Earlier this summer my alma mater, Cornell, removed a bust of Abraham Lincoln as well as a copy of the Gettysburg Address from display at Kroch Library. The manuscript is one of only five in Lincoln’s handwriting.
The removal was noticed by a professor who asked the librarians why the exhibits had been removed. They informed the professor that the removal was in response to a complaint. But when the media asked about the removal, Cornell’s administration explained that the display was only temporary, and the removal was not in response to a complaint.
Whom do you believe? (Note that this temporary display had been up for more than nine years at the time of removal. Clearly, Cornell’s curators must be incredibly backlogged.)
Forty years ago, KGB defector Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov explained that “cancellation” of revered historical figures was an essential part of the Soviets’ “active measures” program to undermine Western institutions and culture. The aim was to have the West enervate itself–defeat it without firing a shot. Of course, all of the smart people laughed and scoffed. Yet it’s unlikely even Bezmenov could have predicted the enthusiasm with which cancellation would be embraced by so many of our institutions. Witness especially the ongoing flood of cancellations post–George Floyd.
Bezmenov and others warned that once such impulse to cancellation was voluntarily embraced by educational institutions, the game would be over: It would be all but impossible to salvage rationality and freedom. If the KGB was right, are we near, at, or beyond the point of no return?