Tags
American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Allison Stanger, Dr. Charles Murray, Ethan Brady, Middlebury College, special snowflakes, The Bell Curve
Dr. Charles Murray
This man’s rhetoric poses a threat to the very humanity of college students. But who is this unassuming fellow, and how can his mere words threaten anyone’s humanity?
He is Dr. Charles Murray. The American Enterprise Institute’s biography notes:
Charles Murray is an Emeritus Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. A political scientist, author, and libertarian, he first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of ‘Losing Ground,’ which has been credited as the intellectual foundation for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. His 1994 New York Times bestseller ‘The Bell Curve’ (Free Press, 1994), coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, sparked heated controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ in shaping America’s class structure. Dr. Murray’s other books include ‘What It Means to Be a Libertarian’ (1997), ‘Human Accomplishment’ (2003), ‘In Our Hands’ (2006), ‘Real Education’ (2008), and the New York Times bestseller ‘Coming Apart’ (2012). His most recent book, ‘By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission’ (Crown Forum, 2015) urges Americans to stem governmental overreach and use America’s unique civil society to put government back in its place.
Dr. Murray has Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in history from Harvard University.
In We Have Met The Enemy…, I documented Dr. Murray’s visit to Middlebury College on March 2 of 2017. An attempt by a rational and decent Democrat, Middlebury Professor Dr. Allison Stanger, ended in violence, and injury to Stanger as she and Murray fled a rampaging Leftist crowd.
The uproar was the usual progressive nonsense: Murry is racist, anti-gay, a white nationalist, sexist, and the enemy of Black Lives Matter and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which calumny is actually a badge of honor for rational people. The Bell Curve was widely cited as evidence for Murray’s racism—and the rest–by people who obviously haven’t read the book (I have). Also ignored is the fact that Murray is the father of mixed-race children. No rational, literate person reading any of Murray’s works could possibly find racism or any other progressive bugaboo, but of course, a lack of evidence, or its utter non-existence, never stops such people.
The lawlessness and insanity at Middlebury was so excessive, even by the usual standards of collegiate excess, it is a matter of urban legend, inspiring pride (for lunatics), and scorn (for the sane), even today, as The New Boston Post reports:
The editor-in-chief of Middlebury College’s student-run newspaper, responding to an apparent wave of criticism over his decision to run a photograph of conservative author Charles Murray on the paper’s front page, recently posted a profuse and rambling apology regarding the ‘jarring’ decision.
Dr. Allison Stanger
The mere publication of a photo of Murray and Stanger from a year ago was sufficient to trigger all manner of special snowflakes, who doubtless ran for safe spaces, Crayons, Play-Doh, and fluffy puppies. Some 60 Middlebury students were eventually disciplined in some way for their horrific 2017 behavior. Ethan Brady, the paper’s editor, wrote:
I wish to explain the photograph on page A1 to the readers. I recognize that it may be especially jarring, particularly for students of color who feel that Charles Murray’s rhetoric poses a threat to their very humanity. I also recognize that Murray’s visit to campus last March is an open wound for a campus trying desperately to move forward from it.
Brady bravely took full responsibility for the horror he visited on the campus, and explained:
This photograph is not meant to troll, or to cause pain, but to ask how that protest still lives with us today, one year later. For many, this image is burned in our collective memory. As much as we try to distance ourselves from that moment, we are made from it.
A better way to put it is: “the photo should remind us–every Middlebury protester–what utter asses we made of ourselves, an act for which we are alone responsible.”
I recognize that running this photograph is a political act. Yet I see no way to comprehend this institution without seeing ourselves as part of American society, which is itself political.
