Horowitz and the True Believer

Activist David Horowitz is in the middle of a campaign to take the universities back from the left-wing radicals. His strategy is the Gandhian approach of challenging the university to live up to its ideals: Academic freedom, open inquiry, full range of views, and no political indoctrination from the front of the class. In this link he engages Peter Steinberger, a political science professor and Dean of Faculty from Reed University. And he gets everything he bargained for. Says Prof. Steinberger:

[N]o one could possibly deny the existence of racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism. Similarly, no one could possibly deny the existence of “power relationships and injustice.” I repeat: no one. To assert that there is racism in the world is no more controversial than to assert that there is nitrogen in the world.

Now this is a very revealing statement. You would expect a moderate Dean of Faculty to say: “yes, we keep a lefty on faculty to serve up the racism, sexism, classism, homophobia stuff to the students. You need at least one true believer around for balance.” But you do not expect a Dean of Faculty to be drinking the KoolAid.

In fact, conservatives do deny the existence of the Four Horsemen of the Modern Apocalypse. Or at least we say that overt conflict on the basis of race, sex, class, and sexual orientation is so far mitigated by modern society that it is not worthy of serious people’s energy.

In fact, conservatives would say that light-to-moderate discrimination is a spur to effort, rather than a barrier to a decent life.

We say that, of course, society is deeply affected by power relationships. But we say that the rule of law substantially mitigates the absolutism of power. And we go further and say that once you start up your “diversity,” your “outreach,” your affirmative action bureaucracies, you are introducing a power which is more unjust and capricious than the status quo ante.

We conservatives say that, by shining such a strong light on power relationships and injustice, liberals are ignoring the forest for the trees.

And when we hear someone say “No one could possibly deny the existence of racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism... I repeat: no one,” we say to ourselves: “left-wing radical whack-job.”