The headline's metaphor is fatally flawed. Something is "knee-jerk" is instinctual. It's called the patellar reflex: a doctor sharply hits the knee, and it jerks reflexively.
We liberals sensitive to the oppression of others can't stop our reflex actions to same.
No one can consciously stop any kind of "knee-jerk" reaction.
2
And this is exactly why I cannot call myself a liberal. I support wholeheartedly and applaud the efforts that lead to a better world for all, but I am astonished at the blind, knee-jerk reactions that do nothing to advance a cause, but rather drive it backwards.
This is not a new phenomenon by any means. And it certainly has its counterpoint on the conservative side. But it certainly doesn't make things easier in the Trump Era. The Law of Unintended Consequences is one of the strongest universal laws.
6
The article makes a sound and valid point but the knee-jerk moral stridency of kids today is a youthful immune response to an amoral presidency. Young progressives on college campuses are instinctively reacting to Trump's aberrant Administration, its unprecedented moral abdication and daily attacks on basic decency and decorum. Given the collapse of moral leadership at the center, young progressives feel a pressing burden to do what their leaders won't. Maybe they're simply seeking to preserve what former generations took for granted.
44
I applied to be a conscientious objector during Vietnam, fully expecting to have to go to prison for my beliefs. I organized the first earth day at my college campus. I have voted for Democrats, only, for 50 years.
Yet, I do not recognize the current state of being a liberal. To me, it is conservative either/or thinking that I used to identify as being conservative.
Now to be a liberal person means I have to join a "club." And that club is that I have to believe in a Sanders/Warren type of socialism, or I have to think of Trump supporters as all being loser racists, or I have to be willing to listen to people call me names because I believe in gun rights, or I have to forgive foolish college loans because those people who spent tens of thousands on graduate school, private schools, or for-profit schools are "victims."
I have to believe in this country's leftist victim sweepstakes.
So, there is nobody for me to vote for. Trump is dangerous to our country and the world, and so, now, are Democrats and liberals. I have no place.
166
This is just about as spot on as I have even in some time.
80
Let's get the wording right. Your daughter's expressed views are NOT liberal, in fact, they pretty much define the opposite of liberal. Let's not confuse liberalism with socially progressivism, or whatever the left wing of the Democratic party is doing these days.
69
This might be a good time for our liberal arts colleges to actually provide their students with well, you know, a liberal education; that is, instruction in the Enlightenment era's ethical and political principles upon which our liberal democracy is founded. Once basic values such as tolerance, free speech, and mutual respect are established, educators might then drill down to the next level to consider what our cultural geniuses have to tell us by the deepest liability of egalitarian civilization. What is it? It's what Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Max Scheler identified as "ressentiment". Ressentiment is the background mood of envy-driven peevish belittlement (if not outright hatred) that typifies human egoity, especially in relation to anyone who might possess superior abilities or virtues. That is precisely the mood that Donald Trump exploited to win the White House, and that he endlessly milks to keep his 40% of the population enthralled. Identity politics, for all its liberal/ethical pretensions, all-too-often succumbs to the same emotion. That is too bad because it undermines the unity we should share in protecting marginalized groups from prejudice and exploitation. The right knows this and loves to divide us by exacerbating tensions between these same groups. Let's all stop being such exploitable fools by welcoming open dialogue so that can we call out prejudices and establish an effect progressive program for a happily diverse population!
42
This might be a good time for our liberal arts colleges to actually provide their students with well, you know, a liberal education; that is, instruction in the Enlightenment era's ethical and political principles upon which our liberal democracy is founded. Once basic values such as tolerance, free speech, and mutual respect are established, educators might then drill down to the next level to consider what our cultural geniuses have to tell us by the deepest liability of egalitarian civilization. What is it? It's what Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Max Scheler identified as "ressentiment". Ressentiment is the background mood of envy-driven peevish belittlement (if not outright hatred) that typifies human egoity, especially in relation to anyone who might possess superior abilities or virtues. That is precisely the mood that Donald Trump exploited to win the White House, and that he endlessly milks to keep his 40% of the population enthralled. Identity politics, for all its liberal/ethical pretensions, all-too-often succumbs to the same emotion. That is too bad because it undermines the unity we should share in protecting marginalized groups from prejudice and exploitation. The right knows this and loves to divide us by exacerbating tensions between these same groups. Let's all stop being such exploitable fools by welcoming open dialogue so that can we call out prejudices and establish an effect progressive program for a happily diverse population!
15
How do you debate the proposition that America should be a white Christian country? You cannot debate without some common frame of reference. Absent that you just talk past each other.
17
As a conservative Christian, I experience bigotry and stereotypes from people on the left almost every time I express an opinion online in a mainstream news organization publication with the exception of the NYTimes. An online comment will often result in 3-4 taunts from liberals accusing me of being a Russian Troll, "dotard" or a Trump lover. Interestingly, I am entitled to vote in the US but chose not to vote for Mr. Trump. Very rarely do I meet a liberal who even understands anything more than a simple caricature of a conservative position. So I'm grateful for the fact that the NYTimes still has the courage to publish conservative viewpoints like Douthat and open minded liberals like Kristof. Too many news organizations fail to represent intelligent differing opinions and instead reinforce untrue stereotypes which only lead to greater division and polarization. Lastly, thank you Nicholas for sticking up for me and my right to express my opinion. We can learn from each other.
100
"all of this is easy for me to say as a straight white man"
You are all right by me, Mr. Kristof. I'm a straight white guy too. Stop by for a coffee on me when you are in Abilene.
16
Not to mention how they demonize Israel. I'm literally scared of stepping into an American college nowadays. The mentality described in this article makes me worried what will happen if one of the "progressive" democratic candidates gets elected. I am, of course, a liberal and a democrat and against any form of racism. But, what to do, I am not self-sacrificial or suicidal, which is what "the Left" requires of Israel in order to stand the high moral ground.
45
I am 72 and consider myself to be a diplomat in speaking with people who are radically different from me. Medical center waiting rooms are great places in which to begin conversations. Were I younger, I would be really good at going door-to-door speaking with people about campaigning democrats. I don't need people to agree with me but I listen carefully to what they have to say. Recently I heard that Trump was placed in the presidency by God and that he is part of God's plan with regard to the rapture. The fellow said that believers could beamed up at any moment to join Jesus Christ. I smiled and said, "I hope that happens for you--and maybe sooner rather than later." He smiled. Basically they were not confronted with an angry person who made them feel stupid and wrong. They just met one nice democrat. Then, the nurse called me in and I said, "Have a good day." How hard was that?
29
Right-wing ideology postulates that all people live in a dog-eat-dog world where victory is essential to survival, so the ends always justifies the means. Right-wingers are savvy enough to know that in the real world, cheating usually wins and that cheating always is always a successful strategy when the cheater wins a veto over any punishment for cheating (e.g., control of the D.O.J. and the judiciary).
Long ago, liberals drew a bright line around virtually total freedom of speech (short of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater) because liberals feared that if they compromised that principle, they would no longer be liberals.
Liberals were unable to see that there are grays of evil that sometimes must be pragmatically accommodated to effectively resist moral midnight of the right.
We are seeing young people veer from Liberalism's traditional emphasis on open-minded debate because traditional Liberals never recognized, much less countered, the danger of tolerating illiberalism.
The kids are correct - it is long past time to muzzle the Nazis and gag the Klan members. Indeed, now that Trump and McConnell are in power, it may be too late.
16
Good piece, Nicholas. I too am a progressive boomer from NYU, movements of late 60s, early 70s, living in San Francisco since '73. I agree with honest debate and disagreements - as long as truth, trust & honesty are accepted rules. Disagreement doesn't necessarily mean distrust. The problem today is that we have a party ideology (Repubs) that has morphed from honest beliefs from honest people - the R's of the 70s, even some early 80s, were good people with honorable disagreements - Howard Baker, Lowell Weiker, those who had the conversation with Nixon to resign.
Those people and day's are gone. We now have the most dishonest buffoons in the U.S. Congress - they wrap themselves in the flag, pray to Jesus and then lock young kids in cages, steal them from their mother, care only about the unborn fetus who, once out of the womb they say, "good luck, you're on your own - the heck with you and your mother.
So how do we have honest conversations with people who are either lying to you or who choose ignorance (choose to listen to FOX, Alex Jones, Donald -"good people on both sides" - trump.
We have an entire political party that is owned by a few ultra-wealthy ultra-greedy people who care nothing about anyone but themselves and their overstuffed bank account.
Can we have "honest conversations" with these folks or do we need to mobilize the 10s of millions of American voters who are disenfranchised and crush these truly awful people at the polls?
27
FINALLY, someone of influence has spoken out.
Decades ago, college was for honing critical thinking skills; for actually testing your ideas against other opinions and beliefs. It is appalling to see what has happened at most educational institutions. Most of them are merely echo chambers for the far left-- and a place like Oberlin a laughing stock to most of the country.
Making even moderate arguments now takes the backbone it once took to be the liberal in the room.
I would describe myself as a life-long liberal. But I am appalled. What has happened to due process, as well as tolerance for other points of view-- even just a nuanced point of view?
Whatever will we do in 2020? I can't vote for Trump, but some of the current dialogue is equally abhorrent.
I would rather stay home than vote for a bigot on either side of the political spectrum. Trump will surely win if the Democratic party follows the increasing diatribes on the left.
52
There are children in concentration camps in this country, and yet I keep seeing articles like this in the NYT scolding progressives for being too sensitive and hostile to free speech. These students were wrong, and they misinterpreted the situation, but they're not representative of all progressives. It's intellectually dishonest to claim that this one lawsuit is a good reason for American to remain a center-right banana republic.
28
The addition of " NYT Replies" is very helpful. It helps "circle" the conversation and validates the comments, whether by ratification or in dispute.
The example of the Oberlin case is perhaps most disturbing in that it is merly one of hundreds of important institutions that have been the site of thoughtless reactionary outbursts, on the left and the right,that make clear we are losing rational debate and mature judgement.
18
We have a system in place to protect us from the tyranny of the majority-- without it women and non-whites wouldn't have ever gotten the vote, gays wouldn't have equal rights, and we would have Christian Sharia laws in Alabama.
It's the tyranny of the minority that seems perplexing-- starting rumors and spreading fear, pointing fingers-- from the Inquisition, to blacklists of "communists" in the 1950s, to black men being beaten for dating white women, to labeling antiwar protestors "traitors", to labeling taking a knee in the NFL as "un American".
Oberlin isn't liberal, but rather intolerant. The difference now, and in the anti-war days, is that colleges are allowing a minority of students and professors to determine policy. As always, the ivory tower doesn't prepare people for reality.
Identity politics is nationalism, just on a different scale, Us vs. Them.
One of my best friends is a right wing ex Marine, who loves guns and hates Obama and Pelosi. But he's not racist or Christian (his wife is black) and despises neoNazis, so we're good. Neither of us are zealots. We miss out on so much when we close our minds and hearts.
16
Many children....now young adults...were raised to believe that they’re ‘special’. Consequently, they suffer from significant narcissistic ‘boundary’ problems...finger-pointing and hurling accusations against anyone who doesn’t pass their ideological-grammatical-identity purity test. So nauseating...
50
This writer makes it appear that this hogwash started under Pres. Trump when the real agitator was OBAMA.
Racism was dead in America till obama made comments and started fights that brought it back.
Frankly I still think that racism is dead in America, but the Loony Left needs it as a talking point to attack Republicans (who never owned slaves) and conservatives.
23
I loathe the kind of dippy behavior on which this rather good column focuses—but honestly, show of hands.
Anybody think that orgs like NCPAC and the NRA and AIM and the Eagle Forum and so on are hotbeds of acceptance, open to all comers? Anybody want to stick up for the openmindedness of campus life at, say, Liberty U? How about Dinesh d’Souza and Ann Coulter...they shining examples of good manners and intellectual broad-mindedness? Rush, FOX&Friends, the Blaze, OAN, TBN...anybody want to explain how they accept views of all brands in the interest of hearty dialogue?
Yeah, sure, Antifa’s gawdawful. But anybody got a list of who they’ve shot, run over, firebombed?
Or Donald Trump and his Trumpists...those rallies look to you like open forums for free discussion? How about those attacks on education and colleges, those demands to get rid of profs and students...those seem Jeffersonian to you, do they?
So yeah, let’s us cut it out. But let’s not pretend we’re the worst of it.
33
Your daughter was wrong and you should have gently pointed it out to her. There is no reason in the world that a Lawyer cannot defend an accused rapist and at the same time, support someone who has been traumatized by rape. None. Apples and Oranges. To suggest otherwise is silly sophistry. You do your daughter no favors by indulging her.
46
Millennial here (27 y/o) who graduated from a small, Midwest liberal arts college in 2014. I’ve been reading Mr. Kristoff’s column since HS and read Half The Sky at that time, too.
I’m torn on this subject of knee-jerk reactions from the Left (although the Right clearly does it just as much). On one hand I feel exasperation at many of my peers who get “Facebook outraged” and stay there. But I think the outrage, anger and sadness *is warranted*. This world is messed up and the systemically oppressed and dehumanized among us have every reason to be pissed and demand change. However it is mostly ineffective when not grounded in the values we need to make the world a better place. For example the #ByeAnita movement after Laquan’s death and the Keep Families Together march in Chicago were social justice actions that harnessed outrage and created tangible progress. These actions were youth-led and intergenerational.
I do see many of my progressive peers not root their desire for justice in love. I see attempts at seeking accountability without compassion, punitive retribution without mercy, condemnation without patience or empathy. It’s short sighted and replicates the toxicity of the Right/GOP. But for the marginalized among us, I can only imagine how hard it must be to overcome the anger and pain and lead/live with love and compassion. We need to keep demonstrating for each other how to do it. So please keep being open to and in conversation with us, Mr. Kristoff.
21
You're ignoring the really problematic jerking knee, for some reason-- knee-jerk "more moderate than thou" pearl clutching, at a major metropolitan newspaper.
7
The more of an idealogue a person is the more arrogant he/she gets. I grew up with a conservative father, and became a liberal, and even flirted with communism. Then as I got older I realized that working with people, not against them, was paramount. So I became a pragmatist. I'm still a liberal but much of what passes for P.C. leaves me cold. My knees don't jerk much anymore, and I'm happy about that.
28
So right, Nick. If I disagree with some friends about immigration, and now, hearing about health care for
immigrants is another sore topic for me (obviously against it), I'm asked if I'm for Trump?
I'm a democrat, but I am worried about immigration. The latest liberal nod, health care for illegal immigrants bothers
me, especially since the perception is Dems are for open borders and I'm feeling like we can't afford health care for
our citizens. But, I'm for sensible immigration reform, which might exclude a number of people. I'm perceived by friends as favoring Trump. I detest the man.
33
Intolerant Idealism seems to be the Motto of the Day
among self-righteous College Students,
a distinct minority, but if you can get your cell-phone video
on Facebook or Youtube - and the National Media picks it up...
The Administrators at Oberlin are either incompetent or
do not have the courage to do their duty or both.
The young men used a fake ID and stole some liquor.
They were rightly prosecuted and they
openly admitted in court that they were guilty.
Case Closed.
Where did these immature students learn to think
they had a right to destroy a business establishment
by fostering lies and innuendoes ?
Where did other immature students learn to believe
that they can demand that professors lose their tenure
because they dare to disagree with the students over
political and moral issues, or Heaven Help Us ALL,
the "politically correct" pronoun.
A friend of mine had his classroom invaded and taken over
by a small group of student protestors. He gave them
five minutes to speak and then he asked them to leave
and began to hand out the mid-term exam, they refused to leave -
so some students "rose up" and gave them the "bums rush"
out the door.
The last course you used to take in College was Ethics.
Often the President of the College taught the course
as a way to say goodbye to the Seniors.
The learned that doing the right act is to do it for the
right reason, in the right way, at the right time to and for
the right person.
12
This is pretty rich, coming as it does from a Trumpist.
2
Love this. Most important column I've read in a long time. I bet Putin has people working 24/7 to foment as much knee-jerk liberalism as possible, because that's the surest road to Trump winning in 2020 and the death knell of everything best and most noble about the United States.
That said, your daughter is right. Your old views are the absolutist ones here, Nicholas. I was a Reagan supporter in my youth, not so much because he was conservative, but because he surrounded himself with people who liked to apply a lot of common sense and keep the crazies away. So did Obama, which is why I was an Obama supporter. Now I find myself a Harris supporter for the same reasons.
5
A small fraction of students (and a large fraction of Humanities faculty) have taken upon themselves to represent a pseudomaoist vanguard where any slight to identity politics and intersectionalist hoax is a punishable offense.
The striking thing is that no one dares to oppose them - not Oberlin administrators who are paid to know better, nor their colleagues at Evergreen, Yale, Harvard. The half-baked nonsense gets across because it gets traction from the adults. Time to stop enabling the greenhorns, my dear colleges, and teach them to be functioning adults.
39
I think your points are excellent. We live in an information age where we are fed anecdotes supposed to teach us a lesson. But that only worked with parables of Jesus Christ, because we don' have that kind of wisdom. I struggle to understand what "liberal" and "conservative" actually mean, yet there are those who can use a "liberal" or "conservative filter on anything, instantly. The basis for our political leanings are rarely well thought out. We have visceral beliefs and habits carefully cultivated by decades of exposure to advertising and media manipulation based on psychological studies, and effectuated with slogans (MAGA) and soundbites. Isn't that what keeps us beholden to "liberal" or "conservative" ideology? Can we have a new Age of Reason, a new Reformation, a new Age of Enlightenment?
4
Let's talk about Kamala Harris dropping her canned "poor little girl" routine on Biden to the applause of the identity politics robots. Senator Harris lived in Berkeley CA, arguably the most liberal city in the USA. She was upper middle class, not poor. Berkeley has one high school to serve all its students but there are local elementary schools. Kamala Harris would have attended Berkeley High School no matter which local school prepared her. Save your compassion for those who deserve it; and those who demand compassion without deserving it, well, what should be our attitude toward them?
46
Thank you, Mr. Kristof, for this column. I am so tired of party-line, cookie-cutter thinking rather than rigorous critical thinking. But the truth of the matter is that if we cannot learn how to communicate with intolerance without losing ourselves, all of us are lost. We MUST engage in conversation with people unlike ourselves. And we MUST be sensitive to nuance in that conversation.
I am entirely disheartened by the incivility of social discourse these days, which seems based on a principle of "Think my way, or you are an enemy." No democracy can thrive in such an environment. A democracy is not a club, and it certainly is not one that can exclude people on the basis of an incongruence of ideas. People these days seem far too willing to attack rather than to try to understand.
Self-righteousness has far more in common with tyranny than democracy.
22
Point taken. My question is what is accomplished by framing the differences discussed as liberal vs conservative? Alot of research shows that the fundamental difference (reflected in brain structure) is that conservatives fear change, and value order, more than liberals. Liberals value dissent, and welcome change. It is easy to understand why young people are intolerant - they are afraid. Humans, in the process of creating "modern" society, have profoundly changed the world, and ourselves. The pace of change has recently escalated in unpredicted ways. The piece is not about liberal vs conservative, it is about change, order, fear, human rights and social order.
5
Reading Kristoff's column and many of the comments, plus Kristoff's replies, suggests some comments.
First, Kristoff has many more readers on the right than I would have thought. I wonder if they will continue reading when he criticizes the detention of children at the border.
Second, there is a lot of hostility toward the academic world these days. Of course, this is nothing new.
Third, a comment about the Oberlin College case, because K makes it a key example, and because of the picture. I do not think that K and/or his researchers did as much research as they might have, and there are some strange aspects to the trial.
For example, the judge did not permit the college to enter some exculpatory evidence. Why? I do not know. But not all judges are neutral.
What about the jury? Well, Lorain County outside of the town of Oberlin is strong Trump territory. And there usually is some town hostility against gown in small towns with colleges.
At least one online account and a commentator to K's column stated that students believed Gibson's has a history of racial profiling. Students are not always wrong. This needs more looking at.
Finally, two law firms and at least six lawyers were involved in the case. That is a lot of money. Did one family-owned small bakery have that kind of capital to involve in a chancy case? I doubt that the law firms took on this case on a we-get-paid-only-if-we-win basis. What is the rest of the story
13
As a (retired) lawyer, I cannot support attacking an attorney for representing a client (who is despised by many people), since each person's right to a defense will mean nothing if no lawyer will represent him/her.
19
This is not directly related, but I believe relevant nevertheless. At the second Democratic debate, there was seemingly endless squabbling, hairsplitting and positioning about the deficiencies of and cures for our healthcare system. Later, when the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they would support healthcare for undocumented (a euphemism for illegal) immigrants, every hand went up. Did anyone else see how this would play in the general election? Paying for some form of universal health insurance for citizens will be expensive; and in my opinion,desirable. But to run on a platform to spend tax dollars to pay for illegal immigrants will only alienate existing and potential moderate supporters. Aside from the near-sighted pandering politics, it's bad policy. I don't want my taxes raised to pay for healthcare people who are in the US illegally when we will be struggling to provide healthcare to citizens. Undocumented workers don't pay income taxes because they can't get legitimate social security numbers and many work for cash under the table. So don't believe the explanation that undocumented workers pay taxes. Yes, they pay sales taxes, but sales taxes won't support any Federal healthcare program.
20
@Steve I think that if we don't cover everyone the health and the health care of everyone is affected. If we don't want undocumented people in America then we must come up with a humane and efficient system for preventing this.
2
@Steve
Hi. Please note, people who are undocumented do legally pay both federal income and payroll taxes even if they don’t have a Social Security number. Vox article on it here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2019/3/1/18241692/undocumented-immigrants-pay-state-local-taxes
6
The points made here are not trivial and I would include the violence at the otherwise idyllic Middlebury College (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/middlebury-free-speech-violence/518667/) as part of the extreme, but also, as with the Oberlin incident, reckoning with the extreme.
