't a factor in that and saying or implying inappropriately that we bring agendas into the classroom, creating unnecessary and counterproductive divisiveness when they do not have to own the results of it. From where I sit there are those young people who talk about their beliefs, and a much smaller number who actually do something about them. I'm not concerned about their protests and rhetoric when their next move is to text their friends about where to meet for dinner later on or what they are wearing the next day. I don't see a threat there, so why do we care so much what their opinion is on the Middle East, or elsewhere?
I suspect that I'm not doing a good job of crystallizing my ideas at the end of such a long day. Bottom line: I'm not here to tell people how to think or feel about the Middle East crisis. I respect freedom of opinion. But I would like both a balanced and an honest account when people want to project their own viewpoints into our campus environment and try to pass judgment without having or seeking out all the facts. It feels like a reasonable request. Charlie's track record has not been good on that count, as others in this space have noted as well. So we call him out, under the premise that at some point enough is enough of the innuendo and the subtle agenda/bias against higher ed when, by all appearances, it seems to have worked out just fine for him and those who are like-minded. They got theirs. They don't always want others to have the same opportunities. If they have a specific beef with us and our domain, just come out and say it forthrightly and have the discussion that comes with it -- facts first, opinions second. Those of us who are in that environment every working day have a lot of relevant information to share. My 2.5 cents' worth, adjusted for that pesky inflation people are talking about. We'll see over time where the topic goes. If the comments here, on both sides, are any indication, it isn't going away.
This is a very thoughtful reply, thanks for taking the time to write it. I suppose I can see your point, though I must admit that it's difficult for me due to my own bias: I left academia in large part because my own experiences were very different than yours, and Charlie's arguments and observations resonate with me as such. I'd very much LIKE if your perspective were the more representative of the overall picture, if it makes any difference.
Thanks for the additional feedback. I try hard when I speak out here to remember that what I experience at my campus is not necessarily that which everyone else in the college setting undergoes. There are many variables. But I also know, from talking with a number of longtime colleagues elsewhere, in various programs and at institutions big and small, spread out across the country -- such being the perks of decades in the field -- that there are a lot of shared experiences, and that what we see on our various campuses often is not so different than the human experience in any other area. I try to speak to that as I can.
I feel lucky to be where I'm at, as there is little rancor and likewise little in the way of divisive behavior or hostility toward others. People have their beliefs, they practice them privately as they see fit, and we all seem to share the road quite well. I wish it were that way everywhere. Just this evening, grabbing a bite to eat at a local restaurant after another long day of classes, one of my new students came up to me unexpected and said, first thing out of his mouth, "My favorite professor. Really nice to see you here too." I've had him in class for only eight weeks and he indicated that I've already made a positive difference in his life. That's what I got into this field for in the first place -- not for politics and agendas, not to indoctrinate, just to be the best teacher I can be, as my professors once were for me when I needed them, and to help young people find their way forward through academics and good instruction. As I've said to Charlie and others in these pages, I wish we could have that discussion instead sometimes, as that is really what so much of the college experience is about and what ultimately is far more influential on these young people. It should not go unrecognized and underappreciated. Another 2.5 cents' worth from my corner of the ring. Thanks for a good discussion.
Thanks for justifying why its OK for some people to simply have a "difference of opinion" about the "extermination of a people" and that we can't condemn them for thinking that way...
Again, that's not precisely what I said or how I said it. Your comment is a case study in taking things beyond context and casting them in a light of your choice. I've made quite clear that I am against violence and hatred, and abusive actions against others to that end. But don't let that stop you from venting your spleen and passing judgment.
If you really want to hang your hat on “exactly” we’ll maybe you should also resort to “just asking questions.”
We all know exactly what you meant.
“ It seems self-evident that we cannot condone extermination of people and terrorism in our midst. Personally, like you, I find it completely repugnant and abhorrent. But not everyone sees it the same way, and in a democracy we accept that as the price of the freedoms that we cherish. Our role is to counter them with facts and evidence and use our power of persuasion that comes with them to influence the argument, not to say or imply that those people should not be free. For my part I embrace that challenge without resorting to demonizing and stigmatizing groups stereotypically or citing exceptions and trying to make them the rule.”
I'm the person who knows best what I mean to say. It may not be the wording you want to see. You may not agree with it. Or maybe I'm not as articulate about it as I seek to be. But in the end facts matter more than opinions, and factually we do not shut down free speech simply because we disagree with it, no matter how repulsive we may find it to be. Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news, but the United States Constitution remains superior to your beliefs. What we do is counter their position statements with our own freely expressed ideas, and point out fallacies in their arguments where they exist.
If you know about college kids, you'll understand that the "you're wrong, and here's why" approach often just gets them to dig in their heels deeper and longer and become more active in their agenda, to prove you wrong as well as assert their beliefs. Try reasoning with them, presenting a better alternative, and winning them over by making them part of the discussion. That's the best approach that I've seen to break down that wall, or at least soften it enough to allow for compromise and upward growth. If my approach is so wrong, what's your solution? Show us a better way instead of just insulting someone else's. For all your talk, you haven't yet put any of your own skin into the game -- just objections and accusations. That requires no talent..
Lastly, reassure us that you know the difference between the good and the bad people in the debate. It is possible to be pro-Israel and sympathetic toward the victims of the terror attacks but also anti-mass destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure in the name of retaliation against or extermination of the enemy. And that one can be pro-Palestinian with regard to its non-terrorists and anti-Hamas for the evil extremists that they are. Do most college kids understand the differences? I don't know. So let's ask. Call out those who are pro-Hamas and challenge them accordingly. Those seeking to curb needless human casualties and destruction of personal property built up over a lifetime may well have a point. Let's make sure that we at least are as well informed as we expect for them to be.
All these post in college...and yet almost no articles in hillside or other "conservative" schools, that are clear in saying that they are only teaching one way of learning, focusing on "athletics" or "christian classic learning" over liberal arts or STEM or even vocational learning! It says a lot who Mr. Skyes focuses on as illiberal. At this point I don't fully read him...I just a quick scan until I get to the good part...the comments!!
I'm curious as to what they Charlie thinks the appropriate college response to this is.
Because when the students protest conservative speakers advocating for right wing policies that either result in loss of life or erode democracy, it's "cancel culture". Students get angry and it's ill mannered illiberalism.
But colleges are supposed to do what exactly with these tactless pro-Palestine student protesters. Expell them? Revoke tenures of their advisors? Take away their signs, columns, and positions? Really I want to know what an appropriate response would be, and why a campus Republican group defending Russia's invasion of Ukraine shouldn't be held to the same standard.
Good point. Wish I would have thought of it. And, to be consistent in my argument, we do have a College Republicans group on our campus. Sometimes they have invited speakers whom I found to be unnecessarily polarizing, and the talking points that they have on some of their posters and flyers can be (deliberately) inflammatory. But that's okay. They too are entitled to free speech, and we accept their input also as part of the process. They are not heavy-handed activists engaging in destructive behavior. They just say what they believe. I see a big difference between words and actions in practical terms.
Thanks, Deutsch. Sure, we oldsters are guilty as charged -- kids are not that smart, and after all, there is nothing new under the sun.
The institution I left behind was replete with duplicative departments of area and identity studies, in some instances boasting of innovation. All too human, and not unlike the MAGA, children and young people delight in cults of opposition. They are after all and at least in this culture trying to stand on their own two feet by denying the worth of everything thus far given. Rebellion is an exciting term. Resistance even more so. Alliance, coalition, movement -- these are the supports to overcoming the sins of the past, and the lackeys who have not come to the collective endeavor of turning the world underfoot in giant strides.
But it gives a lot of room to mask bias and bigotry, or to rationalize it under the justification of the nature of evil thus challenged. Hate the sin and hate the sinner too. What is paradoxical is the international cause affixed to national movements. Bad parenting, no one affirmed that You can't go on the street to earn a trousseau.
My less than beloved institution was in a hurry to adopt land acknowledgements a decade back -- without a bit of investigation to be certain that claimants were not self-serving since the principles were so fully true and honest. LBJ once said that whenever someone comes saying it is not the money but the principle -- I always reach for my wallet. In any case, the motives locally and in the broader scheme were not simply to remember the peoples who once lived here and were cruelly driven out, with an eye to honest reconciliation, but instead dropping an anchor for larger demands of repair, remuneration and, frankly, revenge.
