Jeff at protein wisdom posts regarding a recent controversy at Duke which reminds me of an all too unpleasant but defining moment in my own political development. From follow-up reading at lgf (a 500+ comment thread) I suppose my opinion would cause me as much aggravation today as it did over twenty years ago. And I find that sad.
From Jeff:
From the “Standard Reader” comes this little pleasantry from Duke (the University, not the former Klan leader—though, is there really a difference these days? You decide):
From the Weekly Standard article:
And the school's student-run newspaper, the Chronicle, seems largely to blame--because the very next day the Chronicle decided to run an op-ed column by Duke senior Philip Kurian entitled, simply and ominously, "The Jews."
Mr. Kurian was unhappy about criticism leveled against the conference by "the powerful Jewish establishment." And Mr. Kurian was not too happy about "the Jews" themselves, as a matter of fact. For one thing, "Jews enjoy shocking overrepresentation" on American college campuses, he wrote. Also, unlike any genuinely disadvantaged minority group, Jews are able to blend into the general population, all stealthy-like: "Jews can renounce their difference by taking off the yarmulke." And so on. Mr. Kurian is a nasty piece of work. And, as we say, many people at Duke are now quite hot and bothered over him--and over the Chronicle's decision to give him space, as well.
From the currently embroiled college editor:
On balance, "I believe we were right in printing the column," Hauptman concludes. "To not print the column because the opinion presented is offensive would be to ignore a debate that is present around us. . . . [E]ven if the Chronicle had rejected the column, the ideas Kurian expressed would still exist."
I applaud Chronicle editor Hauptman for her decision and for standing her ground. I would ask only that you consider my own wholly relevant experience in this regard. As a young editor of my college paper over twenty years ago, I was faced with the same difficult decision. On campus classes on the Holocaust were being taught and much talked about at the school - mainly as a positive for their educational value. But a disagreeing faction with admittedly fringe views chose to respond through a letter to the editor. I elected to publish the letter and wound up attacked by both the MSM, the college faculty and college paper advisor and everyone eventually had to lawyer up. Was that fully registered student who wrote a letter to me an anti-semite? Most likely. Were his views "fringe," and based in hate and ignorance? Most likely. But the real question for me as an altrustic editor was not - "is he right or wrong?" - it was "do ignorant people with ugly opinions have the same first admendment rights as others?" And I must still argue to this day that if we are to be the wonderful democracy I'd like to think we are, the answer must be "yes."
For simply publishing an unpopular letter having nothing to do with my own positions or values I was castigated as an anti-Semite and a pawn of the "extreme-right". Liberal professors began using my editorials as a basis for classroom teaching - which was nothing more than a veiled attempt to label me as incompetent and inept. The controversy played out over several weeks. It made some front page news in the MSM. Legitimate copies of our newspaper were stolen and burned before circulation and had to be reprinted - BY LIBERAL FACULTY MEMBERS charged with, of all things, teaching ethics and journalism. It was they who were disgraceful, not me.
All I did was attempt to uphold a basic premise, that even those we strongly disagree with have a right to have their views heard and discussed - or hopefully refuted. But that is not what happened. The liberal left wanted to kill the messenger - not confront the message, which WAS the real issue. How will we ever dispel myths and confront hate-like speech in this society if we sacrifice principle in the cause of not letting it be heard? Isn't it, after all, that very same attitude today that allows a MSM to be liberally biased? The argument holds "because the right is so wrong - so what if we ignore or misrepresent their positions?" Witness the recent Halperin controversy to prove my point.
We often equate hate, ignorance, racism, anti-Semitism, etc. with cancer in our society today. But then look what we do about it. The minute a "doctor" opens up the dialogue and says, "Look. Here is a cancer. Here is what it represents. Here is what it could do." Instead of accepting it, exploring it, "treating" it, if you will; we opt instead to pronounce the doctor a quack and get back to our tidy lives pretending that such a cancer does not exist. I would argue that that approach to actual cancer would accomplish nothing but increasing the death rate from the dreaded disease. And if we continue to toss the baby out with the bath water (or doctor out with the diagnosis, to be metaphorically consistent) when we see and hear of something we don't like in the media - it won't be just one person that dies, it will be the very heart and soul of a democracy based largely upon the open and free exchange of dissenting opinions, no matter how repugnant they might seem.
Opinions vary from the left and right - they can be changed, "nuanced," or completely abandoned rendering them nothing. But "principle" is objectivist. It does not favor one side versus another so long as it be universally applied. In the face of this recent controversy ask yourself what principle is at stake and where you'd like to come down on that - a free exchange of ideas, or a press with so-called "principles" subject to the whim of opinion aligned with whichever side of the issue currently dominates the nation's political dialogue - left, right, or otherwise.
I will always continue to argue that when a cancer is discovered the best tack is acknowledgement and theraputic confrontation, not ignorance and accusations hurled at doctors who are nothing more than the dilligent bearers of bad news. For me, I am rather conservative and decidedly pro-Israel. I don't want my thoughts and opinions ignored by the MSM because they might not agree with some of them. But if I want that as an ideal, I also have to be prepared for the publication without endorsement of opinions I might find ignorant and distasteful.
Wow, Dan. Talk about a tough position. I wonder if it is possible to say, "I don't agree with this particular item I'm printing, but on principle, I'm printing it" and be respected for it.
I think Mr. Kurian is a sh*t for brains completely steeped in his racial worldview. But in your position, I think I would have printed his crap too.
Posted by: Gordon | Saturday, October 23, 2004 at 09:33 PM