So far as I am aware, no American student has tweeted that he or she has no sympathy for the murdered Charlie Hebdo writers and no American professor has opined that they had it coming because they disrespected another culture. Killing satirists is going too far.
But American campuses are far from bastions of tolerance for views that clash with the fervently held beliefs of thin-skinned people who can’t stand it when others disagree with them. More and more, we find aggressive intolerance directed at speakers or writers who offend, or simply might offend. In his January 8 column, New York Times writer David Brooks points out this ugly truth. “The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades, they wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.”
Just so. The intolerance on our campuses isn’t bloody, but it’s still intolerance. Many young Americans are learning that instead of arguing with or ignoring those with whom you disagree and whose views offend you, the proper course is to silence them, disinvite them, shout them down, have them expelled. We’re always hearing that higher education is crucial because it teaches students “critical thinking,” but it seems increasingly to do the opposite — to teach that uncritical reaction is all right.
When the Charlie Hebdo killings come up for discussion, will there have to be trigger warnings so that students who might be “harmed” by it can leave?
Hat tip: Bernie Reeves