Thus, if one wonders where the language of those who are today in the streets refusing to condemn Hamas gets reinforced, try looking at the Indigeneous rights movement and Land Acknowledgements. Here are two statements from a guide to Land Acknowledgement, published in 2019.
The guide says, "Use appropriate language. Don’t sugarcoat the past. Use terms like genocide, ethnic cleansing, stolen land, and forced removal to reflect actions taken by colonizers."
And Northwestern University follows:
“It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought you to reside on the land, and to seek to understand your place within that history. Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense, or historical context: colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation.”
Needless to say, children did not come upon this themselves, they learned it from us.
Thanks for sharing. You make a lot of good points. I'm always in search of a middle ground, as so many of the debates that we all have, as with others elsewhere, go from one side of the spectrum to the other when in fact there likely is ample fertile ground in between where we all could meet. There are issues in higher ed that legitimately should be addressed, and some bad actors who misuse their authority. And there are areas where the anti-higher ed crowd overestimates and overdramatizes the situation, and selectively cherry-picks information and sources, in an effort to foster their own agenda and win the less informed over to their side. I'd rather we all agree on that as we can, try to find ways where each side can be better, and make real progress rather than merely argue across a fencepost. The young people see this to some extent and are turned off by it all. Perhaps we would be better served to make them part of the discussion and talk with them more than just about them.
Another day, another column featuring a passive aggressive attack against college campuses as fomenters of discord and indoctrination centers as opposed to sources of education making students more well-rounded members of society and better prepared for career employment. The former is the exception; the latter is the rule. Yet every day now Charlie keeps coming at us, preaching the ills of the campus setting as if a one-size-fits-all piece of attire. It is not.
The approach is becoming stale, tedious, and predictable. Let's give it a rest. Yes, as an educator, I'm biased. But we also don't need to be a chicken, or even a farmer, to recognize when the hen is laying poor eggs. The constant drum-beating against illiberal liberalism in higher ed doesn't pass the eyeball test when one takes a deeper dive on the issues than merely short-form cherry picking of examples. As an educator I see every working day with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears, that these kids have a much wider horizon that simply what goes on in the classroom or in student groups. They get their information from many sources, are no less capable of thinking critically than many older adults who, frankly, haven't been doing a very good job of it themselves, and draw their own conclusions less because of any sort of indoctrination and more out of a sense of evolving generational identity that has its own roots and common denominators, not some juiced-up agenda that others are force-feeding them. We give them too little credit for seeing where our generation or two has severely f...ed up our society and our globe. They have different ideas because maybe, possibly, perhaps our ideas, and our practices of them, haven't turned out to be such good ones in the first place. Too often we are Mr. Black Kettle calling them Mr. Black Pot. We should look in the mirror first and do self-assessment on our own contributions to how and why they have emerged as they are doing so.
My invitation to Charlie, and others beating the anti-higher ed drum, remains open to follow me around for a day or a week and see how it really is in our field and at our host institutions, especially the many of them outside of the bright lights and the big campus setting -- and even there, where activists remain a clear minority compared to those who go to that setting for other purposes. Funny how, like the politicians who also draw conclusions without necessarily gathering enough hard evidence, they don't need to do their due diligence of fact-finding before drawing conclusions and attempting to indoctrinate others with their own chosen perspectives and version of reality. Sound familiar?
As a retired university professor (Temple), married to a retired university professor (University of Pennsylvania), and mother of three, I could not agree more. The WSJ keeps beating this tired drum, too -- an op ed piece about it today, in fact.
Higher education in this country is a huge and highly varied ecosystem. The RWM take the words and actions of a very small percentage of students (and faculty) from a VERY small percentage of institutions, and blow it all out of proportion, making the exceptions the rule. So tiresome.
It isn't tiresome at all, because it is happening. The right has become an illiberal menace to our democracy. We cannot ignore the illiberalism coming from the left. Have we not learned the lessons of the failed Weimar Republic?
The illiberalism from the right is coming from those who hold real power and they are a majority in the House. They are currently holding this country hostage to their nihilism. The illiberal left is a bunch of college kids and two or three House members with exactly zero power to effect policy. There is no comparison at all to the power of the left during the Weimar Republic. That left precipitated the hard right take over of Germany. That's not even close to what's happened in the US.
I think maybe the point being made here is that illiberal, non-conservative kooks took over the GOP because they were dismissed as a small faction that wasn't representative of the whole party, and while everyone was being dismissive of them, they vacuumed up power by appealing to base instincts among an ~ 40% of people who labeled themselves as conservative. If no one pays attention to, warns about, or takes seriously a movement of a similar type on the left, then there is a less than zero chance that the left will eventually find itself in a similar state. There IS a (currently) minority on the left that is populist, shallow, performative, and illiberal, and there are signs that these ideas are making inroads among younger voters. A lot of this does occur on college campuses, and it has been for years. And as with the surrender of the real conservatism in the GOP, if no one centrist pushes back on it, it will take over and grow. Pointing out that "most people" on campuses aren't "all that illiberal" isn't particularly relevant: yes, maybe there are a bunch of critical thinkers and centrists and still-liberal kids on campuses: but they aren't pushing back very hard against the folks who are having pro-terrorist rallies and hiding behind terms like "anti-Zionist" and "anti-colonialist" when what they really are doing is saying they're pro-terrorism and for the destruction of Israel. I don't think that anyone can point this out too much. If there are so many good kids with great critical thinking skills on campuses and among the liberals, then they would be plainly visible somewhere else besides, and not need defending in, the comments of section of a Bulwark article.
"If there are so many good kids with great critical thinking skills on campuses and among the liberals, then they would be plainly visible somewhere else besides"
Not sure this follows.
First, it doesn't seem like an issue that is getting broad coverage that is reaching into students' lives. My son is on a campus with 50K students and hasn't heard about or run across any pro-terrorist rallies. They might be there, but even if he was so inclined, there isn't an - anti-terrorist, both sides have blame and a point - organization to join and rally around.
Second, it is by no means a given that leftist students being assinine is a major threat to Democrats or democracy. Conceivable, sure, but great critical thinking skills can come to a different conclusion, and certainly can conclude that spending time and energy rallying on campus against such things isn't worth the effort and potential cost.
I think a major difference between the left and the right when it comes to the fringe capturing the party is that for the right, a big chunk of their base was already primed and ready for the dog whistles to become louder, and for an embrace of nativism. I don't see that on the left (in reverse). The broader left isn't going to embrace Hamas or champion Venezuelan economics.
I see what you're saying, and I respectfully disagree precisely because of my experience with conservatives, who I also believed were extremely unlikely to embrace isolationism and Russia-humping and a thrice-married rapist who holds Bibles upside down, and yet here we are. I think you are likely a thinking person, and so you assume that other people who stand with you on your side of the aisle are there because they are thinkers, too. Many conservatives who had principles believed that those among them, on their side of the aisle, were there because of their principles, and so dismissed the fringe until it was a tidal wave.
It is truly not every day that I am called naive! With the preamble that you make good points and I'm not here to poke at you with this tidbit: everyone who knows me and therefore typically refers to me as a tyrannical skeptic-bitch found this comment immensely fun.
Got to agree to disagree on this one. On the right it was an obvious sickness that was flamed and used for decades. Those who are sane on the right can stand around and think Trump is an anomaly but they are just ducking their own guilt (except Stewart Stevens.). There is discussion about how the far left won’t come out to vote for Biden and it’s because the Dems aren’t giving them the red meat that the Republicans fed the Jerry Faldwells and Pat Robertsons for decades.
I don't know that TikTok and other forms of social media aren't the driving force for this movement, and not the campuses themselves. Anecdotal evidence suggest it's social media. That I do take very seriously.
I think that's right. Insofar as this is a problem it is probably being driven more by Russian and other trolls on TikTok, Instagram, etc. Than by liberal professors on campus.
I think it's likely a combination of both social media and some influence from college campus / peer pressure. For the record, while TikTok has a ton of it, it's also extremely prevalent on Instagram. Even Linkendln has it's fair share which I don't think is a whole bunch of Gen Z's.
There's definitely something getting stirred up on TikTok, I've noticed, especially the last few days. Lots of angry bots in the comments and lots of RW media chasing down students asking if they would behead babies. It's horrible.
Thank you. Best comment of the day, and completely aligned with what is my understanding of the Bulwark’s mission.
always the other party, and not your own. May I remind you that Gen Z resentment can translate into 2024 apathy at the polls.
Yes it can. It's happens routinely. I was on campus during the Viet Nam/draft protests when that movement was a powerful nationwide campus phenomenon. I don't see anything close to that when it comes to anti Israeli protests as it currently manifests. That could very well change if the war with Hamas expands and the US has to start military operations in support of Israel. Right now, I'm just relieved that Old Joe is doing everything he can to prevent that from happening.
And we all need to pull up our socks and do what we can to prevent that. I'm encouraged by your efforts.
Trump gets in in 2024 then I guess the young will get a real education.
I too have been wondering about the relative silence from never trumpers on the influence of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. It's not just the Bulwark either.
Absolutely agree that we cannot ignore the illiberalism coming from the left. And I have to remind myself that in era of social media, 8 years is a long time and things could have changed since I retired. My point was more that the RW suspicion of and hostility to higher ed. institutions is not consistent with the reality of these places and the people who work and study there. Colleges and universities reflect our society just as much as they shape it.
A few college students hardly compares to the complete takeover of one party in a two party system. It's the hyper focus on a small number of powerless people that feels unfair.
Do you feel that 260 former staffers from Elizabeth Warren's campaign is a few? https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/20/warren-staffers-ceasefire-israel-hamas-war-00122674
"The real unfairness isn't the atrocities, it is the people who are spoken to in unkind ways from supporting the atrocities." is a brutally careless nihilist point of view, Anne.
It's tiresome, not because we don't need to hear it, It's tiresome because people are painting all students, and all of the left and all the Democrats with the same brush. As a Biden voter, I take offense at the idea that I have a left problem. I support Israel and the attack by Hamas devastated me.
Saying that I somehow have control over or am responsible for what democratic socialists students say is absurd.
And almost always the same very small percentage of institutions.
This is the same type of rationalization that the GOP used to have about their own right flank.... until the Frankenstein monster grew and devoured the party.
Except, the equivalent from back then repudiating it would have been filled with quotes from outsiders while the GOP circled the wagons. The one up there is all Democrats. You might find the response inadequate, but it's simply not the case that anyone is ignoring this.
Certainly not the Dem political class.
Okay, but here are a bunch of people in the comments section of a centrist publication telling everyone to chillax, it isn't that many people, and offering what really seem to me to be wishful narratives on how "it really isn't that many people" or "this is just a bunch of kids on campus who are misguided." Sort of seems like there are some wagons of denial making at least a semi-circle to me.
I think the difference is that there was a whole right-wing infrastructure feeding the monster. And it wasn't just Fox, Limbaugh, and the rest of talk radio. Many of the Republican party leaders used dog whistle appeals to the people they now fear.
There isn't the same thing on the left. MSNBC and CNN aren't Fox. There is no left-wing talk radio. And Democratic party leaders have renounced those supporting or excusing Hamas. And not in the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" fashion popular on the right.
MSNBC has hosts which are non-stop supporting lies fed by Hamas. Look at the hospital coverage.
The far pro-genocide left has strong support from Russia, the Saudis, and Iran. There is a funded infrastructure for pro-genocide student groups "for Palestine".
This is not the same rationalization as the GOP!
But aren't these very small percentage of our institutions some of our most "elite" colleges, which disproportionately feed the powerful, decision making roles in American institutions?
Yes, it's largely the Usual Suspects. But I will tell you this: the Higher Ed Critics all want *their* offspring to go these universities for the obvious reasons. Furthermore, the RW can boast its share of elite credentials: Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron DiSantis, J. D. Vance. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito? Princeton. Chief Justice John Roberts? Harvard. I rest my case.
Well it is something of a conundrum, I imagine, wanting to give your child every advantage while wishing that didn't involve patronizing this incestuous relationship between elite society, prestigious institutions, and US News and World Report. At some point (and this definitely applies to my life experience) I'm guessing most progressives try living according to the "put your money where your mouth is" philosophy before they eventually get discouraged and tired of making their life more difficult for something that doesn't appear to be working, and gets harder with every new thing they learn.
Applying that to this specific situation – well, you get one shot at trying to provide your kid a good college education, and with the way parents stress themselves with guilt these days, they probably drive themselves nuts worrying that they'll deny their offspring a ticket to financial security because they happened to be in the thrall of an idealistic opposition to college elitism at the time. Better to just advocate for change but in the meantime work with the imperfect world you've got. My son is nowhere near that age, and I'm no Ivy Leaguer myself, so I don't think I'll have to deal with that particular self-guilting exercise, but still, I can imagine.
As for the idea that these institutions produce their share of right wingers, you'll get no argument from me. Part of that is undoubtedly attributable to disillusionment with the left based on what they see on campus. Now, don't misunderstand; I don't find that to be a moral justification for running to embrace the right wing fringe, so I'm certainly not trying to lay all the blame at our feet. But from a practical standpoint (which is how I usually tend to evaluate things) I always do warn that extremism just breeds more extremism, and I think that has shown itself to be the case in recent years.
That being said, I have no doubt that a lot of the right wing crankery these places churn out is little more than a cynical ploy to profit off of ignorance and disinformation, and that if anything it just makes it easier to look at themselves in a mirror if they imagine all of their opponents as obnoxious little proto-Nazis. But I don't let that get in the way of criticizing my side, because I agree with David French on this one – criticism of the right needs to come from the right (which is why I support the Bulwark), and criticism of the left needs to come from the left. And I am hoping that this is a wake-up call for many of us who are too worried about giving the right a boost if we call out bad things on the left, because that's how Republicans got themselves into their mess.
Ya know, I'm starting to see that these elite schools are really incubators for right-wing crackpots.
They are certainly incubators for very ambitious, entitled people and always have been. But there are also many Good Eggs who come through these places.
I know. I was just commenting with tongue in cheek.
I kinda figured that, actually. Good for grins!
Oh, and Justice Kavanaugh? Yale.
I'm old enough to remember protests against the Vietnam war, college students were called enemies of America, communists, etc., that culminated in Kent State and National Guardsmen shooting and killing 4 students.
The Israel/Palestine issue is a tragedy for both sides, for ALL the people involved who have no say in what their governments do, yet have to suffer the consequences.
And let's just remember that the reason the right supports Israel is because they need it for the rapture, after they convert all the Jewish people to Christianity. We remember the Crusades, right?
Yeah I really agree that people complaining about the protests are mostly missing the forest for the trees. Most people want an end to the mass bombing of civilians and even if a few freaks are defending Hamas, the vast majority are against killing.
I find that college kids think they know everything when they get there, but by the time they leave, they realize that they really know very little, at least that's what one hopes.
I like when Charlie compared the attacks to 9/11 as a way to describe the shock and anger and outrage Israelis are feeling, and after Iraq, we're in no position to finger wag.
There's always been so much emotion and history wrapped around the Israel/Palestine problem, that trying to discuss the nuances on social media is virtually impossible since Musk took over. Especially with young people who are passionate and can't see the forest for all the trees, as you said.
I'm on Tik Tok a lot and there's a whole wave of young idiots on there promising not to vote for Biden, while Biden is fighting to get humanitarian aid (success) and avoid civilian deaths in the ground attack (YTBD). And like Twitter, lots of bots around to stir the pot.
Frustrating, for all of us.
Those rallies all over the world look like far, far more than "a few" and I don't see any nuance in their bloodthirsty chants.
It kind of goes well beyond 'defending Hamas'. Far too many chants of 'kill the Jews' has also shown up on campuses and in public discourse.
Citation needed - I’ve never heard of that happening on a college campus. (Outside of Charlottesville or some other neonazi thing that’s not actually part of the college)
If evangelical Christians have cynical motives for supporting Israel, does that diminish the right of Israelis to defend their own existence? And is wanting to convert people just as bad as wanting to kill them?
"A tragedy for both sides" -- except that one side wants to have a small part of the region as its homeland; the other side has been largely dominated by people who want the region to be Judenrein and who believe it's their sacred obligation to impose Islam by force.
The Crusades were a response to several centuries of widespread Islamic conquest, starting with Muhammad, who is said to have personally participated in the slaughter of Jews who would not submit to him. Subsequent Islamic rulers boasted about how many people they had killed. One battle near Poitiers in 732 was crucial in halting the Islamic conquest of France. The Spanish Reconquista took a lot longer than the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Crusaders to the Holy Land aimed first to stop the attacks on Christian pilgrims going there. Of course, they brutally turned against Jews along their path (and even the wrong kind of Christians). And in some times and places, Islamic rulers were indeed more tolerant of Jews than Christians were. (Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, not the 8th century). The history of Christian anti-Semitism and other kinds of intolerance is shameful – though Christianity was not born in violence. Islam was. The idea of Christian “holy war” may have been largely patterned after the Islamic jihad.
A religious hatred of Jews is more widespread and virulent in the Muslim world today than in Christian-majority countries. The reason that Iran wants to destroy Israel is not because Israel hurts Iran or because the mullahs care about the Palestinians. It’s because Israel is predominantly Jewish.
But Israel has Arab-Muslim citizens, some of whom serve in the Knesset. Israelis have a say in what their government does. They can certainly criticize their government. They can vote out the government and vote in a new one. Hamas does not permit that right. The PA is not much better.
I think you’re missing the fact that most Palestinians have living relatives who used to live on land that was taken by the British and turned into Israel in 1948. The wars right now are really inspired by what happened in the last 50-75 years.
Even the pro Israeli Jewish side of this issue is much more concerned with the holocaust than the crusades or the Islamic empire. You may be a student of history, but most of the people on both sides of this war come from refugee families who are much more animated by recent history.
I'm not missing that fact. But Israelis too are animated by recent history – including multiple attempts to eradicate their nation, countless terror attacks within Israel, and barrages of rocket attacks from Gaza after Israel pulled out. Arab Muslims can live and prosper in Israel. But there are no Jews in Gaza.
There had never been a Palestinian nation before 1948, or a "Palestinian people" for that matter. There were “Arabs” in a region that had been controlled by various empires for millennia -- since the Hebrew kingdoms were first conquered. There had also been a continuous Jewish presence for thousands of years. When diaspora Jews saw a need for a nation of their own, it was natural to think of the ancestral Jewish homeland -- which was sparsely populated when the Zionist movement began.
Zionists bought land and famously “made the desert bloom,” and that attracted more Arabs back into the area – certainly including ancestors of today’s “Palestinians.” The Zionists obviously expected they could live in peace surrounded by much large numbers of Arabs. Why did that not happen? Was the friction wholly the fault of the Jews?
When the UN eventually established an Arab state and a Jewish state in the “British Mandate,” the Jews accepted it, but all the surrounding Arab states were violently opposed. They told Arab residents of Israel to leave ahead of their attack – expecting to finish off Israel in short order, and then the Arabs would go back to an Arab state.
It wasn’t Israel that forced those Arabs out. They chose the side of those who wanted to destroy Israel. But the Arab states that told them to leave didn’t seem to have much interest in their well-being afterward. Subsequent territorial enlargements by Israel were a consequence of further attacks with an intent to annihilate Israel.
I’m not endorsing every action taken by the Israeli government, or by radical West Bank settlers. But why is that bad things done by Palestinian Arabs must always be rationalized as an understandable response to something done by Israel – while anything wrong done by Israel can never by explained as a response to attacks on it from without and within?
And the long view of history actually is important to understanding today's events. The long view undercuts the "oppressor/victim" narrative in which Jews can only be considered oppressors and Arabs can only be considered their victims.
The long view is also important given that the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah believe they are following the example and instruction of the 7th-century warlord they call "the perfect man.'
Funny, before the British decided to exile European Jews to a "homeland", the area was called Palestine.
Imagine where we'd be if people hadn't spent the last few thousand years trying to impose their religions on other people.
Seriously, religion is the root of all evil. I'm currently reading a book that describes the schism between Catholism and the Elizabeth I Church of England. King James I had two outspoken Catholics arrested, beaten, tied up, and while they were still alive their torsos were cut open and their intestines were set on fire. And then they were hanged. So crimes in the name of Religion has been going on FOREVER.
I beg to differ. Antisemitism is not only occurring on the left on college campuses and Gen Z social media, but I see it influencing my own teenagers. My wife's 1st cousin is a professor at Oxford University who specializes in Chinese history. When I first posted my support for Israel, shortly after the 10/7 attacks, my wife's cousin blasted my post, and went on about Israeli occupation of Palestine. I was completely taken aback, as I've enjoyed our conversations over the years and his otherwise thoughtful dialogue. As for my three teenagers in the home, all of them receive a continuous barrage of antisemitic messaging in their progressive Gen Z social media feeds. On Sunday, we watched "Schindler's List" as a family, to help our kids understand what Jews have been up against. I have taken significant time giving them a full understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. When the false flag "Israeli" bombing of the hospital in Gaza happened, it took days before we could resume the conversation, because the accusation convinced my own kids that Israel was indeed a war-mongering occupier.
Israel IS, in some ways, a warmongering occupier. But they also have a right to defend themselves. The issue is complex, and you, like Charlie and so many others, seek to reduce it to something simple. Good vs. evil. It’s this ridiculous idea that if someone is going to be in the right on an issue then they must be 100% pure in all ways. It’s the same trap a minority of far left students (and it IS a minority) are falling into.
The college students who support Palestine and oppose Israeli colonialism decided that meant that nothing any Palestinian does to Israel is wrong, no matter what. That, of course, is entirely incorrect. Hamas’ attack on 10/7 was an atrocity that is not excused by any wrongdoing on the part of Israel. Targeting civilians in terrorist attacks, especially brutal ones like these, is never justified.
Same with Charlie and others on this site, Mona in particular, and the same with your comment. Israel has every right to defend itself. That doesn’t excuse Netanyahu’s government openly supporting settlements in the West Bank and allowing Israeli settlers to murder Palestinians there indiscriminately. It doesn’t excuse high ranking government officials from making statements that amount to calls for genocide against the Palestinians. It doesn’t excuse cutting off water for 1 million children living in Gaza.
People are also conflating Israel’s right to self defense with some sort of blanket right to destroy Gaza regardless of the number of civilian casualties. Israel has no strategy right now other than vengeance. Killing civilians is sometimes unavoidable in war, and international law permits it when it cannot be avoided and the value of the military objective justifies it. But for that to be the case, Israel has to have a plan for its operation that justifies all of the civilian suffering it will inflict. It’s very clear they have no such plan, which is why President Biden has been pushing them to stop and think things through.
Biden seems to be the only person in this entire mess who realizes there are two sides, neither of which is wholly innocent, and that you can evaluate the situation on its merits without erasing the facts.
I think you are right. We have a huge problem accepting shades of gray. Is Israel perfect? Of course not. Do they have a right to react collectively when their children are murdered? I think so, withing the norms they constructed for themselves and internationally recognized standards. Is it ok for them to be furious right now? Yes! But as we taught my daughter via Daniel Tiger, doing things when you are upset can lead to bad results. It's best to calm down then react. Based on Israel pausing on their efforts to clear Gaza, it seems like that's what they are doing.
When we try to distill everything into good/evil, you miss important nuance. George Washington can be both a great statesman and a terrible slave owner. I can be a good dad and bad at being a spouse (although I work hard to be good at both!). We can be bother thoughtful and rash in different circumstances.
I will relentlessly reference Crimean Tatars and their near 70 years of peaceful protest in response to being ethnically cleansed from Crimes by the Soviets. By not getting violent, they have faced setbacks like the annexation. However they maintain the moral high ground. I think a lot of Palestinians try to do this.
But the point of an event like 10/7 is to provoke a rash response. So far, Israel seems to be trying not to do badly. This is good for humanity.
Wow. You assume and project a whole lot. Nowhere in my comment did I support Israeli occupations of the West Bank. Nowhere in my comments did I defend Netanyahu’s government. Quite the contrary, I have used the example of Netanyahu’s far right governing coalition to teach my family about the geopolitical consequences of electing far-right people in government (and what it could mean if MAGA Trumpism returns to power in 2024). AND - just as we have significant political differences here in the US, the same goes for Israelis. Most Israelis DO NOT support West Bank Israeli settlements. The people who were attacked in the kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip weren’t West Bank occupiers. That would be as absurd as China bombing San Francisco in retaliation of a Trump 2024 re-election. One has nothing to to do with the other.