Sadly, in the current political arena, moderate progressives such as Joe Biden are seeing any engagement with the opposition portrayed as betrayal and increasing radicalization is too often cheered. This is one thing that is leading to the polarization of the current political environment -- it is no longer acceptable to simply disagree with the political opposition, it is necessary to see them as the enemy. Conservatives radicalize because they see liberals as not merely well intentioned but wrong but rather as dangerous. It is tempting to see in this atmosphere something related to post Revolution France in the 1790's. Well yes, the wealth inequality was awful, the class structure unjust and the autocratic nature of government seemed to exist to preserve privilege and wealth, but violence exceeded any reasonable goal of righting a wrong.
Kristof is writing about one of the most uncomfortable realities of being progressive in the current environment -- the people you see agree with seem as dangerous, maybe moreso, than the people you don't.
12
I see your daughter’s point as well, but I would ask her if her concern would have also forced her to object if Professor Sullivan had represented, say, the Central Park 5 at the time that many assumed their guilt.
19
Amen to that, Mr. Kristof. People who truly want change for the better from this dismal President need to stay focused on the big picture--beating Trump. And they also ought to understand that liberty, freedom, decency, equality, and integrity depend upon exposure to argument, even if it is abhorrent. Those who are willing to sacrifice others' freedom of speech to advance what they are sure is the righteousness of their causes and convictions will ultimately achieve neither.
8
@Harvey Green However sometimes semantics is not just semantics. Sometimes words matter.
1
After his tacit apology for being a straight white male ( fortunately not a dead one) Kristof casts blame on Donald Trump for the illiberal excesses of self identified liberals ( now known as "progressives") and purportedly liberal institutions. The devil did not make them do it. In fact such illiberal excesses have been characteristic of many such people and institutions for years. They were documented, if exagerated in "Illiberal Education" written almost 30 years ago. l believe such excesses are the product of rigidly held tribal beliefs, and can be found in any tribe of any creed.
14
I agree that even unsavory defendants such as Harvey Weinstein have the right to an adequate defense and that on the other hand your daughter has a point that the heads of a college residence such as Winthrop House should be people to whom people feel comfortable reporting instances of sexual harassment and assault.
Though the Sullivan case has sort of become a Rorschach test for people's opinions about liberalism or political correctness, it's important to note that other considerations probably played a large role in the dismissal of Ronald Sullivan and his wife and co-dean Stephanie Robinson as faculty deans of Winthrop House. As detailed in this article from the Harvard Crimson, a number of former Winthrop staff and tutors allege that Sullivan and Robinson had created a climate of hostility and suspicion during their deanship, berating staff, threatening them with dismissal, and asking that they perform personal tasks. If these allegations are correct, student concerns about Sullivan's representation of Weinstein may have just been the last straw. Whatever their other virtues, Sullivan and Robinson may not have been well-suited to being faculty deans.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/5/10/winthrop-climate/
3
I’m a liberal. But, I’m reminded of the old saying, “you can become so open minded your brains fall out”.
I fear that this movement toward intolerant social justice warriors and our current democratic field of presidential Candidates trying to appease them will lead to Trumps re-election.
28
@Dean Grey I had not heard that saying, but I love it and will use it!! Thanks!
6
Unfortunately, even with good intentions, Nicholas Kristof can't escape his inner self:
"How can a house leader support students traumatized by sexual assault when he is also defending someone ACCUSED of rape?"
Accepting this stance as the right one, Kristof instinctively shows that in his mind a person accused of rape is already guilty. or at least very bad.
Pity if it's impossible for a liberal to be unbiased and objective.
9
Mr. Kristof, you acknowledge that your daughter "has a point." You acknowledge that Trump has taught America to disdain, mock, trample or ignore previously prevailing standards of civility and tolerance. Yet you insist that liberals should still now engage intolerance & incivility with one hand tied behind our backs? Is that "sticking to values" or is it martyrdom? At age 71, I take the side of your daughter. (As did Obama on the issue of limiting campaign finance contributions: he said he'd gladly do so but only if the other side did likewise, but would not accept to fight cannons with a pen-knife.)
5
A lot of this article is based around the traditional liberal view of debate in which ideas are presented by rational, well intentioned individuals, and then ruled upon by a larger rational collective. It is important to realize that this type of debate is only possible given: 1) all people are acting in good faith, and 2) all people are rational.
Given this, I find it interesting that one of the first examples you give is Jordan Peterson, and his refusal to use people’s preferred pronouns. I find this interesting because Peterson is 1) not making a rational claim, and 2) not acting in good faith. What Peterson is actually doing is stating his belief that transgender students are not due respect. If this is not clear, I think it becomes much more clear if you change the situation slightly: what if Peterson refused to refer to black students using anything but the N-word?
I think there is great danger is engaging such bad-faith arguments in good faith. Productive discussion is impossible when an opponent views debate only as a battle through which to demonstrate strength, and continued engagement only benefits them. For more on this, see Innuendo Studio’s video “The Alt-Right Playbook: The Card Says Moops”.
However,there is also danger in treating everyone with a different opinion as if they are arguing in bad faith. Treating well-intentioned individuals with contempt only serves to push them towards tribalism, which strengthens bad-faith actors and weakens our democracy.
8
Amen.
My question is where did this ideological intolerance come from? Who is to blame for our collective failure to imbue so many with ideological intolerance, once a pillar of our civic body? It wasn't always like this. Is it an inherent component of the so-called liberalism that has become the mainstay of academia or a by-product of something that has coincidentally flourished in parallel? Was intolerance of liberal positions a hallmark of a more conservative time? I genuinely don't remember it as such.
Two legs bad, four legs good.
7
This is an important article and I'm glad to see from the comments that it resonates with so many who identify as liberal. This is our strength. We will own our mistakes and can reflect on our blind spots as you call them. I've never see anything comparable coming from the right.
By the way, your daughter fails to understand a few fundamental things. We should not deprive people of the perquisites of their employment unless they've engaged in misconduct in connection with their employment or demonstrated incompetence in a demonstrable way. So, e.g. you don't rob someone of a contract of some kind because in some other domain of his or her life, he did something we don't like. It's basically unfair. If a defense attorney has decided to offer his services to a criminal defendant, then he is doing his job. Our system of due process of law says that a defendant must have the assistance of counsel. It's in the Constitution so it's pretty important. We don't accept the guilt of a defendant without legal process. And if an attorney defends a man accused of alleged sexual misconduct, it does not mean that the attorney is incapable of sympathizing with or supporting the victims of misconduct. An intelligent, rational human being can do both at the same time.
13
"Too often, we liberals embrace people who don’t look like us, but only if they think like us." That is it in one sentence. Thank you, Nick.
24
A much-needed column in the age of "woke" outrage. Twitter and campus activists do not represent the views of most liberal Americans. If the Left is to truly be the big tent party, then we need to be much more open to a diversity of opinion.
15
The Weinstein issue has been treated by Hollywood in Bridge of Spies, where Tom Hanks represents Rudolf Abel. The noble defense lawyer is a cliche good guy. It is not a weighty issue and it makes for a pretty bad movie. It would have been better if the issue had more substance.
I'm an '89 alum of Oberlin and dismayed at the facts of this case as written in the trial transcripts, which I read. Oberlin clearly libeled and hurt this venerable town business, which has zero history of racial profiling or racist behavior, and provides an important service for the college and town. Now Oberlin is hiding behind "free speech" to try to dig itself out of the hole it created. I'm ashamed of my alma mater and sad for where we are as a society, as articulated so well by a commenter below:
"One of the more depressing aspects of this era is how regimented and joyless it all is, with so many things being verboten. It sometimes feels like we're living through our own version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in which everything that didn't conform to the Communist ideal, such as works of art and folk traditions were smashed, literally and figuratively."
12
This column is another attempt to "balance" the discourse between left and right. I'd be perfectly happy with an open debate. The problem is, the ideas advanced by the right are so flawed, so riddled with hypocrisy, so ignorant of fact-based reasoning, that honest debate is frustrated the moment it begins. It's exasperating. Give us an intelligent conversation and we might get somewhere! And while it might be true that liberals sometimes go too far and create sporadic episodes like the injustice surrounding the Gibson's shoplifter, these occasions pale beside the systemic efforts of the right to disenfranchise minorities, suppress women, empower oligarchs, to name just a few of their many wrong-headed ideologies. That's not balance. But I'll give Nick credit for trying.
10
Another famous figure of the law from Harvard defended popularly despised defendants. John Adams defended the Red-coated British soldiers who shot civilian protestors in Boston before the War of Independence. It is ironic that with such a history of respect for fair legal representation of even the most despised, Harvard lets popular opinion make them disrespect it, now.
7
@Casual Observer You are incorrectly imputing John Adams's commitment to the principle of legal representation for all to Harvard. How does the fact that Adams attended Harvard mean that his (successful) defense of the indicted redcoats suggest that the university respected his actions?
In his diary, Adams wrote that his defense of the Brits exposed him to "endless labor and Anxiety if not to infamy and death". Abigail told him that she was aware of the great danger to her and the children.
I am not aware of any historical evidence that Harvard as an institution expressed any respect for Adams's brave commitment to principle.
5
Thank you for this Mr. Kristof and thank God this being said more often. At least more often than it was a year ago.
One thing I do protest however: Jordan Peterson does not refuse to use preferred pronouns. He objects to any law that would bind him or anyone to do so because this is an attack on freedom of speech. Our social justice vigilantes would do well to recognize the difference. But it's the nature of these tyrants to conflate any and all affronts to their sensibilities with the worst possible example. Some fool makes a pass at a woman and she becomes a victim of sexual assault.
Their real problem with Peterson is that he dares to suggest we be responsible for ourselves, not surrender to mob-think, and engage in honest debate rather than gag the opponent.
15
I consider myself a moderate democrat with some liberal tendencies but I admit I am feeling lost in the world of new morality and political correctness. Recently, I had a discussion with my son and his girlfriend who were referring to a waiter in a restaurant as "they" (I hadn't heard it before). I didn't feel I was being disrespectful by simply pointing out it was not correct English to refer to a single person in plural form. I was told I was insensitive and out of touch. I suggested a variation on "he" and "she", perhaps "se", as a way to distinguish the person. I was told I was insulting the person to suggest an alternate pronoun. Am I being unreasonable here?
13
@Brian Rogers I agree with you that it is not proper English, and I confess to attaching what is likely too much importance to grammar issues. The number of hours devoted, in some circles, to the issue of pronouns strikes me as -- to be perfectly honest -- kind of silly. In other words, my personal reaction to this subject is much the same as yours.
Nevertheless . . . Although I would not call you unreasonable, I do take a different approach to this issue. I had the great good fortune of attending a talk by Elie Wiesel shortly after he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. He spoke about the five hallmarks of a moral society. The first was: In a moral society, people cooperate right up to the moment that their consciences are implicated.
Using that as my guidepost, I just go along with whatever pronouns the people I am with want to use. Pronouns do not implicate my conscience, and acceding to my companions' preferences costs me nothing. I try to live up to Wiesel's wise pronouncement and cooperate on those things that do not prick my conscience. There is also a practical reason to pick one's battles more carefully. Given the baleful state of our polity and the myriad immoral acts of this administration that demand active opposition, I need to conserve time and energy for the stuff that really counts.
6
Many commenters state they are afraid of liberalism run rampant - of political correctness shutting down ideas, as though a re-enactment of Redz (writ Americana) is right around the corner. But
I’m delighted to see a younger generation engaged. Of course that means they won’t do everything the way “we” think it should be done. But the pearl clutching about the terrors of new “lit” generation is tiresome.
Why do we rush to excoriate the young, when it is our generations’ centrism and indifference that has allowed so much wrong: perpetual war, gerrymandering, corporate take over, - all weaken foundations of our democracy.
Kristof’s article is ok. But his examples of Weinstein’s lawyer and Jordan Peterson are frivolous and divisive, bound to get all the curmudgeon oldies nodding their about the sins of safe spaces. I don’t think either guy needs defending. Why should Weinstein’s lawyer basically be a dorm monitor? Ending that seems eminently sensible to me. Peterson stood up for what he believed, his employer disagreed. So what? He’s going to be just fine.
It’s us who are getting it wrong. We are REACTING to a boogie man “left wing purity test,” as though we are all potential victims of the encrazed left wing youth that threatens American society today. It doesn’t. First we need to applaud them for doing what we could not- and there is so much (easy example: men like Weinstein are being exposed). And then we steer them towards a progressive -and civilized - common goal.
5
Bravo!!! Bravo!! At last an article I can relate to. College campuses and the freshmen representatives in the House have become so vitriolic, and with such a Maoist approach to the free exchange of ideas, that I no longer have a political home. I have always voted Democrat and been liberal, but this radical move to the extreme left, beyond all logic and reason, has left me with no one to vote for. All the raised hands during the last primary debate. Safe spaces, trigger warnings, intersectionality with the oppression olympics, this shut down of free speech on campuses - the left has become so intolerant that no discourse is allowed anymore. Jordan Peterson not allowed to speak? Have they even listened to, or read, Jordan Peterson? Well, I have gone from a liberal Democrat to someone who watches people like Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin online in order to find someone who makes sense to me. So..........
Thank you for this article and for the many, many intelligent comments. This lifelong Democrat sincerely hopes that there are some Democrats that can get the ship back on course. I have not seen them in any debate so far.
17
Liberals have blind spots on immigration. There is a lot to criticize about the administration's policies, and there are so many people deserving of asylum, but we can't just let everyone in. We as a country have to come to agreement on who gets in, and we need a humane process to handle all the applicants. And we need border security. Without that, we have a growing number if "illegals" in the country. Is that our goal?
19
I'm glad we progressives are open to the kind of soul-searching recommended by you, Nick. Most of your articles promote this. Many articles just penned following the Democratic tune-up debates recommend it. Conservative-leaning commentators and pundits almost never recommend giving a thought to rape victims living in college dorms, but that fact should not deter us from doing better.
Self analysis and self criticism are crucibles from which empathy and sound judgment can be forged. We are the better for them. And yet.
The opposition's forced march is seldom if ever halted by such niceties. They see our reflective nature as a weakness. If we look honestly at the pros and cons of Kamala Harris's performance in the debate, they stand by like hyenas salivating to glean any scrap that could be used to advance their cause, which is always and only to win.
These two approaches to what they consider a war to the death put us at a disadvantage. You caution us to pause, reconsider, ponder, admit we do not know the whole truth, and it is agreeable for us to do so. The opposition places no such speed bump in their path to total victory.
When you are punched in the face, Nick, stopping to mull over the pros and cons of counterpunching could end very badly. You might stagger to your feet after the ten-count, but the other guy's hand is being held up in victory, and the battle is lost.
3
We are in a mendacious era I call "The Mendacene," and there are two foci: alternative facts on the right and illiberal neoliberalism* on the left. Those in the middle who lack the courage to stand up for what they believe in because they're afraid they might get hit, need to jump up, catch the football, and run with it.
*As a progressive liberal, I view the neoliberal with the same disdain as I do the Trump base. I am to the left of those at Oberlin, and I argue that they are tacking to the pre-modern period when orthodoxy ruled over the liberty of thought. They would do well to study the reason why and how the Enlightenment came about.
3
It's incompetence, more incompetence from both the conservative and, unfortunately, the liberal side. In regard to immigration, we can't take everyone unless we want to annex the whole hemisphere. But we do have a hemisphere and the US appears to be doing nothing to try to make life livable for our neighbors. Peru has taken 3 million refugees from Venezuela. How many of those are going to knock on our door? How many liberal commentators will beat the drum to admit them. What are we doing to improve the situation in the triangle of terrified people in Latin American? Can these other countries - Chile, Argentina, even Cuba cooperate with us to create economies, situations which would allow freedom of travel and opportunity in places other than the US? The US doesn't have to be in this alone.
1
Yeah, and don't spit on people you disagree with, especially in restaurants. Although common on the left, even with restaurant owners, so it seems, it reveals the base need to revert to primitive behavior because there is no intellectual support for the thesis one is advocating.
15
Not good, of course, but several steps up from shooting them, firebombing their health clinics, running them over, and so on.
5
Conservatives and Evangelicals have teamed up, possible around the issue of women's reproductive health. And while that may be why Evangelicals are there, Conservatives have a much wider agenda and they have been cheating. They turned a battle about an anti-Hillary campaign movie into the Citizen's United v FEC decision that made money equal speech. How can someone with liberal ideas accept this decision which robs we the people of the promise of one person, one vote? How can we accept that as soon as the Voting Rights Bill turned 50, Conservatives fulfilled their dream to get rid of pre-clearance and began a concerted campaign in some states to suppress minority votes because they are racists and because this also suppresses liberal votes.
Conservatives have found all kinds of ways to allow the minority Republican Party to control the majority of US state governments and win at the federal level so they can pack the courts. Evangelicals are definitely along for the ride. The actions of these two groups to rig elections have saddled us with a white supremacist, authoritarian president. College students have long been able to see challenges to our democracy/republic clearly. They should get to pick their battles and their guest lecturers. I believe that these students are familiar with both sides of the argument and are not impressed with what people on the right are saying or doing. The America that Conservatives and Evangelicals want should be unacceptable to all.
2
Can we just say that Oberlin is weird? Some of my friends went there. I visited, but found it all a bit much and went somewhere else. It's not an average or typical example of an American college.
11
While I agree with much of your column, there are also some points I would like to make about why young progressives may act the way they do.
First, as you said, your daughter has a point. As we move forward and increasingly begin to champion social justice issues it becomes more important to consider a rape victim's experience than a successful professor's ability to retain part of their job. If they can no longer effectively counsel students due to choices they make in their career than someone else should be hired who can. He's not wrong to defend Harvey Weinstein. But, are victims of sexual assault wrong for not trusting or wanting his support after he makes that choice?
Second, it is wrong to stereotype someone. That does not mean that stereotyping someone for a chosen value (religion) is the same as stereotyping someone for an inherent trait (race or sexuality). When the republican party and christians stop using "the word of the lord" for their own means, or to take away rights from others, then progressives may judge them less quickly.
Third, I agree Oberlin college handled the situation incorrectly and that the students are picking the wrong battles. That being said, I feel young progressives pick the small battles because they seem approachable. There is a mindset of overcoming powerlessness and setting a precedent for the larger fights by winning the small ones.
Rather than critique youthful passion, harness it!
5
Point taken and a very worthy reminder, but two relatively small incidents (one rectified by the court) do not a trend make. Most Americans are progressive on the issues and younger Americans even more so; the coming campaigns need to reflect that. Out here in middle America, many of us are sick of the idea of kids ripped and caged, of a government morally unhinged, of persistent racism/sexism, and of how climate change is not portrayed as the central issue of our time. Luckily, younger Americans are coming forth to confront these ills and, not surprisingly, they may occasionally overstep. And intelligent and caring adults like you are the perfect ones to point that out. Just don't extrapolate from that, that Dems/libs better watch their step, lest they become blind ideologues. Like you so wisely say "let's debate the ideas" and not just point fingers at minor infractions.
2
"Liberals sometimes howl when this newspaper brings in a conservative columnist or publishes a sharply conservative Op-Ed. We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views."
It's not the presence of conservative columnists to which I object, Nick. It is not an unwillingness "to grapple with disagreeable views". In fact, I put effort into trying to understand the conservative worldview and regularly visit their websites in that attempt.
It is the fact-free, vacuousness of their arguments that grinds my molars. How is one to have a meaningful discussion and debate with folks who are disinterested in facts? Are there no better proponents of the conservative position than Brooks or Douthat? Or are they in an impossible position because there are no facts on which to base their arguments?
9
I see some of this in my friends' more liberal children, and I agree with much of it. However, I do still have a soft spot for antifa. I believe in the platinum rule with a twist. Treat people the way they want to be treated. And they will show you how they want to be treated in the example they set in how they treat others. So racists, fascists Leninists of all stripes I am A-OK shunning and not accomodating as I would be other viewpoints. Politicians like a Chavez OR a Trump who denigrate democracy should be shut out of the public sphere wherever it is possible consistent with the first amendment.
1
For those of us who came of age in the 60's-70's we were also at times indignant and intolerant. When students were murdered as in Kent State for peacefully demonstrating (and remember Jackson state and other incidents.) we responded with appropriate anger. We matured and became realists. So will these students. In the meantime, some may be a bit arbitrary, rigid in ways that are counterproductive. But the right wing evangelical so called christians are the ones who are intolerant and they should be listening to us as well. They continue to demonize us and spend a good deal of money trying to disrupt and destroy progressive faith institutions and leadership. And as for being "tolerant" keep in mind the expression, "don't be so open minded your brains fallout". We know what ethics and decency look like and we dont need to "tolerate" those who are hostile and destructive. That said, I am not sure the Harvard prof is the only person available to provide legal services to a wealthy defendant such as Harvey Weinstein. Arrogant and greedy of him perhaps? Your daughter is correct, the dean and professor should not participate in blurring these roles. And the Oberlin example is piling on adding confusion toyour discussion about liberals. why should Oberlin, the institution be punished by the town something else is going on here. Meanwhile yo offer No examples of the right wing actions going on to disrupt in dishonest and destructive ways.
5
Take note at how affirmative the comments here are of the problem that Mr. Kristof highlights. Most attempts to bring this issue up online or in conversation are themselves met with the kinds of knee-jerk accusations that he describes here. I appreciate Kristof's ability to address it in a nuanced way, without the shallow callout of "stupid social justice warriors!".
As a graduate student in anthropology at a state university, I sometimes feel that my own department is the bullseye of a liberal blind spot. I study and work with many young professionals who are steeped in this ideological intolerance. Granted, I don't think it's as bad here on this campus as many conservatives would assume, but it is a real thing and it needs to be addressed so it doesn't turn into something more ugly in the future.
