FORGETTING NOTHING, LEARNING NOTHING?

The current president of Kent State University, historian Todd Diacon, meditates on the ominous parallels between what happened at his campus half a century ago and the current opprobrium higher education has brought upon itself.

The name Kent State and references to the shootings have recently become ubiquitous as the media cover current college and university protests, and as some call for the use of the National Guard to quell these protests.

My point isn’t to wade into the protests, their structure, demands and organization, nor the opposition to them. Instead, I will simply say this as an historian and as the president of Kent State University: Our history is a bitter and vivid reminder of what happens when division and polarization crowd out peaceful dialogue and the search for understanding. To avoid this division and polarization, we embrace free speech while at the same time encouraging members of our community to practice kindness and respect when debating issues of the day. This is aspirational, we know. The alternatives can be dangerous.

Nor, I suppose, should somebody whose salary depends on the continuation of business as usual in higher education acknowledge the ways in which division and polarization, trafficking under the rubrics of critical theory, have crowded out free speech, kindness, and respect as "bourgeois fetishes."  I exaggerate, but only slightly.  "Those politically correct atrocities have accumulated, though, in such a way that the Ivies might have piddled away their primary selling point."  My sometimes Chicago Boyz colleague Sgt. Mom picks up the rebuttal.

Adding insult to this injury, just about every malignantly bad idea infecting our society and body politic today originated in academia; diversity-equity-inclusion or ‘white people bad!’/POC can do no evil, the viability of gender-swapping and forcing women to share intimate spaces and sports teams with men LARPing as Audrey Hepburn, and those designated as disadvantaged minorities are entitled to whatever retaliation they want to take against those they hold responsible for their condition. I’m certain that dozens of other bad ideas can be laid at the feet of the ivory-tower academics. They’ve long been enamored of communism and that slightly less poisonous junior partner, socialism, because it sounds so logical and sensible in theory. Never mind that extolling Marxism in practice means glossing over mass murder, famine, gulag slave labor, political corruption, and a stagnated manufacturing sector. If academia can overlook all that … well, what’s the murder, kidnapping, mass rape and torture of 1200 Israelis in comparison?

Yes, plus intersectional incoherence.  A minor Columbia academician by the name of Johannah King-Slutzky recently provided Militant Normals with a new figure of fun.  "She is a paid instructor & PhD candidate at Columbia studying 'theories of the imagination & poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens.'"  Because of course she did.  "Because colonialism and occupation and genocide."

My paperback copy of James Michener's Kent State: What Happened and Why is well past well-thumbed, and yet I keep it around only because there is so much from then that is still current.

My perception of domestic attitudes is that there was much more polarization in the United States 35 years ago than there is today. (In fact, much of today's polarization is a reflection of those arguments from 35 years ago, but many of the most vocal actors of those days are dead or have mellowed.) That might be something to keep in mind in Lebanon and the 'stans. Many people there still retain a stake in the existing order (consider that Hezbollah counter-demonstration a few weeks ago.)

And the history from Kent State on ought to give pause. Although Richard Nixon was re-elected on a promise of "peace with honor" in Vietnam only to resign, as did his Vice-President Spiro Agnew, those resignations were over stupid acts of corruption, not over high principles of policy. That administration's more hard line positions against Communism became President Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech which leads to President Bush's "freedom" speeches. The "protest babes" of the 1970s did not win the argument of the 1980s.

That might have been twenty years ago, and yet the ongoing campus protests, in defense of a jihad not based on some French notions of eliminating the bourgeoisie that a few Cambodians took literally, might have the same effect on national elections this fall.  And the protest against "fake prettiness" has gone from unisex granny glasses to transparent plastic tranny glasses; whilst the mind-set of the professional protest communities doesn't change.  Michener had a long conversation with a "Paul Probius," who might be one person (Bill Whitaker) or perhaps a composite character, but definitely not Bill Ayers or Bernadine Dohrn, family name Ohrnstein, both of whom feature in the book.  In any event, "Probius" was very much of that colonialism and occupation and genocide bundled, see page 137.

What does he believe?  That the present system of politics, economics and society in the United States is doomed and that men of intelligence are obligated to see that its demise comes as swiftly as possible.  When asked for proof of our nation's incapacity to survive, he points to 'Vietnam, and our treatment of minorities.  Corruption, and our indifference to ecology.'

Put another way, what gets bundled in big words today was there, in much the same form, in 1970.  Michener's verdict, on page 138?

Has Paul Probius so far done anything criminal for which he could be arrested?  No.  Has he done anything for which he should be expelled from the university?  Yes, he has tried to destroy it.

Years ago, it was itinerant militants and cranky students who tried to destroy the universities.  These days, the destruction is coming from inside.  Mr Diacon doesn't want to see it.

When those who have different positions or backgrounds are made less human, violence can follow.

Today, anti-university rhetoric echoes across the country. Universities, we are told, are what’s wrong with America. University leaders simultaneously are denounced for not doing enough to protect free speech rights and for being too lenient toward those practicing free speech. When an aggressive rhetoric tied to electoral politics demonizes universities, their leaders, their professors and students, violence can follow.

In 1970, it was Governor Rhodes and Vice President Agnew and President Nixon using expressions like "terrorists" and "bums;" which Mr Michener rightly criticized.  These days, though, the eliminationist rhetoric is coming from the encampments (Intifada, from the river to the sea) and winked at by Student Affairs (toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, privilege) as if there are demons to be exorcised.  Let Alex Berenson apply the fact check.

Meanwhile the protestors themselves come across as weirdly entitled and weak. If they’re so certain of their own righteousness, why do they insist on wearing masks? Why do they whine so whenever anyone challenges them?

Perhaps it's time Mr Diacon and all the other university administrators kept that in mind.  He notes, "When it isn’t clear who is in charge, violence can follow."  Fine, take charge.  Mr Berenson thinks, not incorrectly, that the hotheads are in charge and the administrators are pusillanimous.

These protestors aren’t the vanguard of a broader social movement. They do not speak for many - much less most - Americans. They represent only themselves.

Mr Diacon's conclusion does little to restore confidence.

This year there is no chance our tragedy will go unnoticed. My hope is the lessons will also be remembered. Collectively, we have the opportunity to replace polarization, demonization and dehumanization with both a full-throated embrace of free speech and a commitment to peaceful dialogue.

Fine. Start with whatever speech codes and special pleading your Student Affairs types have injected into the curriculum.  Bring bourgeois norms back.  It was not a good look for Kent to invite Angela Davis for the 2020 May 4 event overtaken by the corona tyranny, and my prescience comes as a surprise.  "The late-born Boomers and early-born Thirteeners are more likely to think of what came after Woodstock and the Movement: gas lines, stagflation, herpes."  These days, it might be trouble finding a working charging station; the verdict is still out on stagflation, and the campus jihadis are including hygiene products in their current non-negotiable demands.