The attempts at Evergreen State college (in Washington State) to falsely accuse professor Bret Weinstein of ‘racism’ and, in a confrontational way, demanding that he quit is absolutely absurd. The context, as always, is important: in an e-mail, Weinstein challenged a recommendation by a campus group that people who are “pro-minority” should absent from going to classes that day: a policy which Weinstein rightly saw as discriminatory. It was the reversal of a thirty plus year tradition where once a year people of color would absent from going to classes at Evergreen in solidarity in order to show how important that community is to the campus population, based on the Douglas Turner Ward play ‘Day of Absence.’
Bret Weinstein got in hot water for rightly calling out the new version of "day of absence” for being discriminatory against non-black people (which in turn of events became demonstrably true). But of course, the one thing that’s intolerable to the “social justice warrior” activists who protested him is calling them out on their “bigotry of low expectations." So instinctively, they’ve flipped the script on Weinstein, calling him a ‘racist’ and forcing him to resign through acts of intimidation and physical threats to his person and family. It is apparent that these Evergreen state student protesters are confused. Their views on free speech (that your "free speech doesn't matter anymore" when you start inciting violence) is ironic, because the student protesters can’t look in the mirror and realize that they are the ones suppressing the free speech of professor Weinstein and that they are the ones inciting violence. Many of the college students appear to be jumping on the bandwagon of "social justice” without squarely looking at the facts of the situation and without really thinking about what terms like ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’ mean (or "social equality" for that matter). Ideally in a free and open democratic society, we all want equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. But they don’t get it. Free speech is threatened on campus by this regressive ideology.
Verbal dissent and non-violent protest is allowed for. We have the right to protest and the freedom of assembly. But when one person or a group of people are disrupting the classrooms and the school environment where students are trying to learn and get an education (that they’re paying for) then that can’t be allowed. The student protesters actions are just ridiculous and counter-productive to the causes which they purport to be fighting for. For example, the student protesters refused to have a dialectic with Bret Weinstein, instead shouting him down and chanting slogans at him. Also, how they took the president of the college, George Sumner Bridges, hostage in his office (even not letting him use the bathroom without their supervision). As absurd as it is what Bridges has done (or rather not done), I can see why the president of the school has given in to the students’ demands. The fact is that he shares their same ideology and admittedly has guilt that he’s in a position of power. He doesn’t want there to be any suppression of dissent, but in so doing he has missed the opportunity to support the free speech of the school’s professors and the suppression that they’re facing from radical protestors.
The “social justice warriors” want to “weed out people like Bret” because it’s easier to kick out the professor that doesn’t agree with their views than actually contend with his rational arguments and sane position. This strategy of “weeding out” the people that disagree with you (especially by labelling them a ‘racist’) is not going to work, people! History is not just a “power play," as much as the lense of “oppression”- a dynamic between oppressor and oppressed- is a simple and convenient way of seeing the world. Some ideologies are self-destructive and the regressive “far-left” has sadly become one of them. Let me add that all extremes on the political spectrum are bad because both far-left and far-right extremes “horseshoe" into the realm of authoritarianism. To be clear, I am not in support of far-right groups who think we need to quell the protests with more police presence. That can not be the answer either.
Many of us have succumbed to this mob mentality which is causing people to go on a witch-hunt for anybody who appears to question their belief system. Unfortunately, many young people are succumbing to 'group-think' and accepting a militant ideology. When I was at a college campus, I had some experience with what I saw then simply as a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism & 'confirmation bias.' To me then, it was just an abstract academic viewpoint but it was not yet fully operationalized. Fortunately there were enough teachers & faculty at my college who understood the importance of freedom of speech, freedom of the press & freedom of religion (the First Amendment, Enlightenment principles and 'classical liberalism') that my concerns were mild. But now on various college campuses across America it seems to have become a visible danger to critical thinking and free speech.
During my academic career I read a lot of “social constructionism” and many of the thinkers whose ideas make up the core of the post-modernist philosophy, like Michel Foucault. Understandably I did not make any sense of Foucault's books. It was gobbledygook. I thought it was a function of not having enough knowledge to understand the complicated systems of “oppression" and “intersectionality” (highly popular terms in the “social justice warrior” community because anyone can claim that they are oppressed [even the wealthiest and most “privileged” among us] and anyone can claim that their subjective experience is proof of systemic social problems). Now I’ve come to realize that I’m not alone in thinking that this is a bunch of highly stylized nonsense. It’s a belief system based on emotions and not on facts and evidence.
But nowhere in that post-modernist philosophy did I get the sense that these philosophers advocated for violence as a "means to an end” to fight against perceived oppression, or that the “ends justify the means.” Where did this idea come from? This seems to have stemmed from an anti-capitalist anarchist mentality which has also given rise to groups like the anti-fascists. What happened to the cherished ideas of civil disobedience and non-violent protest? People fought hard (and died) for these principles during the civil rights era in the 50s and 60s. Now it seems like people have forgotten our history- where we came from- and where we’re going. We’re at the point now where any perceived act of “oppression” is labeled a “micro-aggression” and this trivializes the real prejudice and discrimination which exists in the world.
The First Amendment is not in place to give a “carte blanche” to everyone to say whatever they might want (like hate speech, incitement to violence, death threats, etc.). The principle of free speech is there to protect people who have unfavorable views. Unfortunately, Bret Weinstein’s anti-racism has been misconstrued by students on the liberal campus of Evergreen State College as being antithetical to their “social justice” ethos. The irony kills me. This is an example of how the far-left has become like an ouroboros, eating its own tail and cannibalizing its own members. They have become so “triggered” that they are unknowingly demonizing self-proclaimed 'progressives' that ought to be on the same side as they are- on the side of fighting against true discrimination.
I implore everyone to read a history book (instead of reading one’s Facebook and Twitter). History does not repeat itself, but we’re bound to make the same mistakes over and over again if we don’t learn from them quickly. I am in full support of Bret Weinstein. If we continue to demonize our brightest and most courageous intellectuals in this country, we will eventually pay the price.
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