I was going off of your comment, which spends a lot of time being shocked and horrified that your kids might hear something anti-Israel (which you seem to equate with being anti-Semitic) or that someone might push back on your support for Israel, and no time at all saying anything about the plight of the Palestinians.
However, I never said you supported Netanyahu or settlements. I referenced him as an example of Israel behaving badly. Far too much of the discussion, even on normally good sites like The Bulwark, has been reduced these days to either “Israel has the right to defend itself and if you criticize how it does so then you’re an anti-Semite” or “Palestinians are oppressed, so even the slaughter of Israeli children is OK because they’re settlers, not civilians.” Neither of those positions is acceptable, but people only seem upset about the latter, not the former.
I respect your position on the issue and your informed perspective. But in part I'd say that you are making my point for me. Charlie makes it sound like college campuses are THE source of (dis)information for a generation of young people without adequately providing other examples or sufficient context for their choices. As we both note, they get their information in various ways, from various origins. College is just one of them, and the ongoing implication that radical faculty and administration are behind it simply isn't the case so much as the exception when one looks at the totality of the picture.
One certainly can debate whether young people adequately engage in critical thinking and reasoned drawing of conclusions. There is a discussion to be had there. But for my part at least I'm getting tired of the constant defending of our academic turf from people who aren't necessary qualified to attack it. I'd say more damage has been done over the years by right-wing talk radio hosts who have willingly carried water for some pretty bad actors and left the rest of us to live with the results and clean up the messes. But then perhaps I'm not engaging in sufficient critical thinking and have an agenda of my own on that. As always, these things are two-way streets if one insists on going down them.
Where do I do this? Pls provide precise quote.
I have a counterproposal, Charlie. Show us precise quotes where you take a pro-higher ed position on what is done right in that environment and by those instructors and administrators who are doing their work in good faith and very well so, and by the many student groups and movements that focus on doing good work for others and both giving back and paying forward, often quietly and without seeking to attract attention. The loudest voices aren't the only ones that should be reported, especially when they often are the smallest in size.
Since the roads leading to Rome on all this are your original posts, we're looking to you for balance in this area and to paint an accurate portrayal of the environment, not merely a subtle, becoming daily notice that there are some bad actors at a few specifics campuses, with the inference that if it is happening there, it is happening elsewhere too. Better still, bring the goods and show us evidence of widespread abuse of authority and a clear majority of students who are anti-democratic agitators and revolutionaries. I'm not seeing it, thus I call BS on the bigger picture point. It's not hard to read the anti-higher ed bias into your wording when it's been cultivated for so many years, in your books (Fail U.: The False Promise of Higher Education), WTMJ radio commentaries over time, and in these many pages. You've given us a body of work there to draw upon. So we do. It's fine to call out those bad actors where they exist. And, yes, they do, in some places and to some degree. No such environment is 100 percent pure. But let's not lose sight of the rule in calling attention to the exception. That's all I ask. The comments here clearly indicate that there are good points on both sides of the equation. So let's have that discussion instead. We could use your support when there is a positive message to share.
In all due respect, you didn’t answer his question.
Nor is he responding to mine. Perhaps if I had enough time to comb through every column he has written, the transcripts (if they exist) of every radio broadcast in which he opined on the topic and made snarky overtures with sympathetic listeners, and all the passages in the cited book, among others. I don't. That doesn't negate the impressions received over time and a multitude of statements that take a broadly negative view of the topic. I'm not the only one here who is pointing that out. He might want to consider that input, from everyday readers. I suspect our time would be better spent actually addressing the topic than playing Gotcha games.
Where do you think the whole "oppressed/oppressor" language comes from?
It comes straight from CRT. Which is all the rage in university humanities these days.
Do tell us exactly where it is "all the rage," because I'm in the Humanities environment and am hearing exactly nobody talking about it on any sort of a regular or sustained basis. Granted my own experience is not necessarily that of everyone else. But if it truly were such a heightened presence in so many departments and with so many faculty, administrators, and students, we'd likely have more precise and visible examples of its presence. If you have evidence that CRT is a guiding principle among more than a small, distinct minority of those people, please share it. I'd welcome the opportunity to see it. The rest of us are too busy just trying to keep up with our designated work load, which grows each year as we consistently are asked to do more with less.
Did you get millions to study your area like Ibrahim X? Have your ideas been spread to many schools via various “education experts?” Did you sell millions of books like Robin DiAngelo?
Yeah…CRT is just some back water idea…not popular at all.
Have you ever worked on a college campus and seen with your own eyes what goes on there? Or do you let others do your thinking for you?
True story (not that I make any of them up -- I don't need to). Today when I walked into class, the first student I saw was wearing a hoodie with something written on the front. It was not "Liberate Palestine." It was not "CRT Forever." It was ... "Celibacy Rocks." Yeah, really. That's where they are at more than CRT where I work. What else they wear, and talk about, is usually the Green Bay Packers, and how they suck without Aaron Rodgers and what a diva act he had become. If you can find CRT in there somewhere, let us know. That's in addition to the chalk writing on the sidewalks, offering free food at a Christian mission near campus and urging people to go to Homecoming activities. Sorry, no CRT there either. The point is that they have their own agenda and really don't give a sh.. what their professors think or say or do. And most professors who want to keep their paychecks coming at a state school know to steer clear of such things when it is too easily exploited by those who oppose them and, as noted, not what the students want to hear in the first place. We have much more in common with the Brady Bunch than with Berkeley. Are there some individual exceptions? Sure. Like anywhere else, some people have trouble putting their personal passions aside. But are they a clear majority or minority presence? Figure that out for yourself. It's not hard to do if you keep an open mind. On my campus, if you are looking for CRT evidence, you will have a long search ahead of you. Plan to budget extra time for that.
What school?
Let me know and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to find more than a few profs who champion CRT ideas
Wow. So since someone wore a football jersey that means the politics isn’t real? Give me a break.
Here’s a tip:
When you say “but”…everything before it is meaningless.
So when you say, “Yes Hamas’s attack was terrible, but we have to understand [excuse] the Palestinians…”
Well…you really don’t mean the first part.
So now you're down to arguing over conjunctions to try to make your point?
Just. Move. On. Already.
Right after you admit you don’t like Israel and that you think the Palestinian cause is just; that their attack on Israel was justified.
You know you do…
I don't disagree that it's a complex issue and that there are 2 sides to be considered here, but it is very concerning how quickly/easily people supporting the Palestinians seem to be able to jump over the atrocities in order to get in the lane they wanted to be in the first place. Jews = Bad
Honestly...it's a very similar mindset to the MAGAs...where they already have the answer in their head and there's just nothing that's going to dissuade them that their side is right and righteous. Let's go back and talk about Hillary Clinton instead of talking about Trump...because the Clinton's are bad people justifying everything Trump does.
Where's the outrage from them for Hamas holding innocent civilians hostage, etc? Again....that's very MAGA like...in that the only important atrocities occur at the hands of their perceived enemies.
I know this response is very high level and broad brush, but it reflects how I'm seeing things.
I agree that social media is a huge influence here. Our younger kid, a college freshman this year with a general (and unusual for our family) lack of interest in politics, has jumped on the Israel-brought-this-on-themselves argument. Not at college. On TikTok.
I appreciate you trying to educate your children on how Jewish people have suffered from prejudice and hate by watching Schindler's List (GREAT movie). Another one I recommend is "Exodus" about the creation of Israel after WWII and trying to help Jews escape out of Europe (available on You Tube for free). Based on a book by Leon Uris.
Now, what have they learned about the Palestinians?
Thank you for the reference... and please don't patronize me about what "they learned" about the Palestinians. I gave them the full picture, to include talking about the West Bank Israeli settlements, the differences between Hamas and the PLO, the first and second antifadas, 1947/48, 1967, 1973 etc etc etc. I'm a retired military intelligence officer, and deeply informed about the history of the Middle East.
I'll bet you could tell some stories! Thank you for the background, you just never know who you're talking to on these comment threads.
That was rude and unnecessary. In addition, the Middle East has never been stable. The land now called Israel is on the ancient spice route which brought waves and waves of people through the area over a thousand years. It has been dominated by all sorts of groups over the years including Persians, Romans, Ottomans, British to name a few.
Go post that stuff on Truth Social...where you can go own some Dems.
There was a great conversation going on until your post.
Thanks for your service and your background is excellent and contributes greatly to the conversation.
Exodus
Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo (blacklisted by Hollywood when he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee)
directed by Otto Preminger with music by Ernest Gold.
With a Jewish leading man, Paul Newman.
Epic (meaning your comment)
Your thoughtfulness in providing information to your children is impressive. Do you have reading recommendations for this old person? I grew up with WW2 vets in the family including one who participated in the liberation of Dachau.
Schindler’s List, enjoyed the novel, never saw the film (I hear it’s excellent.) I’m sorry if you sent your kids off to college and they came back with different opinions then yours. Obviously their wrong and you’re right (as was my father about us getting into Vietnam.) Maybe next movie night try one of the director’s other films, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a crowd pleaser.
Charlie can’t quite leave his talk radio days behind, bless his heart.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that this represented a majority of the students on any campus. Remember that the More In Common survey found that the "progressive activist" left is only about 8% of the country – but they clearly have an outsized voice in our public discourse. The same thing is true on campuses. Surveys repeatedly show that majorities of students on college campuses feel that they can't freely speak their minds these days.
Nobody is saying a college education is bad, but there is clearly a problem with the environment being fostered at some of our "elite" universities by academic admistrators who push toxic, divisive ideas dressed up as DEI and "anti-racism". We hear story after story of administrators deferring to ludicrous demands by students in the name of some twisted version of progress, often referencing their own privilege as a shield against criticism that they should exercise better judgement. We hear accounts from anonymous professors who say they fear for their jobs if they push back against some of the things they're seeing.
I'm clearly going beyond the original point of anti-Semitism now, but this is part and parcel with an ascendant, racial-essentialist vision of progressivism where every issue can be adjudicated by virtue of the identity categories of the parties involved, and where they rank on the power and oppression scale. If you want to say that this isn't a problem, then what's to account for what's happening in various progressive institutions around the country, who are having difficulty functioning and doing their actual work because their workplace cultures have been overtaken by young employees demanding to dismantle internal hierarchies and inequitable power structures within the organizations themselves?
Understand that I'm not a conservative. I'm saying this as a progressive who is extremely concerned with the ideas getting taken seriously on the American left these days. And it feels like every time I turn around I see some pathetic individual with a podcast or some other kind of platform who claims that they've always been a Democrat but now they're starting to sympathaize with the Trumpist right because of what they've been seeing on the far left. I have little respect for those people, but they have a voice and influence, and if the rest of the left doesn't start to push back and demonstrate clear separation from the toxic elements of our side of the cultural divide, we may find one day that Democrats will be the ones trying to figure out how to govern from the minority.
I'd float a suggest that the rise of racial essentialism is nearly entirely due to failure of socialism to gain traction in the US and the complete dominance of capital.
When we can't view inequality as an inherently class based phenomenon, we turn to the next best proxy, which in this country is race.
If we could break through the stranglehold of capital, work to relieve economic inequality, and empower workers, a lot of the racial anxiety would go away.
Well said. I think young people, Gen Z, are being painted with a very broad brush of antisemitism. You can recognize Hamas is a terrorist organization, support Israeli’s people right to exist, And know Palestinians also have an Equal right to live, work, and exist in their homeland. I will not, and do not agree to pressure to support the Israeli government in their apartheid regime against the Palestinian people. Doesn’t mean I am antisemetic. Just as I would not accuse a person of being anti American because of their opposition to the Trump administration.
Well, when half of the respondents under the age of 35 said they felt that the Oct 7 attack by Hamas was completely justified, I think a broad brush is appropriate.
Slide # 43: https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/HHP_Oct23_KeyResults.pdf
That's a rather narrow and solitary data point among many other data points that are favorable to Israel in the same poll. In particular, later on a significant majority of those under 35 identify antisemitism in Palestinians. And always, ALWAYS, consider the reliability of a single poll.
And yet there are thousands in the streets and on campuses chanting “From the river to the sea” and that Israel is the aggressor.
But sure…
Not passive aggressive. Accurate. The leading academic institutions lost any pretense of prestige by harboring some of the worst COVID disinformationists. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UC San Francisco -- the disinformationists use their academic freedom to give deadly advice. UPenn fired a professor who did research that was essential to the eventual development of some COVID vaccines. But "free speech", "academic freedom".
Why should it surprise anyone that we get disinformation about Hamas and Israel from some of the same institutions? Facts are no longer objective. If supporting genocidal anti-Semites is a part of generational identity, we will have a lot of problems in this country in the next 50 years.
My invitation to follow me around on campus and after hours to see for yourself what it is like for a typical college instructor, and among typical college kids, is open to you as well. You cite five schools out of thousands across the nation. Kindly show us that what happens there is representative of all those others elsewhere. Please tell us also what percentage of educators with "academic freedom" are among those who engage in the behavior you cite compared to those who do not. Also define exactly what you understand "academic freedom" to be relative to how typical faculty, staff, and administration carry it out in the college environment. I'd like to see how well informed you actually are, compared to what generalizations, stereotypes, and myths are circulating without adequate evidence to back them up.
And change my opinions? Never.
I'm a retired physician.
Medical training is very individual. Students, residents and fellows spend a lot of time with attendings both individually and in very small groups. As a result, there are a tremendous number of people involved in medical education. Many of those experienced or retired physicians are also donating their time, rather than holding a paid position. Some are given an "adjunct" title in exchange for their time. There are definitely a few quacks who spread misinformation, but they don't really represent the medical school or the training hospital with which they are very loosely affiliated. The two Stanford doctors you may be thinking about actually belong to the Hoover Institute, not the medical school or hospital. There's also an MD at UCSF who's a contrarian adjunct claiming expertise in multiple fields unrelated to his formal training.
Disinformationists? Who, what? I must have missed that.
You didn't. Dr. Oz is still out there selling snake oil with Harvard's approval. He's not alone. I think medical boards would be better for dealing with this than universities, but how these medical schools aren't embarrassed is anyone's guess. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/us/doctors-covid-vaccine-misinformation-invs/index.html
Harvard’s approval? The dude got a bachelor’s in biology from Harvard in 1982. That’s supposed to constitute “approval”?
When it comes to COVID disinformation? I don't think it's a bridge too far during a pandemic for an institution to say, "He may have learned medicine here, but we didn't teach THAT. It's wrong." But again, I think medical boards would have more power and influence here.
He didn’t learn medicine there, though. He only for his undergraduate degree. Are colleges supposed to police every 22 year old they’ve ever graduated?
I do agree that medical boards are the better option here, but if you want it to be schools it should at least be the school that gave him an MD.
I’m sick of it too. There seems to be a pleasure in smearing the antics of the minority in our faces. Every day we get another dose of, “See? See? I told you.” No party is 100% pure. Ours is a big tent that houses some nutjobs. We know this. No need to be reminded of it on a daily basis.
A movement that can't bear criticism is a weak and unsustainable movement.
Charlie's comments are hardly a tedious drumbeat; he talks about many other things too.
Minimizing abuse -- and exaggerated criticism of the people who point out the abuse -- are two time-honored, even clichéd, ways of excusing and enabling abuse.
We need to clean our own house first.
(Although I have to say that I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable saying "our house" -- the ceaseless "no problem here, move on" drumbeat is making me feel more and more like this is not my house to worry about. I wonder how many other people are being pushed away and perhaps pushed farther?)
"We need to clean our own house first."
I think we need a better understanding of whether we're talking about some dust and light clutter or if we're talking about sewage starting to well out of the toilets.
And Charlie may talk about many other things, but he does spend quite a bit of time on this general topic. Not as much as JVL spends on Baseball, but probably a bit more than he spends on watches. Of course, only one of those two topics is existential for JVL, so that might explain the difference.
No one is saying they can’t bear criticism. They’re saying the criticism is wrong.
Correct criticism: “This small minority of left-wing students who have abhorrent beliefs is bad.”
Wrong criticism: “I will use this small minority of left-wing students who have abhorrent beliefs to critique the left as a whole, as if they all believe this stuff or at least as if a huge portion of them do.”
By all means critique the problem. But don’t exaggerate it.
It is extrmely tedious especially from the guy who helped bring us the Iraq war,among other things. People should broaden their interests.
How many people calling for the extermination of Jewish people is too few to care about? I mean I thought the whole lesson of WWII and "Never Again" was we paid attention to shit like this and called it out. Protest for Palestinian rights as much as you want, but the calls for wiping out the state of Israel, the Jews, and support for Hamas are many steps too far. This isn't only happening on campuses but colleges seem to be safe spaces for this hate to spread.
If you are looking for 100 percent consensus on issues that involve literally millions of opinions, you'll never be satisfied. It seems self-evident that we cannot condone extermination of people and terrorism in our midst. Personally, like you, I find it completely repugnant and abhorrent. But not everyone sees it the same way, and in a democracy we accept that as the price of the freedoms that we cherish. Our role is to counter them with facts and evidence and use our power of persuasion that comes with them to influence the argument, not to say or imply that those people should not be free. For my part I embrace that challenge without resorting to demonizing and stigmatizing groups stereotypically or citing exceptions and trying to make them the rule. It's hard enough to make inroads without resorting to or initiating infighting among people who should be pulling together for common causes and beliefs.
Part of our role to counter them is to call out their bad behavior when we see it.
I certainly agree with that.
" It's hard enough to make inroads without resorting to or initiating infighting among people who should be pulling together for common causes and beliefs." - I would really like to tease this particular thought apart, because I hear it among my left-leaning friends who have lobbed it at me as a response to my criticism of the pro-Palestinian position they've adopted, and also sometimes when I've failed to exactly toe the party line on, say, gender ideology issues. You'll forgive me if at first glance, and even with a great deal of thinking about it, a line like this sounds a lot like a rephrasing of "don't argue ideas on their merits, or point out that anyone on your side is adopting an illiberal stance, even if they are and you believe that they are and you also believe it's necessary to discuss it, because doing that is "initiating" infighting, and we need to all act together for a common cause [which we don't get to have a healthy discussion about, see above]" And you will also forgive me if that sounds circular, and also, effectively, illiberal
No, actually, I won't forgive you for ignoring the bigger picture of what I stated and misrepresenting what I mean to say. I've never said that people can't debate the merits of issues or have differing points of view. Quite the opposite, I've always been about airing all sides of the equation and coming together, to find common ground and build something out of that, leaving "R" and "D" behind and seeing what best represents "W" (We the People). We get infighting when people insist on divisively throwing up barriers to communication that are grounded in untruths and half-truths rather than honest assessments of situations and how we all can benefit from that. I'll stand on that high ground twelve times out of ten, circular or not and illiberal or not in your eyes; sorry that you aren't willing to join me there instead of engaging in creative license to reinterpret the point.
No, what you said is that every position is equally valid - including the extermination of the Jews - and that we shouldn't condemn people for thinking this way, just try to persuade them that they are wrong. And if we aren't successful, well, then we just have a difference of opinion.
That's not really an accurate summation of my position. See above: "Personally, like you, I find it completely repugnant and abhorrent. But not everyone sees it the same way, and in a democracy we accept that as the price of the freedoms that we cherish." I share your implied sense that there is a moral high and low ground there. But when in doubt, we consult the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech is guaranteed, even when the message is beyond defense to rational, reasonable people. I share your feelings on the mindset issue but also understand that, yes, every topic is equally valid for discussion under that premise. My belief is that, in the end, facts prevail over opinions and good judgment trumps bad when maturity and life experience are factored in. People can think or say what they like. Our role is to be the adults in the room to guide the discussion to an appropriate resolution.
News flash: yes they have the right to say their opinion.
Just like Charlie and I have the right to say they are completely wrong, ignorant and naive. If you think that hacking women, children and babies to pieces is acceptable - which the far left does - then we have the right to call you barbaric and not worthy of our society.
Yet here you are saying Charlie shouldn’t be saying that.
Again, you flat-out mischaracterize both my words and my position statements on them. At this point I have to question your reading comprehension skills. We'll have to agree to disagree on the topic and live to fight another day.
You characterize the far lefts anti-semitism as overblown by Charlie/The Bulwark; you claim that it’s not a big deal. It’s small potatoes.
Yet thousands are chanting for Israel to be sent to the sea…but sure. Nothing to worry about.
No, you are one of these people who write dozens of words, don’t EXPLICITY say something, but you overall point is clearly saying something…yet then you hide behind “I didn’t say that EXACTLY…How dare you say that I said that”…again, while you’re overall point is just that.
You play word games. But we know what your point is.
Can you clarify for me, then, specifically, what you meant when you said: It's hard enough to make inroads without resorting to or initiating infighting among people who should be pulling together for common causes and beliefs? As in: what specifically is the "infighting" that is being "initiated?" And what is the "common cause" that we should all be "pulling together for?" I really genuinely believed, based on the context of this discussion, that "infighting" meant Democrats calling out the illiberalism of a salient vein of Democrats who cheered for or didn't condemn the acts of a terrorist organization, and that the "initiation" was writing more articles about it than you think necessary. And that "pulling together" for a "common cause" sounded like you believed that the common cause is not under discussion and shouldn't be, or that having a few anti-Semites (the worst kind, the kind that don't think they are) isn't worth getting in a tizzy about because we need to pull together for something that is grander. But I obviously have it all wrong, so walk me through it. What's the infighting, actually? What's the common cause that we pull together with terrorism-glorifiers for? What's the initiation of this infighting, if it isn't the discussion of these issues? Why, in other words, did you write those words here in response to this particular piece of writing if you meant something else entirely?
Sorry for the delayed reply. Long day of teaching, grading, and lesson planning for tomorrow -- and not a hint of political activism in any of it. Just a usual day of honest public sector work for an honest day's public sector pay, from morning until well past the midnight hour.
Which is a lead-in to my point. To clarify requires me to go back to my original premise, on higher education and the increasingly frequent branding of that arena in these pages as hotbeds of extreme liberalism -- as if automatically true in most or all cases without context and without necessarily bringing evidence of same beyond carefully chosen anecdotes and survey results with incomplete analysis and data points. Somehow that morphed into position statements on the issues involved in the Gaza Strip and how people stand on that, which was not the focus of my initial post. I was intent on seeking a more nuanced and accurate depiction of the public college environment, especially at smaller campuses where protest movements are seldom seen and heated discussions and interactions are few and far between. (As for small private schools, I will concede that their mileage sometimes varies.) The common cause is a good education for young people who increasingly need it for a bright future; we all benefit from that over time in both a society and an economy that require it. It saddens, and sometime angers, me that the bomb throwers both within and from without want to make our jobs harder than they already are by introducing or overemphasizing elements of discord that just aren't a factor in that and saying or implying inappropriately that we bring agendas into the classroom, creating unnecessary and counterproductive divisiveness when they do not have to own the results of it. From where I sit there are those young people who talk about their beliefs, and a much smaller number who actually do something about them. I'm not concerned about their protests and rhetoric when their next move is to text their friends about where to meet for dinner later on or what they are wearing the next day. I don't see a threat there, so why do we care so much what their opinion is on the Middle East, or elsewhere?
I suspect that I'm not doing a good job of crystallizing my ideas at the end of such a long day. Bottom line: I'm not here to tell people how to think or feel about the Middle East crisis. I respect freedom of opinion. But I would like both a balanced and an honest account when people want to project their own viewpoints into our campus environment and try to pass judgment without having or seeking out all the facts. It feels like a reasonable request. Charlie's track record has not been good on that count, as others in this space have noted as well. So we call him out, under the premise that at some point enough is enough of the innuendo and the subtle agenda/bias against higher ed when, by all appearances, it seems to have worked out just fine for him and those who are like-minded. They got theirs. They don't always want others to have the same opportunities. If they have a specific beef with us and our domain, just come out and say it forthrightly and have the discussion that comes with it -- facts first, opinions second. Those of us who are in that environment every working day have a lot of relevant information to share. My 2.5 cents' worth, adjusted for that pesky inflation people are talking about. We'll see over time where the topic goes. If the comments here, on both sides, are any indication, it isn't going away.
This is a very thoughtful reply, thanks for taking the time to write it. I suppose I can see your point, though I must admit that it's difficult for me due to my own bias: I left academia in large part because my own experiences were very different than yours, and Charlie's arguments and observations resonate with me as such. I'd very much LIKE if your perspective were the more representative of the overall picture, if it makes any difference.
