Try to Have it Both Ways is not Genuine Contradiction. It is Hypocracy.

Some seem to want to both encourage and limit the expression of ideas at the same time in the same places. Give them the benefit of the laugh that they deserve.

Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash

If you say you support diversity, in ideas and perspectives, concerned that all reasonable points of view be presented, can I respect your efforts at the same time to limit the presentation of ideas with which you disagree?  You say I can. You defend your position by claiming that these are two different values that must be “held in tension with each other.” I call them a flat-out contradiction.

Maybe for you the key word is “reasonable.” But drawing a tight circle around “reasonable,” only adds to the confusion—and the charade.

Actually, more often than not in America, we’ve given the “unreasonables” enough rope to hang themselves, as the saying goes.  Jefferson’s admonition still seems valid.  Let free discussion decide what is error and what is truth.  (As long as we don’t subscribe to absolute “truth,” i.e. that which cannot or will not allow any rational challenges.)

Can this nonsense not die a natural death?  Such advocacy—diversity and suppression—is simply a logical contradiction and such contradictions, unless they arise from the grave as paradoxes, have little traction.  They live short lives.  They succumb from the laughter they create.  As they should.

But not before they win votes for politicians.

So, lets have a brief discussion of diversity in higher education.

We do have much to discuss as we choose between fact, ideas and hypotheses to include in our university classes.  Not every idea can be highlighted, but that doesn’t mean it is necessary to suppress controversial lines of inquiry. 

Within the pantheon of Western thought there is space for Voltaire and St. Aquinas, for Hume and Burke, for Hyak and Keynes, for Russell Kirk and Chomsky.   

Shouldn’t a school for the ages and a place of preparation for future leaders, welcome many ideas, set few limits to imagination and experimentation?  Shouldn’t it focus its many resources on both appreciation and discovery, accepting both what is seen as sacred and what would seek to challenge traditional “truth?”

It comes down to this. We should not be hoodwinked into seeking a compromise between “two equally desirable values.” Advocating diversity is a worthy goal. Silencing perspectives that you find offensive is not. Let’s see it for what it is—a cynical manipulation of invented “issues” to advance one’s personal agenda. And a logical contradiction.

Politicians out to “mug” the universities to gain votes are public enemies.