There’s a stir at the University of Chicago’s School of Business. A highly-respected finance professor, Luigi Zingales, invited Steve Bannon to debate an expert on immigration. Bannon accepted. Enough students responded with a sit-in demanding that the invitation be rescinded that it made the national news. It’s newsworthy because it’s not the only such case.
We have grounds for wondering what’s happened to the thinking of significant numbers of young people. For this to happen at a business school is shocking, and it’s also shocking for it to happen at the University of Chicago. Neither one is identified as a hotbed of kooks and left-wingers. Neither one is identified as having a majority non-white student body. Is this a manifestation of anti-Trumpism? Is it a way for students to express themselves over their never-Trumpism?
There are other ways, one of which is not to attend the debate. Boycott it, if you want to express a negative view of the man or his message. Don’t the social media provide outlets for expressing disapproval? Use them.
Next, we have 1,000 graduates who deliver a letter to the university’s top officers in which they bring shame upon themselves and their education by penning a blatant contradiction of unbelievable proportions:
“Stephen Bannon seeks to silence dissenting voices of large portions of society. Denying him a platform to speak at our university does not restrict our environment of fearless freedom of debate and deliberation; rather, it protects that environment.”
The same Tribune article quotes two other U of C graduates. One, from 2015, is some sort of baby. Otherwise what she says makes no sense. She says “Inviting Steve Bannon to speak clearly sends a message the university is more interested in protecting him rather than making a statement affirming to students, staff and faculty that this is a welcoming and inclusive space for them.”
I didn’t know that a university’s mission was to provide welcoming spaces to students. And why does that space not be inclusive enough to include invited debaters? What we’re seeing here is childish political posturing masquerading as reason or rationale.
Another former student with two degrees dating back 12-13 years and who now must be about 30+ years old says “Lately there’s been this idea that all free speech is good speech and that every side should be heard equally, but then we’re lending false equivalency to what could be very dangerous ideas. This isn’t a matter of disagreement over economic policy. We know which side is wrong; we know which side is morally and ethically repugnant.”
This is a truly shocking statement that totally devalues the expression of contrary ideas and the virtues of open discussion and debate. This kind of statement is both bigoted and amazingly ignorant of what it’s like to live in a society where debate is curtailed and controlled by either authorities or mobs.
How does a generation arrive at such extreme fascist views? They go beyond anti-Trumpism. They are a form of censorship. Don’t these students and ex-students know that what they’re demanding is fascist to the core?
“The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio. Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media.
“During the spring of 1933, Nazi student organizations, professors, and librarians made up long lists of books they thought should not be read by Germans. Then, on the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and bookstores across Germany. They marched by torchlight in nighttime parades, sang chants, and threw books into huge bonfires. On that night more than 25,000 books were burned.”
Does living in a fascist society like ours drip fascist attitudes into the minds of younger people?
9:03 am on January 31, 2018
