CANCEL CULTURE IS CANCEL CULTURE, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHO DOES THE CANCELLING.

In the course of last month's report on the rage mob at the University of Pittsburgh, we noted the mob petitioning the university to cancel an upcoming debate between Michael Knowles and Deirdre McCloskey.  At the time, I hoped the university would not cave in to the mob.

I don't know much about this Michael Knowles, but he's asking for trouble hoping to score rhetorical points against Aunt Deirdre, and I bet even the most vocal of wokesters might learn something from attending and listening.

Pittsburgh deanlets apparently allowed both the Phillips and Gaines presentations to take place, and I hope to report that the April debate takes place.  My betting line, should it take place, is on McCloskey and the points.

Aunt Deirdre has now begged off.

Knowles was scheduled to participate in a debate against McCloskey hosted by the Pennsylvania public school’s chapter of the College Republicans and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute on the topic of “Transgenderism and Womanhood.” There has been significant public outcry against Knowles’ appearance along with protest against speeches from both Cabot Phillips and Riley Gaines hosted on campus in March.

McCloskey is a respected free-market economist and economic historian who earned a doctorate from Harvard in 1970 prior to transitioning in the 1990s. At 80 years old, McCloskey is currently a distinguished scholar at the Cato Institute.

Michael Knowles is taking a victory lap. But should he?

“I’m happy to take victory by default,” Knowles added, “[b]ut it’s telling that even a distinguished scholar with three Harvard degrees and half a dozen honorary doctorates cannot defend transgenderism. Of course: the ideology is indefensible.”

On March 11, McCloskey stated on Twitter that the over 11,000 people who signed the petition to cancel the debate “should be ashamed” of themselves. “True, Knowles is an anti-Jesus Catholic, a fascist advocating state power over ideas. But we live in a free country.”

So it always is with epistemic closure. When I suggest that the campus left never gets to hear the best counterarguments, implicitly I'm suggesting that the campus right, or however we want to categorize the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, also handicaps itself by not hearing the best counterarguments. Here's Professor McCloskey.

Responding to a comment on this post asking how McCloskey could stand on a debate stage with a fascist, McCloskey responded saying “in the end it seemed irresponsible for a safely old and well positioned person like me to not reply to him. He does not believe in anyone's liberty.”

Yes, if General von Salmuth can say he's too old a bunny to worry about reports from the coast as OVERLORD comes in: dear reader, The Longest Day is great watching, accuracy or not -- and returns to his bridge hand, a similar demurral from another old bunny makes sense. The students of Pittsburgh, though, lose.

McCloskey was “dismayed by the anti-free-speech petition against allowing him to speak," adding that "Both are wrong, the hate-mongering Mr. Knowles and the speech-suppressing signatories of the petition. The result would be not a rational debate but a fascist rally.”

Campus Reform reports the story is still developing, and, subject to my availability, I hope to post updates.