5
"If Trump turns progressives into intolerant agents of incivility, then we have lost our souls."
I love liberals: we're losing our souls and it's Trump's fault. How can anybody not love it?
6
Thank heaven (sorry if that reference triggered anyone) the NYT has you Mr. Kristof. I loved your reference to incivility and coming from someone not named Brooks.
There are major issues and concerns and then there are micro-concerns that get 20 somethings up in arms. Like you I hoped this was just the misdirected passion of youth, but no. As you brilliantly expose in depth this second coming of the Cultural Revolution on college and university campuses worldwide is more insidious. Like you also I'm old enough to recall when it was the Right (my university was then very conservative) who blocked the free exchange of ideas and engaged in thought control. At the student newspaper we knew there were subjects our church-related administration would not tolerate.
Now the Left to my horror is playing that role. The right-wing propaganda machine of talk-radio and internet sites (with Murdoch's cable network keeping the old in that fold) are given free ammunition with which to bash both center-left and capital letter Left. The circular firing squad on our side. Do we ever learn?
3
Your daughter’s generation is not the one I’m worried about: its yours (ours, if I’m being honest). Can young people be overzealous in championing values and causes? Often, and that’s been the case throughout history, whether they were protesting poverty, racism, sexism, war, AIDS, apartheid or a host of other problems. Their parents thought they were being excessive in the ‘60s, 70’s etc., but ultimately much more good than bad resulted from the younger generations protests and arguments.
We are the ones who are being intellectually lazy, avoiding accountability, falling into complacency and submissiveness. We now accept bad faith arguments and Luntzian euphemisms as the norm. Brett Stephens implying that only white, English speaking Americans are “ordinary” people is not provocative conservative thought, it is just bigotry. Equating the protesting of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians with Anti-Semitism is simply an attempt to crush debate instead of inviting it. Not recognizing that Jordan Peterson is just an old fashioned dogmatic chauvinist, who is bolstering his positions with feelings rather than logic, demonstrates a lack of rigor rather than openness of thought.
Excuse me if I am not overly concerned by your daughters passionate adherence to her values (which speaks well of her parenting). As I see voting rights attacked, gerrymandering approved, police racism accepted, access to abortion denied, LGBTQ protections reduced etc. I believer we have bigger issues.
10
Bravo, Mr. Kristof! I fully agree with you, even though I am a minority female. It sometimes impresses me that the "knee-jerk liberalism" just keeps winning already won battles, while leaving the hard jobs undone.
2
Kristof is right. The rush to judgement can lead to the very civil right violations that liberals oppose. However Sullivan's dismissal from the rather insignificant position of house dean at Harvard probably has more to do with his conduct as dean than it does with defending Weinstein.
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18626716/ronald-sullivan-winthrop-house-harvard-law-school
1
"To my daughter, of course a house dean should not defend a notorious alleged rapist. As she saw it, any professor is welcome to represent any felon, but not while caring for undergraduates: How can a house leader support students traumatized by sexual assault when he is also defending someone accused of rape?"
I agree with your daughter. If he had not been caring for undergraduates who are raped, it would have been ok to defend Weinstein.
8
American politics is reflecting American society in the Information Age... it's remaking itself, radically. Old catchphrases tired syllogisms out-of-date alliances dysfunctional animosities will all be swept away and some new structure will emerge which now is not apparent but which is as certain as the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening.... except in Alaska of course.
Overall, very well thought out arguments to remind liberals why we are different from conservatives. We need to be able to process the arguments of those we disagree with, if only to counter check our own beliefs in our perspectives.
I would like to listen to the conservative arguments for their points of view. But they don't seem to have any. They just have their point of view.
Example: What is the argument behind the idea of supply side economics or the Laffer curve? After nearly a half century of proof that is does not do what they say it is going to do so called conservatives still just trot out the dogma that cutting taxes for the rich is going to tinkle down on the rest of US.
I have had to turn my back on some old friends and acquaintances who still support t rump. Again, I would have the argument with them but they have no argument. Just cult like adoration.
And I have decided that I do not need any more stupid friends in my old age.
5
As a practicing Christian who supports progressive/‘liberal’ perspectives, I am routinely appalled st the lack of tolerance and sensitivity toward those who struggle with the concept of ‘abortion on demand’ and just write these potential Democrat voters as being ignorant and repressive to personal freedom. Until there is healthy, open-minded dialogue on this important issue, there will division. I believe we need to be less focused on the individual and begin the imagine what is best for the ‘Common Good’, community and the world. #MeToo had too often become #MeOnly.
5
@J. Schad, S.J.
Thanks for this comment, Father. So true.
Couldn't agree more. There are liberal authoritarians, who can proclaim their values but not practice them. It's more than hypocrisy, such folks don't even register their condescension and vacuous superiority. I recall a conversation stopped dead in its tracts because I complimented the military. My conversation partner looked up at me and intoned, "That's immature." So much for all them folks in uniform around the world who read Sun Tzu while playing chess or Go. Tell you daughter to dig deeper into her liberalism and see the contradictions hidden within.
6
There is an excellent (if long) essay on a similar theme at SlateStarCodex: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
Scott Alexander notes that if you already believe that there's nothing wrong with racial, sexual, or gender minorities, then "tolerance" is an incorrect word to describe your attitude. "Tolerance" is for those whom one actually believes to have sinned, which, for today's progressives, means Republicans.
If we see these students as harassing a minority professor to drive him away, then their behavior looks pretty contemptible. That it's based on political rather than ethnic tribalism doesn't make it better.
Yes. During the feminist movement— it was, oh no please don’t represent us with those kind of comments and actions! Yet gratefulness to those who kept their perspective and engaged in the debate. The issues are complicated. And what an incredible disappointment when we thought we’d made great progress and the Bush administration handled 9/11 with such lack of wisdom, and on it goes. 🧗🏻♀️ 🙅🏻♀️🌲
I am on a Greyhound bus heading to take care of my grandson so more later. Keep up the good work.
1
Well yes, you're wrong. That's not liberalism, but simply the ignorance of how our justice system is suppose to work, and the blame for that has been the 50 year Republican war on public education, which has been designed to rob us of our history and to obscure the principle upon which the nation was founded. This is why Republicans can get away with writing book touting "Liberal Fascism".
We expect more intellectual rigor from the Times.
2
The takeaway from Nick Kristof's column: at Harvard, you are no longer innocent until proven guilty; at Cambridge, you cannot object to a proposed Canadian law that changes the use of the English language; at Oberlin, the protection of private property can be properly met with violence. This kind of Liberal overreach will ensure another 4 years of Donald Trump.
13
Among other follies, students objecting to a professor defending Harvey Weinstein are assuming that the man is guilty of serious felonies based upon media accounts. Hence he deserves no defense.
Tell it to the Central Park Five.
3
So-called progressives are anything but...and they’ve done an excellent job of alienating our household of liberal Democrats.
Can’t stand the sanctimonious, wokester virtue-signaling obsession with race and gender identity politics. And their advocacy/cheerleading, ad nauseam, on behalf of illegal migrants over the best interests of the American citizenry is almost seditious.
They’ve driven the Democratic Party over a cliff with so much nonsense. I truly fear for the future of this country if they ever gain majority rule.
11
On the contrary Mr Kristof, liberals/progressives are obviously correct in their views and attitudes, and have the "arc of history" on their side.
They are free to condescend and patronize the knuckle-dragging troglodytes whom they have the misfortune to share the country with.
Their opponents aren't just wrong----they're evil. And evil can't be reckoned with or accommodated---it must be destroyed---right ?
1
@ras I assume this is sarcasm, but these days it's hard to tell.
2
Notice that even within this much needed recognition of knee-jerk liberal overreactions, Mr Kristoff takes a moment to half apologize for being a straight white male. That's how bad it's gotten. "Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword". We've been telling these kids for years that everyone's oppressed, everyone's a victim. How are we surprised that they're acting on it?
9
Unfortunately, you're about 4 decades too late. Your assertion, as you well know, is not even close to being a new moment of clarity. For 40 yrs, the balanced have adjusted their spirit of inclusivity and tolerance, adjusted those again, and yet again. There's a limit to everything, including tolerance for intolerance.
Enough with the self flagellation and brow beating. Let's get our eyes back on the ball, shall we? We can get back to self-examination when we're free of the threat of authoritarianism. You're right---I don't get it, Mr. Kristoff
6
As a 66 y.o. lifelong lib, I'm up to here with knee-jerk, police state leftist fundamentalism, having been personally assaulted by t its holy dogma too, too many times. mostly for the nebulous crime "you made her/him uncomfortable." This time of intolerance is worse than it's counterpart on the right, since it always seems to be couched in self-righteousness and "I know what's best for you" elitism. The undecided middle in America has more than a right to reject this type of ideology. It has an obligation and, God help us, I sure hope they can find the right box to check in November 2020 because it's unclear to me.
9
The fact that you have to add “This column will appall many of my regular readers, and I recognize that all of this is easy for me to say as a straight white mam” says it all. It is not easy to say if you need to qualify it.
5
Wake up and smell the coffee. Your brand of liberalism, if it ever really existed, is dead. Swallowed by BLM, MeTooism, Anti Fa, AOC, Democratic Socialism and the other agents of multi cultural fascism. The Liberal Left has been captured by the “ready, fire, aim” crowd. You have my condolences. 😉.
8
Look like me and I’ll assume
you think like me. Don’t ask.
Don’t look like me, I still will fear
your thinking is a mask.
Fear is at the core of things.
I feel safe saying “NO”.
“YES” should be what gives us wings
and yet we hedge: “Although…”
1
Amen. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Passionate lefty
2
I live in a state and city that has been taken over by "progressive" Democrats. The best the GOP can do is run to Idaho to avoid having legislation of doubtful consequence rammed down our throats. All of this state's cities of any size--the target is always Portland, in reality--are about to have their ability to zone residential areas usurped by the state in the name of the usual "equality" tropes.
I have a young friend who is a summer employee of the Portland Parks Dept (which has managed to dig itself into a $6.5-million hole) subjected to weekly two-hour indoctrination lessons in "Interrupting Oppression," with activities such as "Draw your intersectionality." (This is not a joke.) The list of these nibbles at the edges of utopian collectivism could go on and on--and will.
When the New York Times, chief cheerleader for the woke begins to call for moderation--well, once on that tiger, there's no getting off.
10
As a lifelong liberal Democrat, I am saddened by my party’s increasing intolerance of views that oppose it. Our attitude seems to be: we are right, you are wrong, and you are an idiot for being wrong. Just like Fox News hosts, we have created our own echo chamber of acceptable opinions. I think there is a direct link between our intolerance and Trump’s victory in 2016. If we keep it up, as we seem to be doing, we will lose again next year.
9
I, and most of my brethren in Tennessee, are put-off more by the radical left than we are by anything the president says or does. According to the dems, blame for everything bad should be placed squarely on the shoulders of heterosexual white men. Well, guess what? The voters didn't buy this bologna in 2016 and I bet the farm they won't in 2020.
9
Republicans are tribal, including racists who would purge minorities from the population as the Nazis did, evangelicals who would impose their religious views on everyone, conservatives who think the market is always right, would privatize everything, turn a blind eye to oligopoly and extreme income inequality, and argue that government is the problem. The nationalists insist on an empire-building military that is bankrupting us. Fringe elements of the party love their guns and are too frequently violent.
Each of these tribes is polarizing and authoritarian. “It is tribalism, not the moral tenets and humanitarian thought of pure religion, that makes good people do bad things.” (The Meaning of Human Existence, Edward O. Wilson.) There are already concentration camps on the border.
Trump, the product of the Republican Party, elected with Russian assistance, without the popular vote, panders to these various tribes, attacks all democratic supports. He blocks Congress oversight, avoids Senate confirmation by appointing acting directors, packs the courts with ideologues, placed his personal lawyer as head of the DOJ, attacks the press. Republicans rig elections by gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other techniques.
Republican authoritarians regard climate warnings as a hoax and love their nuclear weapons, they have humanity on a path to suicide.
If Republicans win, forget democracy, the best governing principal in history.
3
Liberals? Dershowitz is one of the few liberals left (and look how he is treated). Liberals have been replaced by progressives who have all the humanity/tolerance of Stalin.
6
Mr. Kristof,
You write: "I recognize that all of this is easy for me to say as a straight white man." This is common liberal cant these days, and I confess I have no idea what it means. I trust that colleagues like Charles Blow and Jamelle Bouie are as clear eyed and fair-minded as you. And I suspect that when you're criticized for this column, much of that criticism will lay the blame for your apostasy on your being a straight, white male. So how exactly does your being a straight, white male make it easy for you to write this? I have a feeling that it actually made it harder.
6
While I do agree that some protests do appear to be nonsensical it would be a grave mistake to paint campus activism as a whole in that light. What this article seems to miss is that protests are often a part of a dialogue, and many have well researched points to support their complaints. In the case of Jordon Peterson for example, his refusal to call students by their pronouns was only part of the problem. He also preached patriarchal ideas in the name of traditionalism and more importantly targeted colleagues as "neo-marxists" creating a hostile environment for both his peers and students.
The author of this article says that students should have just "debated him" ignoring the fact that many people have, and that Peterson's answers in interviews are often intentionally vague. When confronted with flaws in his logic ( his theory of post-modern neo-marxism has been thoroughly taken apart ) Peterson either changes the subject or gets scarily defensive and starts name-calling. Engaging in ideas is a two-way street. Kristof points out that students were not engaging with Peterson's ideas and ignores that Peterson was not truly engaging with the students.
People should be skeptical of both protests and arguments against them. Not that the article itself does this, but don't commit the hypocrisy of calling all protesters closed-off howling intolerant leftists while simultaneously refusing to look into their ideas.
3
I live in a conservative state, so Amy Klobuchar can seem off the charts here! Being an older white Democrat from the South, I can see that my opinion may be suspect. Nevertheless, here goes: I agree with much of what you have said. As we fight against others who rush to judgement, we must be careful not to do the same. There will always be those who are vocal and choose to hate, but let’s strive to keep them in their place and out of our politics.
7
With all respect to the accomplished Mr. Kristof, the idea that "then we have lost our souls" is a fearful concept embedded by the patriarchal christian churches for the maintenance of their well documented exploitation and perversions. The republicans and the right-wing are planning how to win again. The only point of substance in all this is to craft a presentation of liberal values that will win the next elections. Read Thomas Piketty and his expositions of his U-shaped curves. Look up the latest data points on the Keeling Curve. Listen to Elon Musk tell us that it will be acceptable to turn off the stars in the night sky for his definition of the "greater good" almost as in Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God".
2
Nick column, Nick.
I'm not a Trump supporter, but I don't support any of the Dem candidates either, so far.
What amazes me is that the Dems seem to be doing everything they can to increase the likelihood of Trump getting re-elected.
This Oberlin incident is so typical. And the positions taken by the Dem candidates during the debates on immigration issues are tantamount to advocating open borders.
This won't fly in a presidential election.
11
What is progress and what is the nature of progressive? In the name of progress we seem to have lost our societal glue.
4
Humility is a lost virtue. It is easy for people, especially young people who have never walked in someone else's shoes, to be proud and intolerant.
I can't imagine a mob of students embracing violence to kick and beat a bakery manager, immediately assuming they know the truth, the right, and the punishment.
Today's ethos is to "believe" any "credible accusations" and assume someone is guilty, then punish them by whatever means are available. Our predecessors understood the importance of due process, but not today's young folk.
Of course, on the matter of accusation and punishment without proof, the column's author has his own history of telling the tall tale of one woman, and the dark story of another. Just ask Woody Allen.
8
I once had a professor at liberal Rutgers who was an avowed communist, who taught a course on communism and the Soviet Union (largely from his perspective). As a conservative, I found his perspective fascinating and the course worthwhile. The course was also filled with students who had significant social leanings and made it known. I made my own views known, but there was a difference between then and now. My professor solicited all opinions and instead of shutting down my own conservative viewpoints, asked me for the reasoning behind them. In the beginning I remember there was those who tried to interrupt or disparage me, but he would have none of it--even told the others I paid the same in tuition and room and board as they did, so it was my class too.
Sorry to say that day and age has passed. Liberal schools just want to shut down conservative thought and opinion, using "racist' or "misogynist" or even "white supremacist" as their weapons to stifle unpopular views. Amazing how today's liberal universities are becoming more Orwellian, although I doubt they even teach that book in high school anymore.
19
I am very careful not to stereotype all evangelicals. There's a lovely Baptist church in my neighborhood. It's very progressive, run by a husband and wife who are both ordained, and friendly to gay and trans parishioners. They are evangelical too, and they wouldn't support Trump in a million years.
But the right-wing evangelicals who did end up supporting Trump, they're kind of who we thought they were all along.
3
"It’s as wrong to stereotype conservatives or evangelicals as it is to stereotype someone on the basis of race, immigration status or sex."
While I agree that it's generally wrong to stereotype anyone, I don't think these are comparable. Being conservative or evangelical is a direct choice made by that individual that reflects their opinions and values. If someone is supporting the separation of families and the detention of innocent children, how can you expect us not to pass judgement? I think our generation sees these political views as a reflection of an individual's morality, which absolutely warrants our disdain or intolerance.
4
Funny thing is, young people strongly support(ed) Bernie Sanders - and he is an economic liberal not a social liberal. Social justice, environmental justice, political justice and others will be best served as a consequence of economic justice. Old wealthy people, like Kristoff, FEAR economic justice in America.
2
Yes, exactly. What is the real intent of an "offending" university professor, or whoever, including elders who have lived longer than 20 years and God forbid, might know something students don't? Is there real harm intended? I venture to say no. Look at people's actions, not just their words. I'm a writer, and I've learned that words can't totally convey one's meaning. They fall short. So should we all be quiet? Maybe, including entitled protesting students who have little to protest.
1
I think the key point is he one you made that "military emerges from deep frustration at inequities." It specifically emerges from deep frustration that current solutions don't solve problems quickly enough. Although I agree with you that political correctness on campuses has gone way too far, the young progressives you refer to who are sick and tired of the slow pace of change are probably the only ones who are in a position to push for much needed change to happen faster, and with adversaries like Trump and Fox and the South, their "extremism" is understandable.
2
A word about Sullivan from someone who once practiced criminal defense. Assuming there is enough money, the defense in a notorious case will feature a few nationally known lead counsel, each of whom brings something essential. Optics is one of those things. The defense must present exactly the right impression to the public and, eventually, the jury. So why did Weinstein pick Sullivan out of what must have been a huge field? I suspect the optics of Harvard played a part. Sullivan was most likely given the opportunity because he had a unique ability to draw on Harvard’s immense reservoirs of respectability and credibility for Weinstein’s benefit. The Harvard students were right in objecting to this appropriation of their university
7
Mr. Kristof:
Of course the impulse toward moderation is usually a good one. And when liberals are unrestrained in their passions, our reactions are as much related to their passion as they are to the intellectual issues or content. We wish for more restraint.
After all, we, ourselves, don't wish to come off as willful adolescents but as thoughtful adults. It's important to us to see ourselves wrapped in our maturity . . .
But there is a danger in our moderation.
The Supreme Court has just given its imprimatur to excessive partisan gerrymandering. This may be a final dagger through the heart of our democracy. And we're not marching or calling a general strike. Unlike the French, perhaps we're too comfortable or too satisfied with our moderation for that.
So will it be the results of climate change ten years from now that gets action, when we are finally able to throw off the burden of our moderation and take to the streets to save our own lives?
We don't wish to see our actions as outside the norm -- we wish to be viewed as liberal but sensible. But there is nothing sensible in restraint sometimes.
And as the richest, strongest nation on earth, our dithering while democracy and the world burn doesn't help anyone. Is it just that we wish too much to be polite?
JSH
3
I feel you are characterizing many of these incidents as simple and straightforward. They are not.
For example. Think about the deeper ramifications of a professor who says, "I refuse to use your preferred pronoun", to say, a trans kid–someone who's just set off for college to learn, to discover themselves, and who may for the first time be free to express their identity. It's a belligerent stand, and for some it's outright cruel. For the sake of, what, being right? Having the upper hand over your students? What's so injurious about using a preferred pronoun? What's so hard about just taking a few moments to understand why this generation has developed this framework? At its core, it's just about demonstrating a little respect for each other.
3
Professor Peterson, to my knowledge has never said he would refuse to call someone by their preferred pronoun. In his testimony, lectures and interviews he has always been completely clear that his objections were to being “compelled by law” to call someone by a preferred pronoun. He has said, repeatedly, that if someone asked him to use a pronoun other than what might be intuitive to nine out of ten New York, he would consider it. While this might not fit neatly into yours or Mr Kristoff’s narrative, please review the extensive record of his views before twisting his words.
10
@NG Respect is a two-way street.
3
@NG Assume the professor or teacher belongs to a religion that teaches there are only two sexes/genders and it violates that teacher’s religious convictions to use said pronoun — in his eyes, telling a lie or committing a sin. Requiring the teacher to use the pronoun could be seen as forced speech or a violation of his right to practice that religion. He could be rightfully fired for denigrating or belittling the student, but just refusing to use the pronoun doesn’t qualify.
3
and what of the student wrongly accused? Do they not exist on campus? I am still angry about Al Franken, and that action will be a major consideration in my primary vote.
7
I agree with much of what you say but I want to differentiate between having an ideological difference and just being a hater. I am not going to have a debate with someone who just wants to scream Lock Her Up or believes conspiracy theories like the kids at Sandy Hook never existed. I am all for letting somebody express their views but they better have some fact based information or the conversation is over.
3
I sometimes find myself wondering WHO is behind elevating certain cases to being causes célèbre; some of the cases that get highlighted in the news are ones where the aggrieved have demonstrated some pretty reprehensible conduct themselves -- just like this Oberlin situation. Here, the media didn't make this case into headline news, the parties did. But a parallel trend I'm seeing is spinning cases where a "wrong" was done to some one, and it turns out that the victims had a hand in instigating the situation. This is exactly that kind of case. The left needs to get smart enough not to dig in its heels and take things to the mat when their victims have had a hand in some pretty lousy behavior.
2
Thanks for the column. Here's where I take issue. Your examples are all from colleges, and two are from...Oberlin and Harvard. The very same schools that conservatives often trot out as the horsemen of some politically correct apocalypse, or whatever claptrap they come up with. These schools are in a tiny minority among the thousands of colleges nationwide, though admittedly they have outsized influence. When George H. W. Bush first decried the rise of "political correctness," college students were simply saying that the canon of literature and politics and so on should be expanded to include more writers of color and non-Western writers. Conservatives (and some liberals) dismissed that as political correctness -- the very charge of political correctness was largely the reaction of entitled white people who'd never been challenged before. But students were absolutely right, and today literature and other classes are enriched because of it. When students today protest over personal pronouns or what appears to be a racist incident, yes, sometimes they may appear hypersensitive (or focused on minor injustices), but in time, I think, they will be proven right. They are prompting us to rethink gender, and they are examining racism and privilege in their immediate surroundings. Good for them. Colleges -- at least some of them -- are a laboratory for students to try new ideas. There may be some "casualties" you or I don't like, but that's what happens.
3
Sigh! Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Intolerance, whether on the right or left, diminishes us all.
11
I agree with much of what you say but I want to differentiate between having an ideological difference and just being a hater. I am not going to have a debate with someone who just wants to scream Lock Her Up or believes conspiracy theories like the kids at Sandy Hook never existed. I am all for letting somebody express their views but they better have some fact based information or the conversation is over.
4
My only problem with this article is that I think like many articles that discuss these topics it presents a few relatively isolated events as though they represent general life and opinions of liberals on campus and elsewhere. I have no problem with the self criticism; my concern is that often the criticism presents an exaggerated view by ascribing certain events as though it is going on across the entire liberal community.
8
Good piece (a rare moment when I agree with Kristof), but why on earth refer to this particular kind of close-minded activism as "liberal," when it is precisely the opposite?
Those willing to discard the balance inherent in the U.S. Constitution, and other mainstays from the Age of Enlightenment are profoundly illiberal. As Kristof mentions, this intolerance on the academic left is quite similar to that on the Trumpian right.
Recall that just a few days ago, Trump agreed with Putin -- without properly understanding the context -- that Western-style liberalism is obsolete!
It's
2
Shades of Allen Bloom and Dinesh D’Souza.
This column is out of character, Nick. You, along with Charles, are the most reliably liberal of columnists, in contrast to the conservative trinity of Stephens, Brooks, and Douthat. But I understand the source of your anomie.
Oberlin is a liberal arts college with a good music department and a practice of recruiting radical black academics, most of whom it had difficulty retaining. In a red state no less.
No tuition paying student deserves bad sushi, but the institutional defamation and boycotting of Gibson’s Bakery is criminal.
Today, students can be ostracized for not buying into groupthink and declaring themselves ardent activists who challenge structural racism.
Sullivan apparently was not leading Winthrop House effectively and the student protest over Weinstein gave the administration an avenue to relieve Sullivan of his deanship. Full-time faculty should not be permitted to accept outside consultation for compensation.
Kneejerk conservatism forecloses dialogue to a far greater degree by assuming authority from a position of received ignorance (tradition) and espouses unthinking racist, misogynist, and classist attitudes.
‘60s liberals achieved much social good, and if we interpret the ambitions of liberalism effectively, it would go a long way toward improving the tenor of our cultural discourse and eliminating philistine uncouthness.
How lucky Yancey is for being marginalized as a Christian in his cushy academic job.
1
@Andrew Shin
"Full-time faculty should not be permitted to accept outside consultation for compensation."
That's one of those be-careful-what-you-ask-for ideas, just in case you don't realize that.
5
@Karl
You should at least do your interlocutor the courtesy of explaining what you mean. I have no idea what your are insinuating.
Back in the day, the CSU had a policy limiting the amount of work parttime staff were taking on because of the concern over "freeway fliers" and instructors chronically cancelling early. There was no such prohibition for fulltime faculty.
Fulltime faculty salaries are enough to support a family, but it may take a while to save for that vacation house.
This discrepancy is rather hypocritical do you not think?
Sullivan is probably earning in the neighborhood of 500K per annum as a Harvard law professor. Surely most families can scrape by on that. His outside legal work is going to compromise his ability to manage his university responsibilities as faculty and residential dean.
The better way to go would be to have a roster of experienced practicing attorneys teaching parttime, even at Harvard.
2
The biggest thing that concerns me is that, no matter how bad it becomes and how much liberals like Kristol try to highlight it, a significant number of those on the left (whether influential or not) deny that there’s anything worth worrying about.
Just this week, a journalist on the right was assaulted viciously by antifa, yet this went uncovered in the mainstream media. And, most liberals would respond to this just by putting the word journalist in scare quotes, essentially condoning violence against those deemed insufficiently woke.
9
While the assault on this guy was unpardonable, it doesn’t seem to have been carried out by Antifa. Looks like the usual masked anarchist types busted into the march lie and started swinging.
I googled it; the story certainly made NPR and many others. Of course it was heavily reported by the right-wing media—but I wouldn’t exactly call them a crowd with much to brag about when it comes to reporting all the news.
2
When you get worked into a lather over sushi, it's much easier to have people dismiss you when you oppose keeping kids in dirty cold cages.
8
"This column will appall many of my regular readers, and I recognize that all of this is easy for me to say as a straight white man.". . .so what? sounds like an apology for thinking and being a straight white man.
9
I know this looks trivial, but Kristof and many commenters think "university" and "college" are synonymous. They are not, and Oberlin College deserves respect for not following the herd by renaming itself a "university". (This is not a general defense of Oberlin. The shoplifting matter does not deserve respect.)
2
>"It’s a difficult balance, requiring intellectual humility. Don’t tell my daughter, but she has a point..."<
Wait, what??? I'm sure this was an attempt at humor, but it seemed far out of place in a column of this gravity; just plain weird.
1
One interesting point is comments about Race. Kamala Harris had two parents one from South India the other from Jamaica. Obama had an American Whilte Mother and a Kenyan Born father. Both are generally considered Black. To me Kamala doesn't have typical Black skin features but Obama does. As a child she looked more like the stereotype. If African-American means descendant of Slaves then African-American is not accurate for either. If its a cultural thing or general regard both are black as is the history of treatment. Trump Jr. was right to be confused. There is no clear objective definition of what being African-American is to which all agree.
6
Here’s the thing about racism like Trump’s: racism doesn’t draw fine distinctions, or any distinctions at all.
It’s always based on a simple binarism: is you, or is you ain’t.
Trump Jr. wasn’t “confused.” He was passing on a racist tweet, which he then yanked, probably so he could have his ugly little cake and eat it too.
1
Mr. Krisotof, I think you are a progressive, but quite close to the center. In these times, when neo-Nazis are attacking, killing and urging more attacks on immigrants, Jews, non-whites I don't subscribe to defending their rights to spew race-hatred and incite. It's great and necessary to discuss events of the day and the big issues, but we also have an obligation to reach conclusions, make decisions and act on those.
2
1. This kind of loopy intolerance and puritanism has been part of the Left since the days of Orwell and the POUM at least.
2. It’d be interesting to figure out its specific political and idiological origins; some of it’s just mob mentality, but some of it’s near the heart of Marx et al.
3. I swear that half the leftish yelling is guilt and the search for alibis—it’s the MEDIA! It’s Big Oharma! It’s Obama! It’s neo-libs!—by people who have the sneaking feeling that they probably shoulda voted.
4. I also swear that half these folks’ll be right-wingers in twenty years, doing the David Frum Dance about the evils of the radicalism they frequented as children. They’re halfway there already, what with the slavish imitations of Trump.
5. Once in a while, it’d be nice to see a little look at right-wing and Christian fundamentalist intolerance and intellectual repression. Because compared to that PC-ness, even Antifa is pikers.
These days we teach and we preach the importance of passion. Unfortunately, when we skip directly to being passionate about something we often skip over some pretty important stuff. I say master both sides of any debate and then make an argument. The argument will be stronger, you will avoid shooting yourself (and your cause) in the foot, and you will have avoided committing acts of "slactivism".
I am on the side of your daughter. Free speech is fine, assault is not. Hate speech is on campus to assault the weak, and help the mainstream (that would be the ethnic and religious nationalists) make others uncomfortable.
College students are protesting against "free" speech from hate mongers because it is not speech, it is an assault, it promotes violence, and we have plenty of evidence to suggest a direct link between speech and public hysteria.
So if Giuliani wants to preach hatred toward blacks ("Obama is not one of us") - he should be disbarred, not taken up as a cause by likes of you.
People are free to swing their arms, in their yards. Or do you invite them to your house where your nose begins and request them to swing their arms?
See, I didn't think so.
Hate mongers - stay out of college campuses. In the same way as people having sex may no do it openly on stage. I am sure that has an audience too. You have FOX, AM radio, churches and you have appreciative audiences composed of wannabe slave traders or slave owners looking for someone to lynch.
So, all you paper tigers out there (mostly old white males) who have no idea what it is like being a minority student on campus - take a hike. Go preach to the audiences of wannabe slave owners and slave traders. A generation ago, you were suggesting that blacks will eventually be able to live like human beings in some distant future, but for your present, segregation is okay.
Like I said: get a life.
3
@Kalidan There is no such thing as hate speech legally in this country. There is popular and unpopular speech and public colleges and universities are precisely where unpopular speech must be allowed, along with debate and counter speech. If you disagree with something, say so loudly. Get others to join you. You don’t have the right to suppress speech in the public square. Incitement to violence or physical violence is, of course, illegal but it’s also nearly impossible to get a judge to agree something qualifies as incitement.
6
First step to ending this PC madness: quit apologizing for being a straight white male. As if you had any choice in the matter anyway. This ongoing trend where your gender, skin color or sexual preference somehow makes you more virtuous is pure nonsense. Straight white men have done plenty of good things in the world too.
16
Biden talks about busing and "knee jerk liberalism".
4
Beantown/Cambridge has come a long way from that time when John Adams defended Captain John Goldfinch and the 7 British solders in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre. Such regression from the freedom of free speech and due process he practiced after the "Incident" is shocking and unAmerican. Shame on you Harvard.
2
I predict that many of the people that read this op-ed will take it as an argument defending climate change denial, racism, and rape. Oh, wait, I don’t have to predict. Their are already more than 800 published comments. Just have to count ‘em up. Never mind.
The ABC reporter Sam Donaldson, a self-described liberal and proud of it, once defined liberalism as "tolerant of everyone, except people who are intolerant."
4
This is what comes from too much writing and too little reading. Otherwise, Kristof would have known by now that the conflict this year about Sullivan representing Weinstein was by no means the only reason Harvard did not renew his appointment as faculty dean of Winthrop House. He had been renewed once, despite problems in his leadership, but those continued and got worse. With the confrontation over his representation of Weinstein and the way he handled it, it became untenable to keep him on for yet another five-year term. In other words, it was the last straw, not the root cause.
All of this has been widely written about and reported on. Kristof should better inform himself, so that he doesn't misrepresent actions for the sake of making a point.
4
Robert Sullivan's right to provide for the defense of clients he chooses shouldn't be in dispute, and no one prevented him from practicing his profession as he saw fit. But as I read through the article that was linked, I came to believe his complaint was one that belonged within the Harvard community, not an issue that deserved to be litigated from the op-ed page of a national newspaper. His role at Winthrop House wasn't part of his legal work or his academic position at Harvard. It was an entitlement well within the university's power to extend or rescind. I'm surprised to find myself defending Harvard University in this; but there I am. While I agree with your larger point, not all campus controversies can be fit within the same template. Mr. Sullivan's position wasn't the only "reasonable" one in this case. Others also had valid points to make -- and made them convincingly, it seems.
1
In the university that I teach at a fellow faculty member was called out by students as racist. After a long investigation by the school he was ordered to take racial sensitivity classes. This, after 20 years of stellar and sensitive service to all students. I later learned that these students had called him out because of his inability to pronounce the African name of a currently popular culture worker, The fact that he knew of and recommended this person notwithstanding.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Is the fact that a body burns when tied to a burning stake enough proof of guilt in call out culture?
533
@Heide Fasnacht
this kind of thoughtless bullying is why trump got elected...
59
I’m a progressive democrat (17 years old) and I see this knee jerk liberalism antagonize young republicans all the time, largely stemming from the focus on identity politics. I strongly believe in the need for a focus on identity, but it all too often comes at the cost of being overly antagonizing. We need to approach it in a way of convincing people by listening and being respectful to them instead of making them feel attacked, even if we disagree with their beliefs.
I personally think the GOP likes to overgeneralize all liberals as identity-politics-focused, and this leads to a lot of young conservatives misrepresenting all Democrats as identity-politics-focused, which only gets confirmed once they see one of these people.
I have a few conservative (some are trump supporter) friends because I want to hear their opinion even if I disagree with it. I’ve definitely changed their mindset on certain topics, such as recognizing when they are being insensitive, just as they’ve changed my viewpoint on topics like the culture that is built around guns. All of our opinions are just one viewpoint representing our unique experiences in life. we all need to realize that our viewpoint is not the same one everyone else has, and that this is okay.
294
@AP
Thanks for your perspective. Clearly you are one who thinks about issues and probes beyond the surface. One suggestion: viewpoints and opinions are a reflection of the values we hold and it is wise for all of us to probe and reevaluate what those values are so we not only know that for which we stand, but WHY we stand for those ideals/ideas. Reflection isn't common in today's culture, so kudos to you for your thoughtfulness.
23
@AP Problem is "identity politics" has been used as a club against us conservatives, usually with accompanying terms like "racist" or "misogynist" if we disagree. Now when I hear those words hurled they don't mean much, just that some liberal was offended by something.
27
Oberlin graduate here, early 70s. Got a fine education. In selecting a college back then, the term "liberal" denoted to me free speech, fairness and careful attention to argument. shouts that so and so was a "fascist" or "racist" were fairly few and far between and reflexive action pretty infrequent. There were, in fact, conservative faculty members. Outnumbered, yes, but still respected.
In 2019, all that seems to have changed. I watch, from a distance, aghast at what my alma mater has become. Were I choosing a school now for myself, it would not be Oberlin. Were I a parent looking at paying astronomical sums to educate my son, I would send him to West Point or Annapolis, if possible, or at least a publicly supported university.
270
I too am an Oberlin graduate from the early 1970's and I share your sentiments. I well remember being told in freshman orientation that one of the primary functions, if not the primary function, of a liberal arts education was to teach students to consider all viewpoints and to reach their own conclusions - to think for themselves in other words. Oberlin in that era was well known for the critical thinking skills it provided its graduates. What has happened is an embarrassment for the school and its alumni.
52
@Charles Axilbund
I, too, was an early 1970’s Oberlin graduate, but I remember things differently. I remember the students demonstrating and preventing a CIA officer from coming to campus to speak and to recruit for the agency. I remember the leaders insisting that since the CIA was engaging in immoral activities (no doubt true...that’s part of their job), they had no right to be on campus. My question, “Wouldn’t it be a more powerful statement if the CIA could come on campus but few students freely chose to attend?” was ignored.
I don’t think this is a case of “boy things have changed and the place has gone to hell in a hand basket since I graduated.” Young people tend to view the world much more in a good/evil dichotomy (me included). That is observation, not criticism. The wisdom to see the world as more complex comes with more experience. But the moral outrage of youth helps keep us oldsters from getting too complacent and accepting what should be unacceptable.
31
I am an Oberlin graduate from the 80s. My kids are not quite yet looking at colleges, but Oberlin will not be on the list. It's unfortunate, because I made wonderful life-long friends there, but the current climate is hostile and shaming and not a place I am willing to spend an enormous amount of money to support. There are consequences to becoming a place of intolerance and censorship, and one is that people who most value a liberal education (liberal in both the philosophical AND political sense) will not want to support it.
41
Mr. Kristof, your column has much to commend it. However, I have one nit to pick, i.e., your statement "Liberals sometimes howl when this newspaper brings in a conservative columnist or publishes a sharply conservative Op-Ed."
Overall, I would argue that most commenters don't howl against conservative columnists, per se, but rather, in the Trump era, at their too-frequent resort to false equivalencies, misrepresentations, and, yes, lies.
By the way, thanks for responding to those who have taken the time to seriously respond to your columns.
2
I read multiple news sources (national and international), regularly check in at Fox and Breitbart, and listen to my red-state relatives express their views. After 50 years of this, I've had to conclude that they have little curiosity or concern about the world outside the people that they think are like themselves.
They can't understand why Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, might deserve timely restoration of electricity or running water when "they look clean" on TV while washing from a fire hydrant.
They can't understand why reasonable people might object when Trump automatically labels people of color as anchor babies, low IQ, invaders, and drug dealers, and
cages and separates children from their families.
They can't understand why cutting millions of people off of health insurance might make it harder to solve the opioid crisis, improve our infant mortality rate, or improve the ability of children to learn.
It isn't for lack of sincere effort on the part of many liberals to reach other people where they are. Some people are not reachable, and we have to conserve our time and energy for the people who are reachable. It just happens that most of the reachable people are young-thinking people of all ages.
I wasn't certain before today, but I'm with your daughter.
They can't understand that
1
This is a VERY timely and well written column. The trends identified by Mr. Kristof have been in development for quite a long time but have been given a shot of steroids in the age of Trump. In the realm of pubic discourse social media has become weaponized and the most extreme and least thought out views tend to receive the most traction on all sides of the argument. If the horrors of the past century have taught us anything, they teach us to beware of loud and extreme viewpoints that fail to consider the nuances of real life experience. These are dangerous times and if the Democratic party permits itself to be overtaken by left wing hysteria and total demonization of those with different view points, Trump gets 4 more years. Then what?
3
I sympathize with students speaking out against injustice, even when their concerns may be overstated. But these days there is a nasty trend of demonizing individuals and actively attacking their livelihoods when a small group of students takes issue with that person. Demands that a professor lose a position (which includes family housing) or accusations that a local business is racist because a confessed shoplifter was black (in which a university administrator took active part) go far beyond a consumer boycott of a corporation.
Many students today act as self-righteous mobs, which undermines the strength of their arguments, and too many universities pander to them from fear. Meanwhile, most college students are amazingly passive and silent on pressing social justice issues. I believe the loudness, venom and anger of the activists' voices drive other students away and prevent them from becoming allies, as they fear any misstep will make them the next target. If the liberal left wants to increase turnout and support among younger voters, which could swing many elections, the adults in that wing need to find a way to respond to activists that doesn't silence them OR their less outspoken peers. When someone like Prof. Sullivan and his wife, the FIRST African-American faculty deans of a house, get thrown under the bus by liberal students, something is wrong.
The left should also beware of being manipulated into turning against each other, which we know happened in 2016.
278
@Dean
What I wrote in my comment on the column also constitutes an answer to this comment: "This is what comes from too much writing and too little reading. Otherwise, Kristof would have known by now that the conflict this year about Sullivan representing Weinstein was by no means the only reason Harvard did not renew his appointment as faculty dean of Winthrop House. He had been renewed once, despite problems in his leadership, but those continued and got worse. With the confrontation over his representation of Weinstein and the way he handled it, it became untenable to keep him on for yet another five-year term. In other words, it was the last straw, not the root cause. All of this has been widely written about and reported on. Kristof should better inform himself, so that he doesn't misrepresent actions for the sake of making a point."
16
@pb The representation of Weinstein should not have had *any* effect on Sullivan’s employment. That’s the point. If there were legitimate reasons for termination, go with that. The inclusion of the Weinstein issue should not be “the last straw”. It should be irrelevant.
49
Natasha and I live in a university town and are better acquainted with the academic community than we ever wanted to be. Although we are well educated professionals, we aren't professors and we've frequently felt the sting of condescension from the professorial class. When we mentioned that to the friendly wife of a professor, she simply replied, "academic royalty." We have very liberal views but feel very alienated from fellow progressives because of the waves of inflexible pedantic dogmatism that has become the progressive weapon of choice.
That inflexibility was on full display in this week's democratic debates. Although we were thrilled with the Democrats' aggressive left turn, we began to wonder if they were trying to throw the election. We approve of all the goals but understand that most aren't actually achievable You can't outlaw human nature. Republicans understand this and exploit it. If we don't have some understanding and compassion for human fallibility, we're going to suffer four more years of the infinitely fallible Donald Trump.
357
Despite being a progressive, I live in an extremely conservative, deeply evangelical area of the country. Since Trump's election, I have struggled to understand how those who purport to be people of faith can support this president. As a result, no casual conversations ever stray to the topics of politics or religion else I might lose my decades-old neighborly acquaintances. Dare I say many of us on the right and the left have any reasoned language to discuss these topics with each other? A valued friend with whom I share a common interest also happens to be staunchly conservative. I don't want to forfeit that particular relationship because those with whom I share my political views expect me to adopt this growing posture of liberal intolerance. Yesterday, on social media, someone I admire called for the New York Times to shut down for publishing Bret Stephens' latest op-ed. So, now mainstream media can't even publish differing points of view? I am in the camp of Kristof's so-described liberal boomers who may not have liked what Stephens said but defend to the death his right to say it. Authoritarianism is wrong, whether it is marshaled from the right or the left. Intolerance is wrong, whether embraced by conservatives or liberals. No one ever changed anyone's mind by telling them what to think. I appreciate hearing viewpoints other than my own on this forum sans namecalling and screaming, and too few avenues currently exist for that.
