Mark Bauerlein has taken up a subject much discussed on PBC recently — a course taught at Harvard by the former president of Haverford College on “how colleges teach social justice” — and fashioned an excellent essay.
He nails the point exactly. Professor Tritton was no ranting demagogue, but his course did nothing but reinforce existing leftist notions. The students read tendentious screeds from the likes of bell hooks, but never got any of the strong arguments against the very concept of “social justice” from scholars such as Hayek and Nozick.
This brings to mind John Stuart Mill’s statement that he who knows only his own side of an argument usually doesn’t even know much of it. Your typical American college student bears that out.