Betsy, on Sep 14 2004, 11:34 PM, said:
Correction: the OLD RIGHT traditionally USED TO BE the champions of censorship, but the New Left has been way ahead of them in that department for quite some time.
That was (alas!) George Bush, but observe that he was never criticized for that by the Left. Bush did, however, catch hell from conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who have always opposed campaign finance "reform" for the violation of free speech that it is.
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I find this distinction between the "old right" and the "new right" to be without much justification. What is so new about the new right?
Is this supposed to be the same thing as "neoconservatism"? If that's what you mean, neoconservatism is the phenomenon of ex-liberals turning conservative. It's usually a view expressed in foreign policy that involves a lot of neo-Wilsonianism, e.g., the idea of spreading "freedom" around the globe as a moral imperative. I don't think this is a good idea, even though it sounds good.
But maybe you mean something new about the right in terms of domestic policy. But the newest, most influential trend on the right re: domestic policy is the rise of the religious right. So if there is a distinction between the new and the old right, it doesn't help your case. If the distinction means something else, you'll need to defend it.
By the way I'm not very impressed by the fact that various right wing commentators condemned Bush for his campaign finance reform sins. I'd be more impressed if they were also doing the same regarding the FCC and his religion. And if they were recommending a vote against him for it (but perhaps that begs the question).
You seem also to rely on the views of these commentators quite a bit in your arguments. I have no doubt that they are in many respects better than right wing politicians. But are they the
leaders of the modern right? I have my doubts. It seems that Bush et al set the agenda, and the commentators do just about everything they can do to defend it, leaving aside the occasional criticism. If Bush and his ilk weren't the leader of the movement, I would expect to see these commentators endorsing some other, better conservative for president. But notice how none of them did.
Betsy, on Sep 14 2004, 11:34 PM, said:
It is REALLY about hiring professors and grading students based on merit rather than adherence to "politically correct" Leftist orthodoxy. Read it yourself
here.
<snip>Do you see ANYTHING in there that would make discussion of stem-cell research off-limits or lead to death threats against liberal professors as the CNN article claims?
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Thanks for posting the text of their policy, it does make the discussion more objective. But yes, I do see material in here that could lead to a new kind of censorship. It it is the concept of "academic freedom."
"Academic freedom" is an invalid concept. It suggests that a professor has a right to a job, no matter how lacking in professional skills, no matter how odious his views, just because he has a "viewpoint" that has a right to be expressed. Academic freedom has for decades been championed by the left as a means of entrenching leftist ideology in the universities, and as such has been properly opposed by Objectivists.
Now that the right is picking up the banner of academic freedom, but with a twist. Here's the paragraph from that policy that I find the most destructive:
Quote
Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate. While teachers are and should be free to pursue their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, they should consider and make their students aware of other viewpoints. Academic disciplines should welcome a diversity of approaches to unsettled questions.
The argument here is that the justification of "academic freedom" is "uncertainty." I'm sorry, but no kinds of freedom are justified on the basis of the uncertainty of knowledge. See Robert Garmong's excellent work on John Stuart Mill and the history of liberty to see what kind of destructive consequences that idea has for the defense of liberty in the long run. We can see those destructive consequences here.
Consider this point: "Academic disciplines should welcome a diversity of approaches to unsettled questions." That would be a fine piece of pedagogical advice if it were really about unsettled questions, or even about simply controversial questions, if we were talking about a private educational setting. But this is supposed to be a policy for a public university. There's no limit to what kinds of ideas could be considered "unsettled" and therefore no limit to what kinds of imperatives to "diversity" could be mandated. Notice that this is the same exact premise that was used by the state of Kansas to argue for the inclusion of creationism in the public biology curriculum.
Unless and until universities are privatized,
any restriction on ideological content--even if it is merely an imperative for a "diversity" of content--amounts to censorship or worse. I suggest rereading Onkar Ghate's excellent ARI
op-ed on this subject. (And I know that AR advocated a "fairness doctrine" in education, but on this basis I have to disagree with it. I don't think she saw the consequences of the diversity idea.)
There is also an important general point to make about the nature of censorship and dictatorship in contemporary America. While I have
argued that dictatorship is more plausible in the near term than many think, I also think that a new dictatorship in this country would be of a kind never seen before. History doesn't repeat itself in obvious ways. There will never be jack-booted thugs marching down the street with swastikas in America. That would be too obvious of a threat.
Dictatorship in this country will arrive by stealth. It will come draped in American flags, accompanied by the rhetoric of "freedom" and "democracy." If you want an excellent model for how dictatorship might come to this country, I recommend one book in particular:
Atlas Shrugged. While that is a socialist dictatorship, a religious version of the same is equally conceivable.
How does this apply to the issue of censorship? Again, I don't think explicit censorship of ideological content is on the horizon anytime soon. There won't be any laws passed saying "you're not allowed to favor atheism," for example. But there are subtler and perhaps more effective ways to impose government control of ideas than outright censorship.
Look at universities and anti-discrimination policies. This is not an issue of censorship (yet), but notice how government funding for even private universities has given the government the leverage to demand that private universities have non-discrimination policies. Now look at the stem cell research ban. This is actually not an outright ban, but a ban on federal funding for universities that do it. This is much closer to censorship, because it constrains the actual pursuit of human knowledge on the basis of religion.
Now turn to right's idea of imposing ideological "diversity" on publicly funded universities, by virtue of this same government control through funding. This is the thin end of a wedge toward the new censorship. Once it becomes established, it will be left to the government to decide what counts as a "fair balance," and what kinds of alternatives should be considered. I imagine a future in which the leftists get to make their arguments, as long as they also mention the arguments of religious conservatives. Not much room for a viewpoint like Objectivism that both sides and all of the major pressure groups reject, is there? Meanwhile, increased federal funding for education (thanks to the conservatives), and for "faith-based initiatives" (thanks to the conservatives again, thank you) will have dried up the private alternatives to public education.
Again, the right has learned the tricks of the left--in this case, the control through funding trick, and the "diversity" trick--and is using it to further its own, more destructive agenda. Thanks for posting this policy statement. It helped me realize just how threatening these kinds of policies are.
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