417
Mr. Kristof, I recently retired from more than three decades as a university professor, and I left none too soon. Students arriving on campuses nowadays are often already heavily indoctrinated into either left-leaning progressives who are ready to pounce the moment a pronoun is used incorrectly (according to them) or seriously reactionary conservatives who think liberals are snowflakes.
I'd like to know if you have any concrete suggestions about how to end this polarization.
306
@Emile. I recommend a year of civil service in a real-life situation before they enter college.
77
Those who are perpetually morally outraged seem to feel as if that outrage makes them moral. It doesn't. Moral outrage, if it isn't tethered with moral humility, is narcissism. It also often takes the form of tribalism.
No human being is totally innocent. Humility is a very underrated virtue these days, on the right and the left.
662
Extraordinarily good comment! Thank you. No, moral outrage does not make one moral. Not at all. Virtue signaling does not make one virtuous.
Maybe we could all just acknowledge that life is hard, everyone is doing their best to get their own needs met, and our most useful endeavor is to care for ourselves, our plant and our fellow humans. And none of us are really all that good.
73
Great comment. Yeah, it’s easy as piece and costs absolutely nothing to join a Facebook mob and feel like you’ve done something.
45
@Phil
I serve on the Board in a condo. Owners are coming up to me all the time with a complaint or idea. I listen and them tell them to send an email to the Board or come to a meeting, I can't actually do something with something I was told in the parking lot. It has to be on-record. They never do. They think because they told me they have done something. They haven't. Nobody want to do the work.
40
It was great to read today's article.... giving credible voice to smoldering thoughts. It reminds me of my college days in the 60's when the peers felt so veering to one side that I had taken to declaring myself a conservative. I no longer do the counter balancing act but am very glad to have the likes of Nicolas Kristof make cogent arguments in print, expressing what I feel. I sympathize with the need to go to extremes as an answer to the intolerable mess we are in currently, but actually doing it gives support and ammunition to the wrong side.
1
As an Oberlin alum, I share many of Mr. Kristof's concerns. The college has become a place of intolerance and eagerness for conflict. Discourse is censored in the Oberlin community, even now extending to its alumni Facebook page where monitors screen all comments before they can be seen and delete those that criticize the college or raise controversial topics about the school. Contrarian views at Oberlin are seen as evidence of moral failure, not different perspectives. I come from a family of strong Left values, going back generations to when we first came to this country. A lot of sacrifices were made for those values, and a lot of sacrifices were made to send me to Oberlin. I have great deal of pride for the sacrifices my family made for those Leftist causes, including labor rights and women's rights. But I now regret the sacrifices that were made to send me to a college that has become so angry, intolerant, and hostile, even to its own community, even to its own alumni. I have a short list of colleges that I am simply unwilling to pay for my own kids to attend. Sadly, Oberlin is now on that list. This is not the direction the Left should be taking at a critical time in education, in social issues, and in this country.
6
I am an Oberlin College graduate. There have always been town/gown tensions, as well as serious racial tensions, at Oberlin. Lately, discussions about the Middle East have been soaked in such intolerance that Jewish students feel uncomfortable on campus. One thing is constant, though: The faculty and much of the administration are completely clueless as to how to handle the tensions so that the situations are calmed, rather than exacerbated. Note that in this case, it was faculty participation in protests outside Gibsons that contributed to the enormous fine. Kids will be kids; students are passionate, etc. but there are grown-ups in a university, too, and at Oberlin they are part of the problem. I am ashamed of my alma mater.
401
@wendybook
As a retired trial lawyer, when I read about that verdict my gut wondered if there was a bit of town/gown tension going on in the jury room. Similarly, when I read Oberlin’s version of the facts it smelled of big law firm spin, something that juries can see right through. The case brings to mind that old saw about the court of public opinion.
31
@wendybook Good riddance. A third rate school goes bankrupt is a well deserved fate. Not sure if it’s news.
13
Oberlin is a lot of things, but third-rate is not one of them.
34
As a long time liberal, former lawyer and college professor, iI agree with you. It all reminds me of the late Al Capps and his clever take on college students in the 1960's- Students Wildly Indignant About Everything (SWINE).
Intolerant liberalism is no better than intolerant conservatism. I'm proud that my sons have strong liberal values, but that they are able to listen to other opinions and then make rational arguments to support their points of view.
406
@Happy Camper
Well, yes, but let’s remember that the young are just discovering ideas. The ability to appreciate nuance comes later.
19
@Happy Camper
oops. Students Wildly Indifferent about Nearly Everything. that's how he got to the acronym SWINE.
My fingers were ahead of my brain.
8
@Happy Camper
I agree with you and Nickolas but what's fascinating to me is how "liberal" values have been turned 180* by the right. In the '70s libs supported "free speech" like the US Nazi party's plan to protest in Skokie IL. Now our children repress any opinion that they disagree with.
In past decades libs supported each person's right to worship how and where they wish. Now, the right asserts each person's right to live in accordance with their religious beliefs.
Watch what you wish for.
19
I completely agree with everything Mr. Kristoff said. I have felt the rise of intolerance in my own chest as a thumping heart, and then I have realized I was responding to an incorrect assessment of a situation. I am a rape survivor, but that does not mean all men or even half of men are sexual predators. The actual evidence shows that few men are sexual predators, and another small number above that are incapable of self-control for specific reasons peculiar to each man. The rest are men who can be reached and sexual transgressions don't occur with them. The cases Mr. Kristof mentions are key evidence that in those specific cases imagined racism and cultural appropriation were at work, not real injustices. The only thing I can say in defense of young people on campus is that they are young and hopefully they will learn that their thumping hearts may be in the right place but the mental framework causing the thumping is not. I wish that realization hits the rest of us right in the mind where it can do some good.
772
@TDHawkes I like your take on my column. I share your sense that the student activists have their hearts in the right place, and I admire the passion to make the world a better place. It's just that good intentions are not enough, and that we need to watch our blind spots and be relentlessly empirical in weighing evidence. Thanks for your fairness.
512
@Nicholas Kristof I'm afraid that social media compounds the intolerance of young people. The algorithms show them only stories that appeal to their beliefs (and outrage) and they surround themselves online with people who think like they do. They do not read newspapers or magazines and it seems that they just don't get the exposure to other people with differing viewpoints that they need. It used to be that maybe a college campus would be the place, but clearly that is less likely these days as well.
168
@Nicholas Kristof
My screensaver is an color illustration of 5 sheep nearing the edge of a cliff. One sheep has already tumbled over. This, sadly, is how we receive information. That is, we believe what we are told! It is natural to tumble off the cliff, only to find out the next day that what we had thought was true was only partly true, or indeed false.
25
Virtually all of the pundits who weighed in on the Sullivan controversy have misunderstood the reason he lost his "secondary job." Part of that job required him to be the contact person for any students in his dorm with issues of sexual harassment or assault.
Sullivan himself recognized this was incompatible with taking a third job defending Harvey Weinstein, so he sent a letter to all the students in his dorm informing them that they should take such issues to a different faculty member.
In other words, he decided he didn't want to do part of the job he was being paid for. So Harvard decided to give that job to someone else.
(This is leaving aside the obvious conflict-of-interest issue that should have disqualified him from representing Weinstein in the first place.)
3
Mr. Kristoff, I ragree with what you are saying here. I am solidly liberal, but I am 72 and I find much concern about what is called "cultural appropriation" to be a pain in the neck. Over most of my life cooking the food of other cultures was cultural appreciation. Through cooking the food of other nationalities, we learned about their culture and came to appreciate that they shared our human perception of what is good. And if some restaurants presented a poor rendition of foreign food, knowledgeable customers simply distinguished between "authentic" and "ersatz" renditions. The most talented chefs could do variations on cultural themes that reminded us that all good cooking once arose from some one who broke tradition. These days were supposed to boycott, smear, denounce restaurants "cultural appropriation"? (I recall such an issue over a Mexican restaurant.) This is just another way that student rebellion duplicates the narrowness it purports to be rebelling from. But I support students rejecting speakers on campus that spread malignant messages. There came a time when a cigarette manufacturer could no longer get advertisements in a newspaper claiming that cigarettes did not harm health. Why, today, can climate change deniers still get articles in newspapers? Clearly maleficent things should be rejected. Students are putting their foot down on things my generation tolerated for too long, and one example is the BDS movement that has caused a lot of campus strife.
Just another 'both sides to blame" column, minimizes what Republicans have been doing to truth and our democracy for 25 years. I would point to a 90's cover of Time magazine, with Newt and Rush on the cover, and the question, is demonizing the Democrat opposition and killing compromise good for America? No, it has brought us Trump, unrelenting attacks by the right on democracy, and a fact and science denying GOP.
4
@Winston Smith No, that is not a fair reading of the column. Kristof is not saying that both sides are to blame or denying the fact that Newt and his Newt-niks jump-started the current dysfunction of our political discourse and that the Republican power structure is dedicated to keeping the dysfunction alive. He is warning fellow liberals not to adopt any of the worst traits of those who are to blame.
1
What's wrong with eating sushi?
The Harvard story has been talked about more than once. Rumor has it that Sullivan's tenure at Winthrop was less than perfect as housemaster. There were many complaints about Sullivan's behavior having nothing to do with Weinstein. Harvard removed an unpopular housemaster using Weinstein as cover. Noteworthy it never explained his dismissal. This is not a good case for an excess of Knee-Jerk liberalism. Likely Sullivan should have been removed in any event.
3
Well said.
Would you prefer knee jerk Conservatism like illegal Iraq War 2, or how bought that knee jerk conservatism on immigration?
Yes liberals shoot themselves in the foot sometimes but the idea is not to kill but to nurture!
Can you say the same about american conservative icons?
3
Nobody ever said being a liberal automatically makes you smart.
1
Biden taks about busing and mentions "knee jerk liberalism".
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/736995314/listen-biden-supported-a-constitutional-amendment-to-end-mandated-busing-in-1975
this, 100%
The intolerance of liberals has become stifling. Any deviation from current dogma is met with accusations of racism and naziism. It sometimes feels very much like Soviet or Chinese communism, or a religious cult. By the way, I find that this "intellectual totalitarianism" is not limited to the young. I've encountered it in many older people, even seniors, who should know better.
8
To many of the responders and Mr. Kristof: thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm a liberal boomer who works in arts and education mostly with people in their 20s and 30s. Lately, I've been feeling more and more out of touch because idea exchanges and open discussions with them have become impossible if one wants to remain on good terms.
This "thought isolation" has begun to make me feel like a stranger in a strange land, doubting my own analytical ability--the way it feels to be gaslighted. I'm so glad to see a glimmer of hope that I'm not alone.
11
I graduated from Oberlin college before I went to law school. As an attorney, I have been one of about a dozen attorneys in my area that tirelessly represent sex offenders from constitutionally questionable indefinite confinement after their prison terms expire. (The State calls it civil commitment.). These allegedly recidivistic sex offenders are about as unpopular clients as you can get. Of my limited colleagues willing to zealously take on this work, 3 of us are Oberlin graduates. And I do credit my experience at Oberlin with teaching me to question government action against the most unpopular, and advancing my willingness to fight it.
4
Liberalism has had a dramatic shift from class-based politics over to identity politics because (I theorize) liberalism has no good or viable answers to economic problems. Factories being closed down for everyone? Let's talk about white privilege. Wages stagnant and declining? Let's talk about trans bathrooms. Civilization facing total collapse in 20 years because of the negative externalities in fossil fuels? We need to have a "conversation" about rape culture. These things are worth talking about, but come on, less have some perspective. The other things matter oh so much more. The problem is that to deal with the big problems, you have to restructure the economy and take back from the wealthy. Let's just talk about being more sensitive the feelings of "marginalized communities."
10
The story about the blind men and the elephant comes to mind. The electoral winners will be those with the most convincing story of what the elephant actually looks like.
Ideology is a meaningless concept as virtually everything anyone believes is ideological. We are in an ideological whirlpool that no one can tame, try as they might. The rigid become more rigid and Diversity is a relatively new ideology that no one seems to actually understand.
The very analysis of ideological positions always lags behind their appearance. This means that lies and misdeeds can consume the energy and focus of ideological watchdogs and keep them blind and trapped in a reactive mode. When ideology becomes reality is when we are in the deepest trouble. (War on Drugs, Welfare Reform, and mass foreclosures on single family homes, just to name a few.)
Walter Benjamin had something important to say to us as well when he described the Germans in the 1930's as exiled in the present. Freud also had something to say about this, but, of course, Freud is not PC anymore.
The inmates have been running the asylum ever since Ronald Reagan closed the state mental hospitals.
Our political institutions should be designed to foster imperfect compromise, so our policies land somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum.
I know that may be appalling to both the "woke" as well as the "red pill" crowd, but the whole point of democracy is we hash things out through something approaching consensus.
On the other hand, progressive liberals are seriously calling for court packing. A scheme so egregious and potentially destructive to the legitimacy of the government that it would be a watershed moment--marking the descent of American politics into total war.
3
“Progresssive liberals,” is at present an oxymoron.
2
My friend and I are both older millenials in our early/mid 30s. I work in business she works in the entertainment industry. When we met many years ago I'd say we were both equally liberal. At that time, it was pretty unpopular to be in favor of gay rights, legalization of marijuana and other policies that seem pretty mainstream right now.
We still see each other once or twice a year. We had an interesting conversation because we were talking about Trump and racism and the issues that came up because of the election.
She was (naturally) upset by the election results and as was I but this lead to her talking about how she is in favor of "calling out" and aggressively confronting Trump supporters and anyone who says anything she finds wrong.
I asked her if she knew any Trump supporters. She said no. I told her that me and my husbands family are like 70% Trump supporters give or take. My dear grandma is one of those people she wants to call out. I told her that Trump supporters are nuanced and we'd get further having a conversation. If my grandma says something I don't agree with we talk about it. It's a lot better than painting them all as an enemy and criticizing their character or putting them on the defensive. I may never make my grandma love immigrants but I think I've given her some things to think about. I hope I can say the same for my friend.
7
I grew up near and worked in NY City in the 1970’s and 1980’s, so I already knew Donald Trump is the antithesis of everything that I consider make up a decent human being - but those are personal faults.
After every election I make a point of finding as many people as I can who voted differently than I did. I ask each of them why they made the choices they made. I don’t debate - I listen.
I’m not omniscient and sometimes I get a bit of understanding as to the concerns and motivations of people who think differently than I do. I rarely agree, but that’s not the point of my exercise to begin with.
I find it incredible that we’re now in a place where many of us actually hate people before we ever meet them just because they have a different political viewpoint than our own and where the word “compromise” has become synonymous with betrayal.
If we can’t learn to get back to working together despite our differences, then we will fully deserve whatever disaster we create for ourselves.
12
Very strong column. I do not expect there will be many of us who will want to speak up as Mr. Kistof does, and the issues he discusses. So glad I don't have children still in college.
This is going to be a horrendous election for many liberals. What do you do when there is no one you want to vote for because of the Democratic candidates' reinforcement of this odd trend. Where is the ACLU? Dark days, but things always change. I am really sad about the likelihood of four more years of Our current presdient.
10
The ACLU is a private non-profit that relies upon dedicated supporters who expect it to stand up for their preferences. It’s a fact that in dealing with the ACLU who you are and who likes you is more important than the merits of your case.
1
Keep in mind that for college students, especially ones in rural areas like Oberlin College, the campus and its immediate surroundings become the students' entire world. From that perspective, the slights they complain about take on a much larger significance as they seek to ensure their little world reflects their values. As adults, we know there's a larger perspective to be taken into account, as it should be. Why the college supported all this is beyond me and deserves sanction, though not a windfall of $44 million.
6
"This column will appall many of my regular readers".
I am not appalled. On the contrary, I welcome your article and think it should be more of those voices who point to our (liberal) blind spots. This is why I often read Mr. Stephen's columns, although I disagree on most of his ideas, but I appreciate his intellect and eloquence. I realised a long ago that if I want to consider myself liberal, I need to train my "muscle" for tolerance.
5
The left is focusing on defeating the right. They feel that they are not in a democratic competition over resolving common concerns but a struggle for the power to control the country. Just like the right, they actually have no sensible appreciation that the power to govern in this country is a result of the consensus of those governed, not some military and police force as in dictatorship enabling them to impose their will over rest of the people. Our liberties really are crucial to having a democratic government that works for all. Liberties do not survive many conditions limiting them.
4
Thank you for exposing the truth of overzealous political correctness and the silencing of the opposition by the liberal set. If the current trend continues it will drive the moderates right.
11
As a boomer who received an ROTC scholarship in the late 60's I well remember both the social upheaval caused by Vietnam as well as the spray painted graffiti on the Social Sciences building that said "All power to the people" to which someone had appended "As long as they agree with me". Your thoughtful article had me asking "Has anything really changed?" Well ... yes. I, as well as the country, am now decidedly more liberal. Yet my liberalism is shaped by my time as as ROTC undergraduate during turbulent times. I support Harris, Warren, Buttigieg, et. al. but follow Jonah Goldberg not because I usually agree with him (I don't) but because he, like you, writes well and thoughtfully. My point is that we - be that people or society - evolve. It is a messy, nasty business, evolution. But do not worry over the soul of liberalism for it is growing and evolving. I think it fair to characterize Jonah Goldberg as worrying over the soul of Conservatism because it isn't.
5
There’s no doubt that both ends of the political spectrum can be guilty of “prickly intolerance” but conflating the recent episode at Oberlin with the other examples is mistaken.
The Oberlin story exposes a clear rush to judgement that, however well-intentioned, is clearly wrong based upon the facts of the case.
But the perceived pushback received by Professor Yancey, the black evangelical, may be rooted more in the defense of academia’s role to encourage a dialogue of ideas not dogma. By definition, faith- based belief does not lend itself, or it’s practitioners, to a truly open exchange.
Likewise, if one is permitted to question the Sullivan incident using the argument that there is a perceived conflict of interest given Professor Sullivan’s role on campus, then is it not permissible to do likewise with Professor Yancey, who’s avowed evangelical beliefs are clearly at odds with the mission of a university?
More importantly, the very act of debating opposing viewpoints by the academic community implies that both are valid and worthy of our sincere consideration. This is why we don’t expect to see a university to sponsor a flat-earth symposium - there’s no merit to the arguments of the other side.
Though you are correct, Mr. Kristof, that “We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views,” that is simply not possible if the existence of a compromised viewpoint is removed from the discussion at the outset.
4
Mr. Kristof, I agree with your assessment of knee-jerk liberalism and loved your comment, "if you want to win an argument, you have to allow the argument." As a 1968 graduate of Oberlin, and as someone with a son there right now I know how left-wing voices can dominate discussions.
But, the heart of the issue is whether the college administration defamed the bakery by aiding the student protests. I'd refer you to a nice discussion if "in loco parentis" which, to me, clears the college of liability: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/philip_lee/files/vol8lee.pdf. In the 60s, and I remember the arguments well, it was established that college administrations had neith responsibility or liability for the personal actions of its students.
The court has just reduced the award from $44M to $25M, but we are hoping that eventually the whole decision will be overturned.
4
@John Sorry for the typos ... "discussion OF 'in loco parentis'," and "neithER responsibility or liability..."
Not everything in life is about one's personal opinions. Doing a job, whether defending a client, writing a journalistic piece, performing surgery, selling a product, serving coffee, whatever, doesn't require the invocation of one's deeply held convictions or necessarily mean you identify with the client or counterparty you're dealing with. What one sees very often today is the conflation of political and social ideology with, well, just about everything else. One's ideas, sorry to say, however fervently one may embrace them, are not that important or interesting always to anyone else.
9
@Frunobulax
thanks for this!
Mr. Kristof, I'm entirely with you on the Oberlin issue. In Sullivan and Robinson's case, however, there was a long-standing issue related to their running of Winthrop College at Harvard. See https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/5/10/winthrop-climate/ " ‘With Us or Against Us’: Current, Former Winthrop Affiliates Say Faculty Deans Created a Toxic Environment Stretching Back Years".
1
@PMN That is true. There were people unhappy with the Sullivans before the representation of Weinstein. (BTW, Ron Sullivan is no longer on Weinstein's defense team. The trial date was moved to September, creating a conflict with his teaching obligations. So he withdrew.)
But it is also true -- and telling -- that none of the previous complaints had led to a "climate review" of the House. That didn't happen until the Weinstein connection.
The other issues gave cover to those who supported the decision. His legal work was the cause of the decision.
3
I'm a millenial who grew up as in a conservative, evangelical household. One of the things that pushed me away from that was the inextricable connection of faith to politics in which facts and reason were shunned - hence the refusal to accept global warming and the support for the Iraq War.
Today, I see liberalism going down the same path in which identity politics has created a narrow set of official narratives that must be used unquestioningly to interpret every turn of events regardless of the actual facts. The Oberlin community was patently incapable of reconciling the cognitive dissonance of the narrative of black oppression writ large with the reality that this particular black student may have actually been a thief.
And of course, this simplistic mindset poisons the ability consider complex policy. Take single payer health care. To a true progressive, all they can see is that it gives something free to the poor - hence it's good. There's no room for more nuanced conversations about how the ballooning cost might burden the middle class, about whether it will lead to fewer hospitals and doctors actually decreasing care for some communities, etc.
The alarming reality is that both parties have become parties of faith and with no objective set of facts that both sides can use to establish some common understanding we're doomed to be hopelessly divided by warring faith narratives.
16
@JP This comment, especially the last paragraph, is precisely the kind of false equivalency that Kristof's (and others') concern trolling generates.
It's just not true.
