E-Pluribus | Apr. 20, 2021
Here is a round up of the latest and best writing and musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Cornel West and Jeremy Tate: Howard University’s removal of classics is a spiritual catastrophe
With a somewhat oblique nod to current nomenclature (“We should never cancel voices in this conversation”,) Cornel West and Jeremy Tate decry Howard University’s elimination of its literature classics department. West and Tate argue that a complete and challenging education must entail wrestling with history’s greatest thinkers regardless of current sensitivities regarding the darker side of those same intellectual giants.
[T]oday, one of America’s greatest Black institutions, Howard University, is diminishing the light of wisdom and truth that inspired Douglass, King and countless other freedom fighters. Amid a move for educational “prioritization,” Howard University is dissolving its classics department. Tenured faculty will be dispersed to other departments, where their courses can still be taught. But the university has sent a disturbing message by abolishing the department.
Academia’s continual campaign to disregard or neglect the classics is a sign of spiritual decay, moral decline and a deep intellectual narrowness running amok in American culture. Those who commit this terrible act treat Western civilization as either irrelevant and not worthy of prioritization or as harmful and worthy only of condemnation.
Sadly, in our culture’s conception, the crimes of the West have become so central that it’s hard to keep track of the best of the West. We must be vigilant and draw the distinction between Western civilization and philosophy on the one hand, and Western crimes on the other. The crimes spring from certain philosophies and certain aspects of the civilization, not all of them.
Read it all here.
John Wood, Jr.: The Painful Path to Unity
Some poignant recollections of John Wood, Jr. of a childhood friend Donny from Tennessee anchor this appeal his unity at Persuasion while at the same time acknowledging the obstacles to this admittedly romantic goal. In Wood’s telling, there is no substitute for a willingness to engage in empathic good faith with our ideological opponents.
[T]he cause of unity cannot be the domain of high-minded intellectuals, moral philosophers, spiritual crusaders, psychologists, and political idealists alone. Ordinary Americans must be the artists in our renaissance of civic understanding if such a thing should ever come to be. We require a unified vision of an America that could be but has never been.
This may be impossible. But it is certainly necessary.
If meaningful unity is possible, the path must begin with a redrawing of the line demarcating the hemispheres of our polarization. It must include a reweighting of the moral responsibilities we imagine ourselves as having to each other. We may feel polarized in America along the axes of left and right, Black and white. But the core division that must be identified and spoken to in American life is the divide between the privileged and the marginalized — in ways that go beyond what you might think.
[…]
What do we share as Americans? Presumably, we share a belief in justice, equality, and freedom. We also share the reality of pain and suffering, of struggle and progress in America. We disagree on how our ideals should manifest. Some of our histories are weighted with more tragedy than others. But collectively we might imagine that, as a general rule, we as Americans wish to live up to these values. Our individual backgrounds explain why we see our history differently. Unity comes in recognizing these contrary commonalities as foundational for a dialogue of goodwill.
[…]
The work of unity is the labor of loving our enemies until they become our friends. Sometimes it produces inspiring stories of transformation. More often, it is thankless and frustrating, but moves the needle of our hostility ever so incrementally away from extremism and towards tolerance; or even away from mere tolerance and towards respect. In some cases, our enemies really do become our friends. Other times they spit in our faces and do not change at all.
Read the whole thing at Persuasion.
Gerard Baker: The Chauvin Trial and the Chelsea Handler Standard of Justice
Is due process really necessary when guilt is obvious? Gerard Baker cites Chelsea Handler and Maxine Waters as examples of those who seem to have only one acceptable outcome in the trial of Derek Chauvin, one trial in the death of George Floyd. Regardless of the conduct of trial and the soundness of the charges charges the prosecutor deemed winnable, the only two possible outcomes are “guilty!” and a confirmation that the system irredeemably racist and unjust.
As the trial of Derek Chauvin got underway a month ago, Ms. Handler, who has a day-job as a comedian but has branched out recently into the field of jurisprudence, issued a profound observation on Twitter : “So pathetic that there’s a trial to prove that Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd when there is video of him doing so.”
You might think that more than 800 years after the Magna Carta and 230 years after the Bill of Rights, some notions of due process, presumption of innocence and protection against arbitrary justice might have embedded themselves in the minds of even our densest celebrities.
But while it’s easy to mock, we should be careful not to assume that this taste for summary conviction on the basis of popular sentiment is confined to unfunny comedians. It seems to be widely shared among the ideologues who now control the Democratic Party, the media and cultural elites.
Rep. Maxine Waters of California, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, joined demonstrations this weekend in Minnesota. She told supporters that if the Chauvin trial verdict goes the wrong way, “we’ve got to not only stay in the street but we’ve got to fight for justice.”
Read it all.
Around Twitter
Some introspection from Vox writer Sean Illing on the press and loss of trust:
Here’s the Margaret Sullivan thread Illing is commenting on:
The American Humanist Association strips Richard Dawkins of a 25-year old award for “making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups”:
Another professor is in hot water for pronouncing a racial slur multiple times in the context of quoting others in a class discussion on racism:
