September 23, 2007: Roger Kimball on Columbia's Bollinger

President Bollinger's sophomoric conception of free speech is precisely the sort of supine intellectualism that, if consistently embraced, would make free speech impossible. President Bollinger primly lectures us that "It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas," etc. But he is quite wrong about that. By providing a madman like Ahmadinejad with a platform at Columbia University, President Bollinger has in effect welcomed him into the community of candid reasoners. He has granted him a patent of legitimacy that no amount of "dialogue and reason" can dissipate. In this case, "listening" is indeed tantamount to an endorsement. It reduces free speech to a species of political capitulation and renders dialogue indistinguishable from a suicide pact.

Word.

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Strong stuff. And right on the money. Everyone should click the link to read Kimball's full essay.

Posted by: Gary Rosen at September 23, 2007 10:14 PM

The essential problem is that Bollinger probably thinks that Ahmadinejad is in fact a reasoned thinker. This occurs because of Bollinger's inability to distinguish between good and evil or between madness and reason. This sort of inability is the sad result of what some call multiculturalism.

Posted by: Henry Bowman at September 24, 2007 3:43 AM

The reality check: would he let Pinochet (if he were physically able) or someone like David Duke - much less Larry Summers - speak at Columbia? If not, why Ahmadinejad? Why is he a reasonable thinker and they aren't?

Posted by: Foobarista at September 24, 2007 5:01 AM

To have someone like Ahmadinejad repeat hate over again at a platform such as a prestigious center of learning is tantamount to the creation and stimulation of a kind of muscle memory.

From Wikipedia "When an active person trains movement, often of the same activity, in an effort to stimulate the mind's adaptation process, the end result is to induce a physiological change such as increased levels of accuracy through repetition."

"In speaking a language that is not one's native language, one typically speaks with an accent, because one's muscle memory is tuned to forming the phonemes of one's native language, rather than those of the language one is speaking. An accent can be eliminated only by carefully retraining the muscle memory."

Ahmadinejad has not offered anything that would increase much less stimulate the language of civilization. Indeed quite the opposite. His language is not toxic because is foreign, but it is foreign because it is toxic as in causing death. Of all people a university dean should know that some experiments are just not done.

When I was growing up it was repeated to me over and over again "dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres."

Posted by: Lem at September 24, 2007 6:03 AM

Who is next in the Psychotic Madman lecture series, OJ?

Posted by: MarkD at September 24, 2007 6:22 AM

We need a movement to take away tax preferences for universities. Earnings on endowments should be taxed (we can start with endowments larger than $500 million) and donations should no longer be tax deductible.

Posted by: Thom at September 24, 2007 7:25 AM

I agree with removing all tax breaks and subsidizes from the racketeering education industry. These dated forms of intellectual development( ahem ) are hold over from a time of rare knowledge and mass poverty. We don’t have that now. Communication is cheap. Technology advances faster than these ancient businesses can assimilate. Classical old values are not even taught to the masses. And, no one argues that these enterprises assure even basic competency amongst their naive victims.

So, like the domestic auto manufactures were with the Japanese, get these off the malignant milk of government subsides and force them to attend to the needs and wants of their customers, the students.

Posted by: Carl Spackler at September 24, 2007 12:44 PM

Patina of Legitimacy not "patent of legitimacy", I believe.

Posted by: richardM at September 24, 2007 1:41 PM

Foobarista, your comment about Larry Summers with regards to who can speak and who cannot reminded me that, I believe it was last week, some Northern California College/University denied Summers a speaking engagement because of his views.

Posted by: promoguy at September 25, 2007 7:46 AM

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