1
The test of our principles is what we do when following them disadvantages us. The liberal progressive, idealistic left, wing of the Democratic Party just do not believe in liberty and justice for all. They reserve these for the right people, not the wrong ones. In effect, they deny that these are rights that are reasonable to respect when they perpetuate harmful experiences or are used to discuss reprehensible ideas or behaviors. They effectively deny that all men have inalienable rights.
So who will be the king should rule in this illiberal world that the left offers to oppose Trump Rex?
5
The reaction to Ronald Sullivan's representation of Harvey Weinstein was wrong and dangerous. It has become all too common for liberals to reject the existence of speech with which they disagree. This tendency is most pronounced among young liberals, who see almost every issue in black and white, often missing the shades of gray.
The other problem is the belief among many liberals that only members of a certain group have a right to have an opinion. That results in comments excoriating Mr. Kristof for having the nerve even to address the issue as a white man who has not been beat up. For those folks, I will describe my identity: I am a 65-year-old woman who has been a professional since 1978, when sexual harassment was everywhere. I had the stuffing beaten out of me for 23 years by my father. I have always been a liberal and have gotten more liberal with age.
But there is an issue here that no one seems to be addressing: the fact that many people simply do not believe in the right to a defense. If the dean at Harvard had been a doctor who performed surgery on Weinstein, a psychiatrist who was giving him therapy, or a clergy member who was counseling him, s/he would not have been fired. Representing a client charged with a crime is not an defense of his conduct, but a defense of a system of justice that is a vital bulwark against government overreach. It is deeply flawed and needs massive reforms. But defending the Bill of Rights should not get you fired.
14
@cds333--Well said.
1
Hi Nick,
Just a quick shout out to you for taking the time to respond to the Comments. How wonderful to see such engagement with your readers and to see further development of this important discussion.
11
I don't believe Kristof's assertion regarding Jordan Peterson is correct. Peterson has said he will not obey Canada's law requiring citizens to use another person's preferred pronoun -- and he has also said he has never failed to do so through his own volition. But he reserves the right to refuse to use another person's preferred pronoun if he feels that person's intent is not sincere, but rather to manipulate and control. And he will never do so simply because a Canadian law orders him to.
4
@M.Casey
Have you checked out and listened to Mr. Peterson’s thoughtful challenge to those who criticized his stand on the use of pronouns? If not, worth checking out.
1
@M. Casey So if the US (forgetting about the 1st amendment as so many want to do) passes a law requiring you to address the president as he desires, ad the current president desires to be addressed as his highness the most exalted and wonderful president (most of them have egos to support that assertion) would you abide by that?
1
I've lived through some of this recently. My views are very much on the left, but I find that among some student activists, my voice is not wanted as I am a white woman. When I try to speak of my experiences as someone who grew up working class and still faces economic difficulties, too often I am told to "be quiet" so that those who are not white "don't feel intimidated." I also found that protests were not organic--certain groups took control of protests the day of Trump's inauguration, bringing in outside activists to control what was chanted. It's all very disheartening at times, and I have decided to protest via writing and art, rather than through demonstrations controlled by individuals and groups not truly open to discussion and debate.
18
A decade ago, I respected political conservatives and often engaged in discussions about policy issues. Now, not so much. I realize this is unproductive, but if someone supports Donald Trump, I have no time for you. There are issues over which people may disagree, but basic facts should be acknowledged, as well as common decency, empathy, compassion. The Trump era has divided us in a way perhaps not seen since the Civil War. Even during the Vietnam era, reasonable people could engage in civil discourse. Now, not so much.
8
'Liberals sometimes howl when this newspaper brings in a conservative columnist or publishes a sharply conservative Op-Ed. We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views.'
I, for one, do appreciate the fact that NYT often tries to present the 'two sides of the coin'. Our local paper also frequently presents op-ed articles by two authors (interestingly, often from the Washington Post), who are obviously on the two ends of the political spectrum. This definitely helps me understand how the other side thinks.
In our group of close friends, we have an engineer, who has been in a high executive position in a power company (I mention this to emphasize that he is not just a low-level sales clerk in a small grocery store or such - no, there is nothing wrong with that, there are good people on both sides!) and he is a die-hard Trumper. I, and may be others in our group, almost cringe when he eulogizes Trump and I have often thought of shunning him in the future. But then I figure, no, we should have him around so that we can see how 'they' think.
2
@Dreamer--I don't mind conversing, even debating, with Trump supporters. But, I won't be bothered when they just parrot Fox & Friends, or Sean Hannity. I want to understand why that person has chosen to support Trump, how his life has been improved by Trump's presidency, which specific policies or actions taken by Trump the person approves of and how he reconciles Trump's corrosive personality with whatever good he thinks has come from the administration. I enjoy a debate and I want to know what those who support the president think. But, I don't want to hear what's said on Fox News. I can tune in myself for that.
3
I am not sure NYT’s supposed open mindedness to all viewpoints in the spectrum extends to what it tends to dismiss as Hindu Nationalism. Of course, authors originating in Zionism or called neo-conservatism (incidentally, both of which I support) have access to these pages, but not defenders of Hinduism and the national polity that arises from it. So there are definitely limits to NYT’s tolerance.
1
Thanks for saying something that needs to be said - again and again. Diversity of thought and expression is our greatest strength and should be celebrated, not excoriated. It should be welcomed, not policed. Reading the comments of individuals supporting the actions of Harvard and its students, there are many references to students' perceived lack of "safety" which many seem to accept at face value. How so? No suggested that anybody was actually less safe. No one seriously argued that the professor somehow advocates sexual assault and harassment. I don't think anyone argues that eliminating the professor made anyone more "safe." Using such an argument to deny him a job is illogical. Particularly galling to me as a lawyer for forty years is the inane thought that lawyers can't separate their personal views and values from those of their clients and act accordingly. What will happen to those Winthrop House students when they're out of school and forced to rub elbows with the rest of society? How safe will they feel then?
13
@SR Lord
Two unforgivable sins in today’s college generation:
1. Any perceived failure to protect them from feeling “unsafe.”
2. Making them feel “uncomfortable.”
Example: a college student screaming and yelling at a professor’s request they speak civilly — “Stop ‘tone policing’ me!”
2
Completely agree and it can't be said enough. I call myself a liberal, but that's because the tent is so big I make my own definition of what that is. I would not pass anyone's goodthink purity test.
I would put it that there is no shortage of social justice that needs implementing, but that social justice liberals sometimes get in the way. By favouring passionate intensity to the kind of nuanced thinking and honest debate you describe in your column, I think they're often in danger of perpetuating the very injustices we would fight against.
13
Mr. Kristof,
Nicely done. Thank you for the often forgotten and much needed reminder that, indeed, the ends of both sides of the political-ideological spectrum are complicated and complex. Yes, no one owns truth and "purity tests" are completely arbitrary and fallacious.
I also agree that we must allow the argument and then counter-argue with civility and fact -- a simple art that appears to be lost nowadays. Look at social media mobbing, bullying, and the like...
Thank you for giving this issue the light and applied honesty needed for both sides.
16
Thank you SO MUCH for this column. I had never paid a lot of attention to politics pre-Trump, but my shock at his election made me seek out answers to how such a person could get elected. I went on Twitter and was stunned by the quick-assessment and labeling by liberals of various situations as racist and sexist along with a pettiness to many comments. There was way too little information to make harsh stands, and yet even supposedly credible people were doing it (academics, ex-government staff, and members of the media). I read about various campus incidents and the “me too” movement and “believe all women.” It began to seem like many people were taking good ideas and stretching them so far they were often quite horrible. I began to see why conservatives were so distrustful of these institutions. I began to see that many liberals were just as irrational as the far right and there is very much a rigidity and mob mentality in the current movement.
I add that I grew up around Christians, and many of them are the kindest people I know who truly put the human first regardless of their circumstances. I cannot blame people for denigrating their embrace of Trump, but I now understand it. And when liberals act like they don’t matter (but Muslims do?), I no longer feel a part of this movement.
I also studied the constitution, started listening to more conservative academics. I like much of what they say, and now understand their point of views on liberty/concerns re fed overreach.
15
Medicare for all is favored by a majority of the people in this country. Therefore, promoting it or trying to make it a reality would be a mistake that helps Republicans. I see the logic.
2
@Peter
About 60%are against it if it raises their taxes. Can I ask who will administer it, Oberlin gradates?
2
"Liberals sometimes howl when this newspaper brings in a conservative columnist or publishes a sharply conservative Op-Ed. We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views."
Scenario #1: 97% of scientists consent that climate change is real and anthropogenic. Therefore, they should get 97% of the ink because this is an objective reality that has evidentiary facts behind it.
Scenario #2: 3% of the population believes the political economy is run by private sector plutocrats and public sector oligarchs. This too is an objective reality that has evidentiary facts behind it. But the vast majority of people who benefit from this reality are those who possess the facts, and so they are loathed to present or acknowledge them. Therefore, the 3% in this case ought to have more ink and punch above their weight class.
In the climate change scenario, the 97% scientists who possess the facts do not have a special interest to fabricate their findings or to hide them in the same manner as the 3% climate change skeptics do. Why? For the reasons explained in the second scenario.
6
I am impressed that you are taking the time to interact with the readers comments. Thank you for that.
I think that what you are seeing with your daughter and her generation is a shift from the ideas and ideals of The Enlightenment. They are drifting into a New Dark Age.
A movement away from data or evidence, logic, reason and conclusions based on that. The so-called Liberals are moving into a space that is the same as that of the so-called right wing just on the opposite end of the scale.
The New Dark Age thinking is all about what people think and not about what people know. My favorite professor at UC used to (metaphorically) beat us up all the time by asking us when we opened out mouth. "Do you think it or do you know it?"
The problem with the groups of the right or left is that they "think it". Both refuse to allow a data, evidence, logic and reasoned approach to "know it".
They devolve into Tribes.
It happened when the school fired the professor and then the other school added and abetted the destruction of a family business. They did not go looking at the data and evidence to see if they KNEW the professors actions was affecting the students in the house, they just decided to THINK that is was. Same with the Bakery.
Tribe behavior pure and simple.
The problem with Tribe Behavior is that at some point it always ends up with Warring Tribes. First at the ballot box and then at the point of a weapon.
This is the blind spot.
13
@JD
Oh for goodness sake, really? Drifting to a Dark Age?? Hyperbolic nonsense. So our youth overreact to the disaster that is the climate of Trump and McConnell. About time some one did. Mentor them. And stop with the Apocolyptic nonsense.
1
@JD
More than thinking vs knowing, this is about feeling being privileged over thinking.
They FEEL something, so who can be bothered to actually THINK critically about it, or worse yet, QUESTION what they feel and think?
And this is a delliberate choice, since rationality, the Enlightenment values, etc. are seen as patriarchal, western values which are the source of white, western cultural imperialism, racism, misogyny, etc..
Total nonsense of course, but very, very scary.
1
Excellent article. As a progressive baby boomer as well, I have been curious as to the dynamics and reasons behind this turnabout. When I was in undergraduate and graduate school, universities were a hotbed of the free speech movement. Academic freedom was the clarion call of university communities. There were so many attempts to silence students (especially liberal and progressive students) that we felt that everyone should have the right that were fighting for.
Perhaps we succeeded too well and the only thing that students can now fight for in this arena is the suppression of speech that they find offensive.
I would very much like for your daughter and her friends that do not extend the concept of academic freedom and freedom of speech to all ideas and individuals to write a column in your space explaining their thinking and why they now reject academic freedom. This might help an old guy like me to understand.
10
I'm a proud progressive, worked for Sanders in 2016 and am leaning toward Warren now. I think you are right in all these points. If anything, you could have written this more pointedly and given more examples of the faculty who were bullied by the quasi-religious mob mentality we often see on campus: Nicholas Christakes at Yale, Brett Weinstein at Evergreen. See the Atlantic essay, The Coddling of the American Mind.
10
I understand the point Mr. Kristof is trying to make, but the argument is structured like a lot of the concern trolling that is beginning to emerge as the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is articulating its views. "Don't be TOO progressive! You might alienate people."
This argument operates at bottom by a false equivalency. It picks 2 outrageous examples of student behavior and then equates them with the fraught efforts of 2 universities to preserve inclusion and diversity. Those 2 adult professors made choices to defy conduct codes relating to their jobs. I am sorry, but we all live with those even if we are not university professors.
I am tired of the moderate hand-wringing, frankly.
7
Stacy VB, except there are more than 2 examples of entightled students from prestigious universities playing "vigilante" with what THEY will allow as acceptable points of view. While the majority of universities may not be held captive to "Trump-esque" behavior, the "Elite" schools should have a much greater openess for dialogue not less.
2
@Stacy VB
Well said.
1
Colleges and universities are already under attack by Republican politicians for being hostile to conservatives whose academic credentials are just as solid as their more common liberal colleagues. The last thing they should be doing is coddling hypersensitive undergraduates who seem to have forgotten that the primary purpose of higher education is learning how to discern weak arguments from strong ones, how to formulate and defend the latter, and how not to let those without the intellect to resist the appeal of baseless prejudices get under their skin.
8
Thank you Mr. Kristof, this is exactly what we liberals need to hear and to listen to.
Whatever the details I see comments are bringing up, the larger point you make is a vital one. Thank you. YES.
8
I am so happy to read your column today. I agree with this wholeheartedly. As a professor, I have argued with so many of my students about their reactions to these events. I am really concerned about this new age of " I will not be offended by anything" on college campuses. Yes, racism, bigotry needs to be dealt with but how can we deal with anything unless we really understand what those words mean? Canceling speakers, attacking people is not the way to put forth the liberal ideology. As I keep teeling my students, the only way to get rid of bad ideas is good ideas.
11
We live in an age in which we are always “screaming “ at each other even in print.
There are good thoughts in this column and I see in many responses “screaming “ at one example whatever that may be.
Can we just admit that it is important to get out of this current government and the best way to win the independent vote, which we need, is to be balanced and make strong, reasoned, arguments based in facts..not screaming you did this or you did that. Forward, not backward...plenty to talk about for future needs!
1
And then there's the San Francisco school district whose commissioners voted, unanimously, to cover a WPA mural by a contemporary of Diego Rivera. They deemed it offensive. Every public school system in this country is short of funds but this one bowed to political correctness to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
13
I'm a late middle-aged liberal. I think we are at our best when we focus on ameliorating, for all people, the needs in Maslow's Hierarchy. Firstly, make sure all people are clothed, fed and receive medical care. Next in priority, provide physical safety and protection. Next, opportunities for community and companionship. Then, provide opportunities to develop self-worth. Lastly is self-actualization. It seems to me too many educated liberals focus, sometimes stridently, upon the highest pair of needs, when we've never finished addressing the most basic. In the age of trumpism, we are now further away from that goal than we've been in years.
4
Amen! I lean more toward conservative, but I welcome ALL viewpoints. I won't always agree, but the one viewpoint I will NOT tolerate: that anyone who disagrees with me is automatically wrong.
The only way to discover the flaws of ideas is by discussing them. Certainly not shouting them down.
3
Bill Maher has been raising this alarm for some time. It highlights the obnoxious and pushy self-righteousness of woke progressives when someone like Maher, by most measures an enlightened liberal, can be made unwelcome by nominal allies. And as other commentary points out, the adults who pander to these children are themselves more to blame.
13
Good column, except for the half-truth about Jordan Peterson.
He objects to being *compelled by law* to use someone's pronouns.
9
Cambridge did not explain why they pulled his fellowship, actually. That’s speculation.
@AG Question people should ask is not whether Peterson is wrong or right but the question is whether, as viewed through the prism of our 1st Amendment, is Canada wrong or right to enact such a law.
I'm appalled that many on these comments who would typically hold themselves out as ardent first amendment supporters as so willing to throw that principle aside when the speech doesn't support their personal belief.
1
“Liberals sometimes howl when this newspaper brings in a conservative columnist or publishes a sharply conservative Op-Ed. We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views.”
This one quote encapsulates a major failure of the pundit class to understand what it is we’re dealing with and debating in the Trump era: the fact that many “ideas” or “views” have been morally and factually discredited by historical and current events, and are therefore held and expressed in bad faith.
Criticizing a media platform for amplifying those views isn’t a sign of a lack of “intellectual curiosity” or a weakling snowflake incapability of grappling with a thought that doesn’t line up with dogma.
It’s a sign of moral exhaustion with the idea that re-amplifying those ideas and expressions over and over has some kind of inherent intellectual worth or value that outweighs the banal and reprehensible context in which they’re uttered. When “knee-jerk liberals” fight against that, they are only identifying the uselessness of forcing people to “engage” with ideas which are by and large not morally or factually valid, held by people who are unmoved by both moral and factual argument, and directly correlated with real-world harm and even death.
4
@Lucas This is exactly spot on. We're exhausted and terrified. Our "intellectual curiosity" is exactly what has led us to work so hard to fight opinions that have violent and irreversible consequences.
3
You make some good points, and the behavior of Oberlin and its students in these cases is ridiculous and contemptible, but I don't agree wholeheartedly as so many of the comments do. (For the record, I am over 60.)
"People are complicated at every end of the spectrum, and it’s as wrong to stereotype conservatives or evangelicals as it is to stereotype someone on the basis of race, immigration status or sex." I agree that we should judge people on the content of their character, but the important distinction is that political and religious beliefs are a choice; race and sex are not.
"Nobody has a monopoly on truth." If we agree that "monopoly" is the lion's share rather than 100%, then yes, liberals (in the US, anyway) have a monopoly on the truth. It is important to remain vigilant about blind spots as you say, but it is hard to trust conservative arguments when their current standard-bearer is a pathological liar.
4
Says the straight white man who has never been beaten up or denied a job or been forced to carry a child simply because of this sex, color or orientation. For you it’s a knee jerk reaction - for us, it is a rational response guided by the knowledge that the source of our oppression is intolerance and hate and the speech that oozes from it. In regards to Sullivan, you are dead wrong. He made the decision to defend Weinstein and the university made a decision to defend their students - Why should Sullivan get to make that decision, but not the university?
3
Yesterday, a friend and I were watching a new show on HBO, "Years and Years" (a terrific show).
But after we had watched it the second time (it's very complex and we are very old) he asked me, "Why do all of the 'new' series focus on gay sex?"
And I replied, "Because sex between a man and a woman is now considered trite, boring and embarrassing. From now on there will only be gay sex. You'll never see hetero sex again, even if the writer, producer and director are all female. It's like the Supreme Court: They will make it legal that men can MARRY men, but, gaud-forbid that that Court, in any way, try to make women Constitutionally EQUAL under law."
Tolerance of intolerance never works, Nicholas.
Your daughter has it right: An attorney who has a (purported) rapist as a client isn't the best person to be a house dean.
Your daughter is being erased.
Do not tolerate that.
3
The worst and most dangerous problem that liberals carry forward is racism: no, not racism that targets "black" people, but rather another type of racism that I call "black privilege."
So, a "black" student shoplifted whine and a "white" shop owner went after him, and the shop got into BIG TROUBLE *only* because the shoplifter had that special skin color: "black." That's black privilege.
It happened again in South Bend Indiana, when a man breaking into cars came at a police officer with a knife and was shot dead. If the man was "white," he'd just be a dead idiot, but because he was "black," the racist community around him (locally and nationally) threatens to take down the best candidate for the 2020 presidential elections: Pete Buttigieg.
The longer that "liberals" don't figure this out, the longer they will foment racism and hate, and the more they help awful people like Donald Trump.
4
As an Oberlin grad, I get that the situation with Gibson's was badly botched. But 40+ million$$, ruining the place's finances for a single transgression? No way.
1
And increasingly I read people who support violence against those with whom they disagree. Look what happened to Andy Gno yesterday whose crime is to be a conservative journalist. Or Evergreen College. I'm now a liberal, not a so called progressive. I don't support illiberalism from the left or the right.
No one is a felon until convicted of a felony, just saying.
4
For decades now, academics have been researching and teaching to their students how language and images are material agents of ideology, working to support social hierarchies or reflect prejudices. This work is important. Language and images can be rude or traumatic, support stereotypes that limit individual potential, justify inequities, and can even provoke violence. But it is very important, in my mind, not to confuse the metaphorical violence of language with actual physical violence; important to understand that we have to be very careful with laws that police expression. Education, calm or heated discussion, lawful protest - these are fine ways to address harmful speech and images. Litigation should only be a last, and very carefully applied, corrective.
1
I don't think all social locations are equal. A Christian religious identity is multi-factorial as it involves personal articles of faith, individual psychology, and often family history. In addition, Christianity has had an institutional power that has no equal when compared to minority groups. A negative reaction to institutional history may be misinterpreted as personal bigotry. In addition, many people in this country come from Christian backgrounds which means their criticisms may be rooted in their own experiences.
So while unkindness may sting, it doesn't mean it is the same thing as bigotry.
MY blind spot is my unwillingness to cooperate with ANY right wing extremist, under ANY circumstances. I pick honesty and integrity over going along to "get along." Republicans have PROVEN that they will take advantage every time you give them civility, or the benefit of the doubt. Convince me otherwise.
4
@ChesBay
Tolerance of intolerance is intolerable.
2
Mr. Kristof
I keep thinking to myself, "Where are the elders?" He's going to win again, and this is why. People who are afraid of thought policing and political correctness can't say so, but go to the polls and vote in secret. If Democrats were smart, they would rein in the children and take a moderate position. Stop demonizing people, including the leader, it fuels the fire.
5
I have read so many of the comments here, and it is refreshing to know that I was not alone in my anguish in how to communicate with younger liberal leaning people and family members about the need to broadly research and carefully consider complex issues. Some left, some right, millions on both sides, only hear from like-thinkers and slam the door and run away anytime a dissenting voice is heard. Your many comments voicing your disdain for knee-jerk liberalism (and conservatism likewise) is heartening. Thanks for your thoughtful input.