Should someone who thinks running a picture relating to a newsworthy event is a “political act” be the editor of a newspaper? This is obviously a classic case of projection. When I was in college back in the 1400s, few, if any, of us were engaged in politics. We were rather busy attending classes, studying, and sweating the next test. That so many students enrolled at Middlebury apparently have the time to do little but practice anarchy leads one to wonder if any of them bother to attend class, and if not, how might they be passing classes? It would be, one supposes, futile to ask if there might be any consequences for those not bothering to attend class, or failing classes? Brady, however, and one imagines, his compatriots and fellow students, apparently think of little but politics, so they assume everyone else is just like them instead of actually living meaningful, productive lives.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the people who think Murray’s words are violence were the ones who physically assaulted him and Stanger while they fled the chaos last year. Stanger ended up in the hospital with a neck brace. You might say that makes the students hypocrites—they’re against violence, and yet they engage in it—but I know from speaking to leftist students that the most radical activists would say there’s no tension here. They do not recognize a difference between words and actions, so when Murray and his problematic racial views came to campus, he essentially threw the first punch. The students’ violence was an act of self-defense, in their opinion.
And their opinions are so very, very informed and valuable, absolutely world changing.
The college-students-are-all-delicate-snowflakes charge is often leveled unfairly. But a bunch of young newspaper editors cowering in fear of printing a picture of Charles Murray is a reminder that there’s at least a kernel of truth to it.
I’m unaware of anyone suggesting that all college students are special snowflakes, but there is more than a kernel of truth to the assertion that a great many are, and that their professors and administrators not only abet such juvenile, idiotic, self-destructive behavior, they inspire it. Perhaps a whole cob of truth?
These are the people demanding a “dialogue” with normals. These are the people ready to respond to words as though they are criminal assault and battery, even if they’re unspoken, and even–particularly–if they’re imagined.
These, gentle readers, are the best and brightest–the future.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
Reblogged this on The zombie apocalypse survival homestead.
Dear mobiuswolf:
Thanks for the reblog!
When I was in college in the mid 1980’s there was some politics involved but never to the extent of what happened there. Of course back then the issues were a lot more real, AIDS entering the blood supply, the Soviets in Afghanistan, Iran-Contra, Pershing in Europe and so on. Of course it could be said then that the left had not totally taken over college’s and the Democratic party yet.
Molon Labe!
Keep your powder dry and your faith in God.
Colleges are no longer institutions of higher education, where responsible young adults can earn degrees that will qualify them for professions. Colleges are now playgrounds where brats go to postpone growing up for as long as possible.
A Gallup/Knight survey found that many students advocate free speech as an abstract concept, but made exceptions when specific controversial speakers (Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, Charles Murray, Jordan Peterson) were mentioned. 53% of students said that freedom of speech was important, but that diversity and inclusiveness were more important. And by “diversity,” they meant ethnic diversity, not a broad range of different opinions and ideas. Their idea of inclusiveness meant making “people of color” feel “comfortable,” which meant censoring anything that could be interpreted as racist.
Over half favored disinviting controversial speakers, a significant minority (37%) said that shouting down a speaker was justifiable, and 10% said that actual physical violence was justified against “hate speech.” And, of course, “hate speech” means “any disagreement with me about anything.”
So, yes, the “hateful words are the same as weapons” meme is being used to rationalize riots and assaults. By making a speech, Dr. Murray “threw the first punch.” So Leftists are justified in physically attacking him, for the same reason that you would be justified in shooting a mugger who lunged at you with a switchblade knife.
Except, if you shot the mugger, those same leftists would say that you were NOT justified. They would twist everything around, making you look like the aggressor, and the real aggressor look like the victim. Consistency is not a high priority with the Left.
Dear Tom:
Consistency? What is this “consistency” of which you speak?
Interesting that Murray’s primary argument in THE BELL CURVE is that while there is a bell curve of intelligence for humanity, each race has its own bell curve and these individual bell curves overlap so profoundly that one can not asign people of any race to a specific point on the common bell curve.
Dear James W Crawford:
There you go actually reading stuff again and spoiling a perfectly good narrative!
One wonders how many of those horrified by that photo own Che t-shirts…
Dear Casey Tompkins:
Now, now. That’s different, because shut up.