The country has been here before, in that annus horribilis 1968, when the mob seemed triumphant everywhere--in the streets, at national political conventions, and on every university campus of note from Berkeley, birthplace of the (not so) Free Speech movement to Columbia in Manhattan, and now the horde is back in full flourish--this time at the University of Missouri.
This week it claimed the scalps of both the president of that state's whole university system, Tim Wolfe, and the chancellor of its Columbia, Mo., campus. Others doubtless await the guillotine if they don't do the mob's bidding. The history of the French Revolution remains the model for such events: first mild reforms, then a cascade of radical concessions that amount to surrender, and often enough to full chaos before the tide finally turns, and America has its own Thermidor at last. Yes, it's definitely 1968 again, or maybe 1794.
It's all a pity, but it's hard to see what other choice but resignation these educators had as this year's Robespierres roamed the campus looking for further victims of their reign of terror.
The university's bedeviled board issued the usual statement full of the usual drivel, offering plans to offer "diversity training to all new students, as well as faculty and staff." Boy, that sounds like fun, like the most boring "education" class you've ever had to take in order to meet some meaningless paper requirement for a meaningless degree.
The mob also demanded that the university's president "acknowledge his white male privilege ... ." But he and his colleagues appear anything but privileged--unless being victims-in-chief is now considered a privilege. But at this point, what else could they do? They had about as much choice as Marie Antoinette and her royal entourage when they were held captive. t's all reminiscent of the kind 0f Thought Reform conducted during Communist China's so-called great cultural revolution, another exercise in public humiliation, confession, and at least outward contrition.
The story is that Mizzou's footbell tean refusead to play unless the protesters; demands were granted. But when a once great university is reduced to just an appendage of its football team, what's the point of having a university anyway?
President Wolfe's last words as he left office were all but lost in the all-too-familiar madness as he appealed to a vanished reason on campus. Real change, he said, comes from "listening, learning, caring and conversation." In a futile final appeal, he added that everybody ought to stop yelling at each other and start listening. Fat chance. For by now reason has fled to brutish beasts intoxicated by their own power to bully others.
Madness, madness. And all too familiar madness at that. O, education, what crimes are committed in thy name!
Editorial on 11/13/2015