4
the fact is that there are differences between men and women, between blacks and whites, and between individuals - it may seem unfair that some are more skilled than others, some more talented and some more beautiful and some brainier - but that is the way it is -
a solution might be to say we shouldn't have a winner take all society - but denying the reality of differences and the inevitable difference in outcomes will lead to a forever strategy of finding someone to blame - often that was jews, right now it is white men in general
Kristof, I like the fact that you responded to Sue's post, and i love your awareness that other living things besides humans have feelings - that is another thing that liberals gloss over while pandering to their every self indulgence
1
Thank you for this!
I have higher expectations for my tribe (liberal/progressive) and am therefore all the more disappointed when we lapse.
My beacon is a moderate Texan Republican. He reminds me that the New England liberal is seen as condescending and patronizing.
When Trump was elected, the prevailing sentiment was "How could anybody vote for him?"
Hmmm. Find out. Get out of your Volvo, put your New Yorker down and start paying attention to others perhaps not of your ideological caste.
Your thoughts here help tremendously!
2
“...embracing every kind of diversity except one: ideological diversity. Too often, we liberals embrace people who don’t look like us, but only if they think like us.”
This is spot on! It’s intellectually weak in my view to approve of only one mode of thought. It’s better to be challenged and to bend your thinking to different perspectives. Sometimes you might even compromise, or agree. For shame! The world is peopled with others who not only look different but think differently as well.
4
Kudos Mr Kristof for the courage to write this piece within the current climate of the NYT comments echo chamber. Very few writers at the NYT (including your fellow columnists... and we all know who they are) even respond to readers, let alone acknowledge varying points of view.
4
I blame the internet for this kind of stuff. Students today are the same as students of 100 years ago. Simply too much hyper focus on perceived sleights today.
2
It seems to me that perhaps Liberals like Mr Kristof are starting to see the harm being done to America by their attitudes. This is a very good article, Mr Kristof's replies in the comments section are refreshing. Liberalism should not be an excuse for division and bigotry - and that is what is happening. Where has been the tolerance suggested in Liberalism?
4
Dear Mr. Kristof,
I was raised in a family with progressive values; all my siblings (now in their 50s/60s) have morphed into the ideologically intolerant liberals you describe in your article. Their perspectives are often inconsistent (i.e. they support muslims but hate christians; homosexuality is biologically determined but gender is not, etc). If I try, even gently, to discuss inconsistencies, to try to understand their thinking, they look at me like I'm a bigoted, mean spirited, alt-righter. And this is my family! So I tiptoe around these subjects. The purity police are everywhere. It feels we are turning into an intellectually incurious society, incapable of thoughtful, probing discourse, which is more than ever necessary to understand a complex world.
One correction to your otherwise excellent article. You incorrectly state that Jordan Peterson "will not use people’s preferred pronouns". Peterson says he might call (and at times has) people by their preferred pronoun; what he is refusing to do is obey a law that forces him to do so. Peterson's argument is not against trans people, it's against government regulated speech - a slippery slope that could lead to an Orwellian destruction of free society. I'm disappointed you didn't catch this important distinction.
Of course, the very fact that I listen to Jordan Peterson paints me as a bigoted, mean-spirited alt-righter. For the record, I'm a progressive.
6
@Caroline
i am with you 100% in your response
have a great day
1
Mr. Kristof,
I am a big fan of yours and sincerely appreciate the work you do. But the way you've phrased this column is really terrifying to read as a person in your daughter's demographic. You've cherry picked a couple of student activist cases out of thousands, the majority of which have meaningfully shifted the dialogue and brought about real awareness and real change. Young people are outraged, terrified, and heartbroken about the world that your generation has bequeathed to us. If we seem a little extreme, it's because clearly something is not working. Something is very broken. We've regressed on progressive policies meant to protect the marginalized among us. We are having the same conversations we've had for decades. I will accept opinions that are different than my own, but if they have the potential to fuel violence and hate towards marginalized communities, I will not apologize for "howling" in order to ensure their safety. (Please google "pyramid of white supremacy" for a visualization of how even the smallest actions can lead to violent consequences.)
I am so deeply disappointed in this op-ed. The way you've worded it has invited an avalanche of comments about how people like your daughter and I are sensitive and intolerant snowflakes. I cannot and will not apologize for holding the older generation to the highest standards possible when the world is crumbling beneath us.
Emily
9
@EJ
The problem is that your generation has figured out that "safety" is the magic word that allows you to decide which opinions are acceptable and which are not. But no, you don't get to change the meaning of words to suit your agenda, and "safe" has nothing to do with being free from hurt feelings, frustration, or insult.
And there's already a law against inciting violence. No one elected you and your friends to consult your handy pyramid of white supremacy to determine which opinions "have the potential to fuel violence".
Just take a step back and admit that you are using terms like "terrified" to shut down debate because you know you don't have the evidence to back up your claims with logic and reason.
5
Emily—you are indeed right to fight against a world crumbling against us. But the offenses of politically-incorrect speech are utterly insignificant compared with the rise in fascism in Europe and in our country, and the abuses of our economic system. Us ancients need to get you younger folks aside and give you a history, economics, and civics lesson. Universities don’t seem to be doing the job.
4
@EJ
Exactly. Kristof -who I admire greatly - has engaged here in “concerned trolling,” in this article. Frankly it panders to centrist complacency, most especially with the examples of Weinstein’s lawyer, and Peterson.
2
Not so long ago I would have agreed with Mr. Kristof's point of view.
During the Cheney/Bush administration, I felt it was important to have non emotive conversations on the atrocities of a 21st century Crusade in the Middle East or the impending disaster of Climate Change. Needless to say, nothing changed.
Our benevolent calm only emboldened the louder more aggressive right.
Elections aren't won on the yoga mat, they are won on the streets by impassioned warriors for change.
Now at the age of 63, I am an in your face Nasty Female Proggesive fighting to save Women's rights, Civil rights, Voting rights and Environmental preservation. If the evangelical, white nationalist, misogynists don't like it, then I have a yoga mat they can use.
8
I’m a liberal and 43, and so I feel I’m right at the cusp of people who, like you, believe we have to give people the right to say detestable things. The people who demand that everyone think a certain way are on a slippery slope to becoming North Korean minders. I’ve seen these thought police descend on anyone who expresses a slightly different view from the latest PC stance du du jour repeatedly in what can only be described as online mobs. This is particularly prevalent in women’s online communities. I myself (a woman of color) was called a white supremacist because I tried to enforce a rule in a group I was moderating that you can’t call people racist, especially in situations where it was clear that they were ignorant about the nuances of wording rather than motivated by animus. Being on the receiving end of that anger is truly terrifying. It doesn’t surprise me that these colleges cave, but both Oberlin and Harvard were wrong to do so. It only emboldens bad behavior that will lead to our own sort of Cultural Revolution: everyone feeling safe only if they point a finger first.
2
The kids come by their righteous puritanism naturally. After all they are the sons and daughters of people like those on the San Francisco school board who want to destroy a Victor Arnautoff mural that was painted in the then (1936) newly opened Washington High School. Your colleague Bari Weiss had an excellent column on this travesty in yesterday's NY Times.
5
Nicely said. Craziness is crazy, whatever your politics.
As s 71 year old, with a 30 year old daughter, I can appreciate the differing views you express very well.
2
Hi, LGBTQ person here. Regarding your statement that "Trump has made it easy for liberal activists to demonize conservatives and evangelicals." No, conservatives and evangelicals literally screaming for my torture, death, and obliteration for generations have done that. This recent rash of columns advocating for "ideological diversity," which are actually asking us to surrender to this terrible harm and re-prosecute the same "debates" over and over (when bigotry has nothing to do with opinion) is exactly what makes me want to throw the notion of "ideological diversity" out the window, along with Voltaire's hideous racism. Blackness, queerness, preferred gender -- these are not opinions, or even beliefs, to be constantly debated. The "all things are equal in the service of tolerance" is the harmful liberal fallacy that is destroying lives. I don't have the time or energy to argue or share my space with individuals who don't think I should exist. Nor should I be required to. This is a change to be welcomed.
8
@Marke B.
You are proving Kristoff's point with this hysteria. There will always be bigots, but no one is "destroying your life". As we speak, there's a massive city-wide gay pride celebration taking place. No one thinks you shouldn't exist. And no one thinks blackness and queerness are opinions. Gender preference? Sorry but that is debatable and those who claim there are multiple genders are just going to have to accept that there are reasonable people who disagree.
5
You’re overstating things just a tad. Just because the GOP make you uncomfortable doesn’t mean they want you to disappear.
5
I don't know what the answer is to the question you raise about liberal blind spots, but I do know that Trump won by dividing the whole country and getting lucky that his 48% was divided just so that he could win the electoral college. That may have been dumb luck or a level of Russian help that so far has eluded all of the computer investigators.
2
Great post. It was a perfect storm. Trump telegraphed the Russian engagement very clearly at the g-20. And invited a repeat. Dems: you have been warned.
1
It is curious that almost all examples of overly-sensitive students come from elite private colleges. The New York Times itself may be part of the problem since it seems to think there are only about a dozen colleges and universities in this country. I really do not like that students and faculty at state colleges and universities are getting tarred with this elitist brush.
5
Last time I remember your daughter in a column, you went camping. She sounds spunky but she is wrong about Ronald Sullivan.
A lawyer friend of mine has taken up defending accused fraudsters in front of regulatory boards. Does this mean my friend supports fraud and wants to encourage ti? Should he be banned from handling money now because of his clients?
No, these people may be falsely accused or the charges could be excessive even if there was malfeasance. They may be guilty of fraud. Whatever the circumstances, they are entitled to a skilled defense. Better Call Saul aside, practicing lawyers don't commit their clients' crimes.
1
How unfortunate that Mr. Kristof has thus far been unable to
teach his daughter the process of critical thinking. Being a
'parrot' and going along with the 'crowd' will not serve her well
in future endeavors. He might have explained to her that being a lawyer does not pre-suppose the ability to seperate professional duties from personal philosophy and core values.
5
It's hard to listen to either conservatives or evangelicals as they appear to operate through ideology and blind faith rather than reasoning. If at times liberals seem too intellectual it is because they are.
3
"How can a house leader support students traumatized by sexual assault when he is also defending someone accused of rape?"
I love that you daughter is thinking hard and is passionate. But my thought on her comment above is that (hopefully) the lawyer is a professional which means that he does not see a case as right or wrong except as it pertains to the law. Like a male doctor performing a pelvic exam on a woman perhaps? I'm thinking of the tv show Fleabag where she flirts with the doctor giving her a breast exam. Finally he turns to her and says something along the lines of "all I see are cells and tissue and hope that I don't find a lump that shouldn't be there."
But again I say hopefully the lawyer is a professional.
“...students traumatized by sexual assault.”
That’s a ridiculous assertion about the effect of something they have only read or heard about in the news.” Many worse things are reported day in and day out — yes truly worse. Are these students in a state of perpetual trauma?
4
Oberlin College has a long and proud history of social activism and "firsts." What seems to have happened in this Gibson shoplifting incident is that the usual bush telegraph information-sharing blew the truth right out of the water, and people preferred to hang onto their fauxrage when the facts came out rather than admit their responses were out of proportion. It's one of many reasons I prefer not to carry a smart phone -- too much drama.
1
For many of us politically conscious people of color, it is quite clear that our most dangerous adversary, the people that for decades kept their boots on our necks were European-American conservatives and zealous segregationists.
European-American liberals exasperate me because they so frequently torment themselves with doubts about whether they are doing the right thing. Harvard is a private university, and it has complete freedom to decide who is allowed to teach there. Why become conflicted by the decision?
Our conservative opponents run circles around us in the political arena because they are not tormented by self doubts. Their game plan is brutal and clear.
Thus, they can enthusiastically back a president who sends kids to concentration camps, thumbs his nose at the justice department, carries on a bromance with America's most committed enemy, Vladimir Putin, and methodically tramples democratic principles. You don't see Mitch McConnel wringing his hands wondering whether Trump has gone too far.
6
There is so much looniness and fanaticism on the left these days that Mr. Kristoff's column comes as a ray of morning sunshine. Of course Cambridge embarrassed itself and Oberlin was both craven and outrageously wrong. Thanks to Mr. Kristoff for the sanity.
5
This needed to be said. Thank you for writing this. I hope this article promotes a healthy discussion and changes some minds. These knee-jerk reactions will divide the country as much as Trump’s hateful words. We should all strive to agree to disagree and stay united.
3
I agree with much of what you say here, especially about blind spots. And I do think that forums such as the NYT opinion pages are the place to have a respectful debate.
However, debate is only possible if both sides accept the rules of the debate -- and I have become increasingly convinced that provocateurs such as Jordan Peterson (and the enablers of a certain presidential administration) do not accept such rules. They do not admit defeat or error, nor do they truly seek compromise. Having no shame, they 'win' simply by being allowed to participate and showing that they will face no consequences for their actions. How are we to defeat racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. if we embolden those who participate in it?
No, an angry mob is not the answer. But I daresay that we glimpse another liberal blindspot when liberals seek respectful debate while their opponents aren't even playing that kind of game.
5
"But it turned out that the operative narrative here was not oppression but simply shoplifting."
The hoo-haw surrounding Biden's interactions with segregationists started with Biden trying to make a (fairly anodyne) point about the loss of civility in Congress. But it was blown into supposed racism. As a member of Congress, Joe couldn't pick his colleagues, but did have to work with them.
4
Dear Nick Kristoff, I have read you make this point many times -- that liberals are intolerant of conservatives. In my own experience, nothing could be further from the truth, and I know that it is the same with most liberals. Certain "conservatives" who are intolerant of diversity (of race or ideology) should not be tolerated, else we lose everything the liberal order stands for. President Andrew Johnson, VP for Abe Lincoln, was so intolerant of blacks that he proposed shipping them all back to Africa rather than pass the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. I am glad the liberals of the day stood up to him and vanquished his ideas. Today, Trump and his supporters care diddly wit about the First Amendment. If we "tolerate" them we will lose our freedoms. It's only a matter of time. If Trump could do it, he would imprison every critic of his administration, his political rivals, etc. That would be the end result of tolerating the intolerant. So please quit calling us intolerant.
5
Thoughtful column. I am pretty sure no one working for Fox or the other right wing outlets would write anything similar. Even the newly minted Never Trumpers can't resist demanding that the Democratic party compromise with the far right GOP, who have not stepped away from their extreme views in a decade.
2
Thank you, Mr. Kristof.
Yes, there is a condition called knee-jerk liberalism. In the sixties, we used to describe it as sympathy with any and all forms of oppression (a good thing) but embracing a different way of thinking in any situation when it affects a liberal personally. Unfair, maybe, but I have witnessed this time and time again.
I am a progressive liberal myself. I live in a city that prides itself on its liberalism, yet by any standard it is segregated. Having moved here from NYC, I was initially shocked at how little diversity it has. Yet everyone espouses liberal views, until a situation comes along that may interfere with their situation personally. Sorry, but that is what I have experienced time and again.
I would also add that even this NY Times comments section continually reflects extremely ageist comments in a very hurtful manner.
I am 72 myself, and I do not like to read that I am past my shelf life date or other such garbage. You may criticize Biden, Bernie or Warren all you want for their views, but functioning by chronological age differs from person to person. One 77 year old can be quite different from another.
Even if age criticism is valid, the manner it is expressed in the comments section is disrespectful.
Do not tell us to go away. You would not speak to a woman or a minority like this.
What makes you think you can do it to us?
Yes, knee-jerk liberalism. It's OK to do it if "we" say it is. Otherwise, it's condemned.
2
Nicholas Kristof wrote:
>> … Campus activists at their best are the nation's conscience. ... <<
You think it's wise to promote the idea that business, cultural, and social behaviors and goals of United States are well served to employ, to exhibit, to extol the cripplingly-limited-by-inexperience conscience of teenagers?
Thanks Mr Kristof- you also didn't mention that in the cases where liberals do over react or take absurd stances, the far right gobbles them up as proof of the failure of all liberal ideology and repeats them ad nauseam for decades.
1
I don't think Democrats can help themselves. The moment that someone alleges an "ism offense", group-think and political correctness take over.
The same phenomenon plagued this week's silly debates. The format predetermined that the only allegedly important thing that could occur was the audience's reactions. The sum of the audiences reactions added up to zero.
The Oberlin event also demonstrated how the focus of an event, as in the debate, can be dangerously shifted from the principle in dispute, to an audience of onlookers.
1
Oh, please. I am 65 and I have been following the “PC Wars” since I was in college in the 70’s. Perhaps the exquisitely evenhanded Mr. Kristof would like to donate his next column to the opposing argument for why a presumably well paid Harvard don, in a position that places him as a role model to students, should feel the need to legally represent a serial predator. As for the Oberlin bakery (why always bakeries?), does Mr. Kristof think Oberlin should be on the hook for 8 figures because its students exercised their free speech rights?
3
I have greatly enjoyed and admired not only your writing but you willingness to go places and address topics many people won't. Thanks for another great article. Although I'm about to turn 60, I think I want to be you when I grow up.
1
Good column and I agree. My political team has become unrecognizable. Too much self-righteousness, too much arrogance (about being educated, of all things), too much loathing for the others not like them. And political silliness if not suicide. It was silly to speak in Spanish in the debates because it proved what exactly? (Answer: they want the Hispanic vote.) It was silly, and wrong, to raise their hands for health insurance for illegal immigrants when American citizens struggle to pay bills or get care. (Fix the latter first.) Then I get worried that I've woken up Republican so I check my attitude against the views of my father, a life-long Democrat and 50-year Board of Registrars member. He's logical, consistent, and self-reliant, so I listen. We discussed a lot of what Kristof says here. The Democrats have become knee-jerk liberals and these liberals have moved so far left they can't even hear the middle, never mind the other side. Overall, we'd just like (what used to be called) common sense along with our elected officials, our courts, our neighbors.
(And btw, we know a NIMBY when we see one.)
2
Again, I agree with Mr. Kristof, as I have a number of times. He is one of the very few who will step outside the Manhattan myopia and speak uncomfortable truths to the choir. Yes, from Google to Youtube to the Ivy League universities with their strict speech codes and intolerant safe spaces, this is a cultural phenomenon. The creeping whitewash of uncomfortable ideas and free expression is coming from modern puritans. But these contemporary iterations do not claim a theocratic vision. A virulent cancer of political correctness, empowered by reactionary youth, has grown like an ugly tumor among older, traditional liberals. The laziness of "identity politics" has replaced actual intellectual reflection, with tribes now defending the very close-minded, illiberal behaviors they always warned would rise from an authoritarian right wing. Perhaps, with the prodding of the likes of Kristoff, there will be more liberals who will stand athwart this unfolding history to yell "stop!"
1
This is truth. I hope you don’t receive criticism, because we need to be able to hold space for one another’s difference of conviction or else we have no path forward except extremism.
1
Mr. Kristof agonizes for good reason.
First, his daughter has a point, and should be told as much, even if his comment is Dad-like, facetious, tongue-in-cheek.
Next, the generational divide must be accommodated but likely won't be and hence 24 candidates, including Buttigieg, Warren and Sanders as Joan of Arc surrogates. Relax. We'll pick a ticket. Not McCain/Palin or Trump/Pence "quality" to be sure but from a range of choices. Some not perfect but no Cains or blatant Philistines, one hopes.
Last, wrestle into submission the conclusion that Oberlin, Harvard protests over an arguable hypocrite, and MSNBC are anything but artifacts to balance the artifacts opposing. Just like you are to Mr. Brooks, Stephens and Douthat.
And thank you. Your readers read you for good reason. Even if they sometimes revolt.
Thank you for taking a stand on this. For me, it also sheds some light on what happened in the 2016 election. Clearly racism and sexism was strongly in play, but I was horrified by the vicious attacks on Hillary Clinton among progressives AFTER she became the Democratic nominee and the only person who could possibly beat Trump. So many social media posts made her out to be a terrible person who had never done anything good in her political career. These attacks only strengthened right-wing attacks. I believe this was knee-jerk liberalism on the part of Bernie Sanders supporters. I am a Sanders fan and don’t blame him for this, just some of his supporters who seem to be intolerant black and white thinkers who are unable to operate in the gray.
2
I do blame Bernie. A leader leads. Instead of encouraging the bros to vote en masse for hillary, he led them into his perpetual bad mood, and gave them a virtual permission slip to pass. When an election is as close as 2016, every factor matters. Bernie has no class, and no leadership gravitas.
1
@karen I hear what you're saying. I appreciate that he endorsed her, but he also continued to attack her prior to the election. The DNC had treated him unfairly and needed to be called out, but timing it important. He knew what was at stake.
Freedom of speech is, in my opinion, this country's greatest asset and greatest gift to all humanity. Please note how the current crop of bad actors cannot tolerate freedom of speech.
1
During the spring of my freshman year at Duke, the lacrosse scandal broke. This incident was really the first time that circumstance, outrage and the media converged in a vortex of partisan vitriol from which none of us could look away. In the months that followed, the story was the most reported news item by this publication and others. One morning, I turned down five interview requests on the way from my dorm to class. The class was in the cultural anthropology department, where several professors had signed a letter, decrying racism and misogyny on campus and linking it to the accused lacrosse players. My classmates and I had never even heard of the letter until Stephen Miller went on Fox News and masterfully launched his career, to our collective shrug. Unlike the media, almost all of us, especially progressives, were focused on other issues during our time at Duke. You see, the problem is not progressive liberals on campus, Bill, and I'm sorry to tell you this, but the problem is you. And the reason this piece and similar columns are a problem is written in plain text right here "at a time when there is so much actual injustice..." why did YOU choose this story?