Thanks for the additional feedback. I try hard when I speak out here to remember that what I experience at my campus is not necessarily that which everyone else in the college setting undergoes. There are many variables. But I also know, from talking with a number of longtime colleagues elsewhere, in various programs and at institutions big and small, spread out across the country -- such being the perks of decades in the field -- that there are a lot of shared experiences, and that what we see on our various campuses often is not so different than the human experience in any other area. I try to speak to that as I can.
I feel lucky to be where I'm at, as there is little rancor and likewise little in the way of divisive behavior or hostility toward others. People have their beliefs, they practice them privately as they see fit, and we all seem to share the road quite well. I wish it were that way everywhere. Just this evening, grabbing a bite to eat at a local restaurant after another long day of classes, one of my new students came up to me unexpected and said, first thing out of his mouth, "My favorite professor. Really nice to see you here too." I've had him in class for only eight weeks and he indicated that I've already made a positive difference in his life. That's what I got into this field for in the first place -- not for politics and agendas, not to indoctrinate, just to be the best teacher I can be, as my professors once were for me when I needed them, and to help young people find their way forward through academics and good instruction. As I've said to Charlie and others in these pages, I wish we could have that discussion instead sometimes, as that is really what so much of the college experience is about and what ultimately is far more influential on these young people. It should not go unrecognized and underappreciated. Another 2.5 cents' worth from my corner of the ring. Thanks for a good discussion.
Thanks for justifying why its OK for some people to simply have a "difference of opinion" about the "extermination of a people" and that we can't condemn them for thinking that way...
Good grief you are naive.
Again, that's not precisely what I said or how I said it. Your comment is a case study in taking things beyond context and casting them in a light of your choice. I've made quite clear that I am against violence and hatred, and abusive actions against others to that end. But don't let that stop you from venting your spleen and passing judgment.
No. That’s what you said.
If you really want to hang your hat on “exactly” we’ll maybe you should also resort to “just asking questions.”
We all know exactly what you meant.
“ It seems self-evident that we cannot condone extermination of people and terrorism in our midst. Personally, like you, I find it completely repugnant and abhorrent. But not everyone sees it the same way, and in a democracy we accept that as the price of the freedoms that we cherish. Our role is to counter them with facts and evidence and use our power of persuasion that comes with them to influence the argument, not to say or imply that those people should not be free. For my part I embrace that challenge without resorting to demonizing and stigmatizing groups stereotypically or citing exceptions and trying to make them the rule.”
I'm the person who knows best what I mean to say. It may not be the wording you want to see. You may not agree with it. Or maybe I'm not as articulate about it as I seek to be. But in the end facts matter more than opinions, and factually we do not shut down free speech simply because we disagree with it, no matter how repulsive we may find it to be. Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news, but the United States Constitution remains superior to your beliefs. What we do is counter their position statements with our own freely expressed ideas, and point out fallacies in their arguments where they exist.
If you know about college kids, you'll understand that the "you're wrong, and here's why" approach often just gets them to dig in their heels deeper and longer and become more active in their agenda, to prove you wrong as well as assert their beliefs. Try reasoning with them, presenting a better alternative, and winning them over by making them part of the discussion. That's the best approach that I've seen to break down that wall, or at least soften it enough to allow for compromise and upward growth. If my approach is so wrong, what's your solution? Show us a better way instead of just insulting someone else's. For all your talk, you haven't yet put any of your own skin into the game -- just objections and accusations. That requires no talent..
Lastly, reassure us that you know the difference between the good and the bad people in the debate. It is possible to be pro-Israel and sympathetic toward the victims of the terror attacks but also anti-mass destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure in the name of retaliation against or extermination of the enemy. And that one can be pro-Palestinian with regard to its non-terrorists and anti-Hamas for the evil extremists that they are. Do most college kids understand the differences? I don't know. So let's ask. Call out those who are pro-Hamas and challenge them accordingly. Those seeking to curb needless human casualties and destruction of personal property built up over a lifetime may well have a point. Let's make sure that we at least are as well informed as we expect for them to be.
All these post in college...and yet almost no articles in hillside or other "conservative" schools, that are clear in saying that they are only teaching one way of learning, focusing on "athletics" or "christian classic learning" over liberal arts or STEM or even vocational learning! It says a lot who Mr. Skyes focuses on as illiberal. At this point I don't fully read him...I just a quick scan until I get to the good part...the comments!!
Didn't Charlie link to David French's article yesterday tearing apart Liberty University? And he's definitely mentioned New College in Florida.
Hmm a link....stand corrected then. Yes I missed that buried in the post. I will skim Mr. Skyes articles a tad less quickly Thank you!
I'm curious as to what they Charlie thinks the appropriate college response to this is.
Because when the students protest conservative speakers advocating for right wing policies that either result in loss of life or erode democracy, it's "cancel culture". Students get angry and it's ill mannered illiberalism.
But colleges are supposed to do what exactly with these tactless pro-Palestine student protesters. Expell them? Revoke tenures of their advisors? Take away their signs, columns, and positions? Really I want to know what an appropriate response would be, and why a campus Republican group defending Russia's invasion of Ukraine shouldn't be held to the same standard.
Good point. Wish I would have thought of it. And, to be consistent in my argument, we do have a College Republicans group on our campus. Sometimes they have invited speakers whom I found to be unnecessarily polarizing, and the talking points that they have on some of their posters and flyers can be (deliberately) inflammatory. But that's okay. They too are entitled to free speech, and we accept their input also as part of the process. They are not heavy-handed activists engaging in destructive behavior. They just say what they believe. I see a big difference between words and actions in practical terms.
Right on, Deutschmeister.
Will leave this here. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/israel-hamas-war-college-campuses-activism/675677/
Thanks, Deutsch. Sure, we oldsters are guilty as charged -- kids are not that smart, and after all, there is nothing new under the sun.
The institution I left behind was replete with duplicative departments of area and identity studies, in some instances boasting of innovation. All too human, and not unlike the MAGA, children and young people delight in cults of opposition. They are after all and at least in this culture trying to stand on their own two feet by denying the worth of everything thus far given. Rebellion is an exciting term. Resistance even more so. Alliance, coalition, movement -- these are the supports to overcoming the sins of the past, and the lackeys who have not come to the collective endeavor of turning the world underfoot in giant strides.
But it gives a lot of room to mask bias and bigotry, or to rationalize it under the justification of the nature of evil thus challenged. Hate the sin and hate the sinner too. What is paradoxical is the international cause affixed to national movements. Bad parenting, no one affirmed that You can't go on the street to earn a trousseau.
My less than beloved institution was in a hurry to adopt land acknowledgements a decade back -- without a bit of investigation to be certain that claimants were not self-serving since the principles were so fully true and honest. LBJ once said that whenever someone comes saying it is not the money but the principle -- I always reach for my wallet. In any case, the motives locally and in the broader scheme were not simply to remember the peoples who once lived here and were cruelly driven out, with an eye to honest reconciliation, but instead dropping an anchor for larger demands of repair, remuneration and, frankly, revenge.
Thus, if one wonders where the language of those who are today in the streets refusing to condemn Hamas gets reinforced, try looking at the Indigeneous rights movement and Land Acknowledgements. Here are two statements from a guide to Land Acknowledgement, published in 2019.
The guide says, "Use appropriate language. Don’t sugarcoat the past. Use terms like genocide, ethnic cleansing, stolen land, and forced removal to reflect actions taken by colonizers."
And Northwestern University follows:
“It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought you to reside on the land, and to seek to understand your place within that history. Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense, or historical context: colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation.”
Needless to say, children did not come upon this themselves, they learned it from us.
Thanks for sharing. You make a lot of good points. I'm always in search of a middle ground, as so many of the debates that we all have, as with others elsewhere, go from one side of the spectrum to the other when in fact there likely is ample fertile ground in between where we all could meet. There are issues in higher ed that legitimately should be addressed, and some bad actors who misuse their authority. And there are areas where the anti-higher ed crowd overestimates and overdramatizes the situation, and selectively cherry-picks information and sources, in an effort to foster their own agenda and win the less informed over to their side. I'd rather we all agree on that as we can, try to find ways where each side can be better, and make real progress rather than merely argue across a fencepost. The young people see this to some extent and are turned off by it all. Perhaps we would be better served to make them part of the discussion and talk with them more than just about them.
Game. Set. Match.