2
This column rang true for me. My daughter is in loss prevention for a high end chain. The amount of theft is inconceivable because of the fear of lawsuits from the thieves. We’re talking about carrying shopping bags into the dressing room, filling the bags, and walking out. We all pay the price for those who steal. She has personally witnessed thieves, when apprehended, play the victim card, and cell phone start recording and the case is dropped. Sometimes a thief is just a thief and needs to face the consequences for their actions.
1
All the chest thumping mea culpas are getting to me here. "Liberals need to take other viewpoints into mind." Sure, of course they do. And when is the last time you had a conversation with a Trump supporter who cared about anything other than an overwhelming hatred of all things liberal (and SOCIALIST!)
As usual, liberals are held to one standard, and fail and succeed in varying amounts to live up to what they should, and conservatives are free to be as hateful and fact-free as they like. And boy do they ever like it.
4
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Responding to intolerance with your own form of intolerance only makes matters worse. Every ideology ultimately becomes self-defeating when taken to an extreme. Rigid ideologues, be they left or right, have no self-awareness, and no objectivity. They are committed to a holy war, a war not of ideas, but of tribalism and identitarianism.
1
Thank you for publishing an article I've been wanting to write for several years. I couldn't agree with you more. Many college students and their professors, so often the leaders of just liberal causes, have become just what the far right has been waiting for. And I fear that too many knee-jerk liberals will provide the current president with the fuel he needs to get re-elected. We (and our democracry) simply can't afford that!
1
The young seek a moral crusade they can lead/make a significant contribution to/at least participate in. This desire can lead to turning moral nothings into great causes.
1
Kristof is stuck in the 19th century and his guiding light is Adam Smith: free markets, competition, respect for the rights of people to be free and to make money, respect the people's right to believe as they may please, respect for people's right to speak their minds, and, to act according to their conscience even if it hurts others not like themselves. Liberals in the 1930's still thought that way until the New Deal upset the picture of the stable democratic society faced by the inequalities made clear by the Great Depression. We are back at that point and a liberalism inspired by justice in the face of inequality is necessary. The creative liberalism of younger women in the House of Representatives is opening a new way for American democracy now that a better educated population understands that there is no real democracy without social justice. The Trump administration has made clear to many Americans today what was made clear to New Deal Liberals in the 1930's, that the rise of Fascism was (and is) a clear and present danger.
3
Should have led off with this paragraph:
"...while I admire campus activism for its commitment to social justice, I also worry that it sometimes becomes infused with a prickly intolerance, embracing every kind of diversity except one: ideological diversity. Too often, we liberals embrace people who don’t look like us, but only if they think like us."
Tossing around a football in the backyard is hardly an elite thing to do while trying to have an erudite dialogue, which is why this metaphor should have followed the quoted paragraph above. We liberals can accept football culture and erudition simultaneously because they do not have to be mutually exclusive, although I did wonder how close you and your daughter would have to have been since such a conversation is not had easily 30 feet away from each other.
2
Wait just a minute! Where was Mr. Kristof's outrage when Rudy Giuliani was fired by Greenberg Traurig after he took on Trump as a client? Isn't Trump entitled to a defense attorney just like Weinstein and every other criminal? Greenberg Traurig fired him to protect its reputation - if that's okay by Mr. Kristof, why does he begrudge Harvard doing the same?
And how is it that Dr. Sullivan, allegedly a full time employee of Harvard, has time for a side hustle on top of his many duties at Winthrop House? Is he also representing poor defendants pro bono in his off hours? Or just the paying 1%? Who's grading his students' papers while he's negotiating plea deals? Does he cancel his classes whenever Harvey has a court appearance? Sounds like Dr. Sullivan's position at Harvard is nothing more than a symbolic sinecure, in which case he should think twice about who he's hustling for.
2
@Gary FS
Greenberg Traurig refused to represent Trump because it would be an enormous undertaking with an out of control client who doesn't pay his bills. It was a business decision.
As for Sullivan, whether or not he has time to grade papers while practicing law is not relevant. That's up to his employers. The point is that there is zero evidence that Sullivan's role defending Weinstein has any negative impact on his students other than hurt feelings, no matter how much they mention "safety" (a word which is unfortunately losing its meaning in this victimization culture).
1
@Max You are cherry picking. In addition to the pecuniary, Greenberg Traurig's decision was based on reputational factors and most espeically the strident opposition of the firm's associates to representing Trump - in Harvard's case, its students.
Although I certainly empathize with the injured sensitivities of snowflake conservatives in the Humanities and Liberal Arts, I would hasten to point out that conservatives like Columbia's Glenn Hubbard are legion elsewhere in academia. My objection to these self-indulgent student activists is that they don't go after guys like him. Hubbard, like Harvard's Larry Summers, trade on the reputation of the university providing academic license to economic parasites and support for Gilded Age public policy in exchange for multi-million dollar Wall Street honoraria.
At the end of the day, who cares about Dr. Sullivan. He's just a guy with a two year law degree teaching at a college that includes Alan Dershowitz on its faculty. But the impact of the Hubbards of the world is far more pernicious. But of course Ivy League "activists" aren't going to risk their reputation with the 1% they hope to join.
1
Thanks for this, Mr. Kristof, I couldn’t agree more.
When liberals reflexively behave like the crudest conservative caricatures of liberals instead of like reasonable people who believe in Liberal Democracy, human rights, and individual freedom, they do nothing but hurt their own cause and make re-election of Trump more likely. It’s particularly bad when it leads them to embrace right-wing tactics like censorship. Free speech must remain a foundational liberal value.
Progressives also need to remember that self-righteousness looks as bad on us as it does on the “family values” hypocrites.
Carried to extremes, liberal political correctness can lead to absurdities like a San Francisco school board deciding to destroy a WPA mural that daringly challenged patriotic pieties in its day but now is (falsely) deemed to offend minority students.
We must never forget that a progressive who lacks an open mind is an oxymoron.
5
If Japanese musicians can hit wrong notes playing Copeland without criticism of cultural appropriation, American cooks can mess up sushi the same way. The problem is the poor quality and not the ancestry.
6
I agree, but the behaviors described here are not liberal, they are intolerant. Radical intolerance in any direction (left or right) is a problem and the two extremes provide fuel for one another. I think calling these behaviors "knee-jerk liberalism" is incorrect and unhelpful. I would call them left-wing extremism.
4
I am too a progressive baby boomer and agree with your column ... seems most of the comments here agree too ... alas I think most people under 40 don’t read the Times, Post, et. al. ...
Excellent column, but I have to wonder if you have finally been "listening" to Jon Zimmerman, former NYU, now Penn, professor. Very liberal, but always well-reasoned, and consistent - listen to both sides, don't demonize, don't assume ill motives. Prolific op-ed writer whose columns are published in various newspapers, ect. If this President is to be defeated in 2020, it can only be done by engaging/discussing with those who voted for him, and not simply attacking those individuals.
2
This column speaks for me, Nick - as did your column on Elizabeth Warren, who is now my choice for the nomination.
Your last paragraph expresses perfectly the attitude we have to bring to these times.
Have a great and well-deserved vacation.
2
I suspect that Trump will use this incident to hammer at the intolerance of liberals, and particularly to claim this is proof of the corrupt nature of liberal colleges.
Oberlin has done more to help the Trump campaign than Trump could ever do himself.
2
Intolerance is a very hard thing to fight so that it matters beyond one's own life and experiences. Maybe that should be enough, but in a world that seems so unfairly intolerant and has been so for so long, it's frustrating. One feels that personal acts aren't big enough.
People do what they can when they feel they can't make a real difference in any other way. Hence, "For young progressives, the priority is more about standing up to perceived racism, misogyny, Islamophobia and bigotry."
They are too often acting out for a noble cause but employing techniques too similar to those they oppose.
Their hearts are in the right place; too often their judgementalism is not.
1
I'm guessing your regular readers are mostly nodding their heads in agreement, as I am.
In the past three years, two wonderful, thoughtful friends of mine who toiled in academia were summarily removed, for very questionable reasons that one must attribute to the "snowflake" mentality of their respective institutions. Their only mistake was to think, falsely it seems, that their colleges were still bastions of free and unfettered speech.
Today's young people are intent on calling out everyone for everything. -- even (as in the Gibson's case) before they actually understand what's really happening. Far too many of them see shouting "racist" as a mark of their liberal bona fides. It gives them power. It makes them feel good about themselves.
But, in their little Millennial cocoon, they can't see the bigger picture and can't imagine, for even a moment, that not everyone they point their fingers at is the evil doer they so desperately need them to be....
5
Zealots are unreasonable. And usually, they have no idea that they are either zealots or unreasonable.
This isn't liberalism any more than the proto-fascist right is conservatism. Our problem is that we have strayed into a distrust of the middle, of compromise, of institutions, and jump to automatic conclusions, often backed up by sensationalist media, like a call and response chant, and excuse ourselves from the task of using our brains, and looking at facts.
And of course, that in a completely polarized political scene, creating zealots reduces the total cost of pulling people to your side in elections.
I no more know how to get young, blazing progressives to stop and think than I know how to get blazing right wingers to stop and think.
But I do know this isn't about Liberals shooting themselves in the foot. It is about the whole nation shooting themselves in the foot and sinking under the weight of political beliefs that have about the same basis in fact and reality as any closely held religious belief.
2
"But the road to progress comes from winning the public debate — and if you want to win an argument, you have to allow the argument."
And be wiling to accept maybe, just maybe, the other side's argument has something to inform you, Nick
"...it's as wrong to stereotype conservatives or evangelicals as it is to stereotype someone on the basis of race, immigration status or sex."
No. No it is not. Nobody is born a conservative or an evangelical. Those are identities they chose to embrace, and ideologies that they deemed morally sound.
3
How are you wrong? By being an ideological liberal in the first place (or a progressive--you can't seem to decide which here). Your shockingly admirable career has been filled with such compassion, standing up for the poor and oppressed the world over for decades. Like seemingly none of your peers you actually publish specifics about how readers could actively help to mitigate the problem reported. Why not focus there, on what's right, rather than on a partisan political tradition that's half-right and only about politics? Your daughter has the Winthrop case so much more in hand than you. You uphold a lawyer's technical "right to defend" an "unpopular" client. (He's just unpopular? How amoral can you get?) And you advocate the EXERCISE of that right against the wrong of aiding and abetting him by making the wrong choice under the right? The lawyer can choose NOT to exercise that right in this direction. A client's right to trial or defense does not require that lawyer to represent it. Making the immoral choice to do so while a housemaster for undergrads, Jesus, kick the guy out. That's hardly intolerant. Ethical choice trumps legal formalism (lawyers role-playing in an advocacy litigation system) every time. Your heart has sung it in one column and book after another.
1
Great essay, but I think you are missing the true danger of the progressives. Their embrace of socialism is not only economic but dictatorial. They are following the course of Stalin and Mao. They are not somewhat intolerant they are very intolerant. They are a danger to American freedoms.
2
The sadness of the current situation in the Democratic Party is that it has been hijacked by leftists. Leftists like Sanders, Warren and almost all the others vying for the nomination have left their liberal ideas and gone as far left as they can. These are people who have very destructive ideas as all socialist ideas are. The mainstream liberal Democrat, of which there are tens of millions, have been taught to fear the right. In actuality they need to fear the hard left. The far left of the Dem party are no longer operating in the classic liberal tradition, witness Oberlin, witness the imminent New Deal destruction of the George Washington murals in Washington state, witness the hysteria at having conservative speakers on most college campuses. Whether or not the liberal democrat wakes up in time is unknown, but you are ignoring reality and putting the country in danger by playing footsie with socialists and thinking they have the same goals as you. They don't.
2
If we actually had a disciplined socialist movement in this country as (arguably) existed in the 1930s, you, my conservative friend might possibly have something to worry about. This ragtag bunch of confused and ignorant college students is most assuredly not that avant-grade of the proletariat. We continue to be a country run by the moneyed plutocracy, and you can be sure these people still feel safe in their 200,000 square mile ranches in Idaho and their skyscraper aeries in NYC.
How absurd that Oberlin students would protest the dining services offering sushi. So they want all their students, including Asian students, to be subjected to only "American" food (whatever that is). I'm delighted when my university dining tries to offer Asian food (even though they don't always get it right). At least they're trying.
2
Thank you for this, Mr. Kristoff. Especially as we go into the next election season, I think that we would all do well to remember that even if one doesn’t agree with someone else ideologically, we can all still learn from what others are trying to say.
As a lawyer, I agree that everyone deserves good legal representation in a criminal proceeding, but as a sexual assault survivor, I wouldn’t want a university dean to purport to represent me and defend an accused rapist at the same time. Both you and your daughter are right, and it’s past time we all listened to what one another have to say.
1
What is disappointing is that both you and your daughter adopt the predominant view of your peers. You defend Weinstein’s lawyer because you are a believer in the adversary system as are almost all baby boomers who don’t stray far from the status quo. As for your daughter, she is too young to care about defendants’ rights and argues simplistic right or wrong.
As an iconoclast, I have long believed that when your arguments stir up your peers, then you are probably onto something.
And I have long believed that people who call themselves iconoclasts, aren’t.
@Robert Your statement is iconoclastic which, according to you, is not to be believed.
In today's culture there is a clear absence for an argument that seeks to get at the truth. A truth seeker listens to the other side even he doesn't agree. The nonsense that our universities subscribe to of giving there students safe spaces so as not to hear the other sides arguments is doing an injustice to democracy. It is the opposite of being inclusive. It is a first step to a radical fascist undemocratic society. We should all be fearful that shutting out the other voices is not seeking the truth but embedding ourselves in our own narratives.
3
Usually Nicholas Kristof writes very reasonable and thoughtful opinions, but this one is not, I think. How is it possible to put the cases of attack in Oberlin College and the defense of Harvy Weinstein on the same level? The students in the Oberlin case should have known that physically attacking a person is wrong. The Dean in Harvard should have known that his students will strongly object to his defense of Harvy Weinstein. Portraying these as "liberal" issues is misleading, I am afraid.
1
"If Trump turns progressives into intolerant agents of incivility, then we have lost our souls."
A humble reminder not to become what one is against. Trump as president has been an exhausting time. All that i believed America to be as a young man has been challenged and not in a good way. Watching the Republican Party move to its extreme right has also been an awful thing to witness. Yet, if I lose ourselves to hate and intolerance I truly have lost my strongest values. Thank you for this reminder. The column is terrific.
1
I've Unfollowed, stopped seeing/talking, and otherwise ignored so many of my so-called "Open-Minded" liberal friends and University colleagues because they have become that which they claim to hate: intolerant of anything they disagree with.
But sadly, they are too blind in their righteousness to see it.
4
I agree with you 100 percent. As a student in the late 60's and early 70's we spent many a night in the basement of our dorm debating the issues of the day. We NEVER stopped anyone from presenting their viewpoint. If students at a liberal university cannot accept an opposing viewpoint, I would argue they are not liberals by any definition of the term. Had a presentation by the SDS one night in the basement of our dorm. We decided that their ideas were probably not for us. Open your so called liberal minds people. It is not the end of the world if someone does not agree with you.
Too often these days liberals swing so far left they actually end up on the right.
It's a good way to lose an election.
1
This trend has nothing to do with liberalism, it is typical of some forms of leftist dogmatism but it is not liberalism. Don’t confuse the two
Mr Kristof, rather than be appalled by a presumed 'anti-liberal' bias, your article 'appalled' me by illustrating how the liberal cause has been taken over by a young generation who, naturally, have little life experience and what little they do have is greatly shaped by the media. 'How can a house leader support students traumatized by sexual assault when he is also defending someone accused of rape?' That is the kind of question that a child would ask, not an adult who is used to grappling with the complexity of life's situations. It is appalling to me that the moral center of America has been pre-empted by a generation of ignorant, spoiled children who can get college professors and philosophers fired with a word, keeping the entire academic system hostage to the current, trendy 'moral principles'.
1
"Nobody has a monopoly on the truth," Mr. Kristof said. I can practically hear the thunderous knee-jerk response to this Sentence Completion exercise. "--- except we liberals," many of them would say. Liberal ideology, conservative ideology -- they are both consensus social clubs that no individual, coming from deeply rigorous independent thought and self-knowledge, would join. Quit the club and stand on your own: You might be surprised by yourself.
While I agree with the overall sentiment and warning of this column, I find the phrase “kneejerk liberalism” counter-productive. In fact the intolerant, narrow-minded, unenlightened, authoritarian mindset and behavior described by Mr. Kristof here reflects illiberalism! (Those adjectives define the word). Yes, there may be intolerance and thuggery by those who hold generally liberal views but, please, in the name of intellectual clarity and honesty, that behavior is incompatible with liberalism and progressivism in the same way, racism and authoritarianism are incompatible with conservatism.
Thank you. You are spot on. If we don’t grasp this larger truth and bigger picture, and soon, we will lose, and it won’t just be the election. I’ve been a Democrat all my voting life, but I try hard to be a thinking, rather than a knee-jerk, liberal. We must be very careful not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
1
Given the Oberlin example, would it be okay if a professor refused to accept a student in a class because of the student's politics? Oberlin, take note.
Mr. Kristof: You’ve nailed it. Knee-jerk liberalism at the cost of common sense, fairness and even truth, can cost us dearly and result in a (shudder) second term for Donald Trump. Thank you.
good column Nick. The fundamental problem with progressives is they won't debate. I have lots of liberal friends and when I challenge one of the pillars of their faith, instead of responding with well reasoned arguments, they spout headlines and a few talking points, and if I respond, they refuse to discuss it or become angry.
In part this is due to living in a progressive cocoon/echo chamber. If everyone you know or read says climate change is real, why, 97% of scientists say so, then it's very easy to ignore the details and be unable to argue your position outside of -- it's real, it's real. Ditto something like racist white cops are gunning down Blacks -- easy to declare but the statistics don't back it up. Ditto Trump is Putin's puppet, a traitor etc. Obviously we now know there is no evidence, yet the left keeps repeating that as if it were carved in stone, beyond dispute.
There are some decent arguments that can be made for leftist positions -- not all IMO -- but some. Universal healthcare could be argued for -- or at least the notion of how do we ensure that everyone has access to quality medical treatment at a reasonable price -- but the devil is in the details. We can perhaps agree on the goal, but saying you want to eliminate private health care coverage and have medicare for all --great headline, but you need to defend that position.
Of course, the right is much the same, but if the left wants traction for their ideas, explain and defend them.
1
Here’s a handy tip: avoid starting your alleged debates with, “I’m going to challenge one of the pillars of your faith.”
It might even be useful to avoid reciting Hannity talking points and swearing that you’re discussing things.
The crux of the matter is self-righteousness. We have seen the right wing up in arms over all sorts of wickedness, but now because it is politically expedient, they turn a blind eye to one of the most wicked men to ever live in the White House.
This same arrogance and self-righteous hubris is the single worst characteristic I see in the progressive movement.
Everyone believes they are so right that there is no need to listen to someone who looks different than them, or horror of horrors has a different opinion than the party line.
It is a tribal mentality on both sides and if someone accuses me of false equivalence, I will ask them to return to their Algebra I textbook. Equivalence does NOT mean things are equal but they are approximately similar.
The tribalism of the Tea Party and Progressives is most certainly equivalent in their intolerance of anyone who will not kneel in worship to their little gods.
Thank you, Nicolas Kristoff, for calling America back to reasoned argument and away from mob responses.
It is occasionally grating to read about excessively touchy students at elite educational institutions who are so sensitive they can't read a book without warnings beforehand, object to food served in the cafeteria (I would have loved to get some sushi at my university), and basically seem to be looking to be aggrieved at every opportunity. Whatever are they going to do when they go out and have to deal with the real world? It's not liberalism, it's self-centeredness masking as liberalism.
Some campuses I know well have found themselves enmeshed in "identity" questions that sometimes become so confused that faculty are not quite sure which students are in class. 'Comfort' animals lunge at travelers in airports and occupy seats in planes. By definition a committee, jury, workshop, civic group, board of directors lacking diversity is illegitimate. You don't like the way things are? Given the multiplicity of problems swirling out of and about politicians -- let me make a simple suggestion, one that's easy to accomplish -- how about registering to vote? And actually voting, in every election? No alibis, no cop-outs, no excuses. I don't want to hear another weak excuse that "the whole system is corrupt." Use an absentee ballot If you have to. According to a Tufts University study a measly 31% of voters age 18-29 voted in the 2018 midterms. And the Tufts analysts seemed encouraged! Pathetic.
The behaviors he is describing are not liberal, they are intolerant. Radical intolerance in any direction (left or right) is a problem, and the two extremes provide fuel for one another. I think calling the behaviors he describes "knee-jerk liberalism" is incorrect and unhelpful. I would call them left-wing extremism.
I agree wholeheartedly, with one exception. I will not tolerate intolerance of any stripe: racism, sexism, anti-LBGTQ, etc.
1
You are right. But the problem starts early in the educational system, in kindergarten and elementary school, when many parents over-protect their kids. Children are protected from failing, from criticism, from any comment that might hurt their feelings. And later they expect “trigger warnings.”
My mother taught me that “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” Perhaps that old adage goes too far—words can indeed be very hurtful. But we need to teach our children that they are strong enough to listen to hateful ideas and smart enough to speak out against them. By sheltering them from everything uncomfortable we are teaching them the opposite. Why should we then be surprised when we end up with college classrooms full of entitled, over-protected whiners who cannot think critically and who will never develop the intellectual skills and strength to be good citizens?
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If you believe that everyone has a right to a qualified attorney, then society has the duty to step up and provide that attorney. You cannot believe one without the other. Fulfilling the duty of representing a defendant is honorable in all cases.
1
Some people these days denounce you as centrist if you think both the "Anti-Fa" and the Proud Boys are thuggish threats to democracy.
The rise of illiberal leftism is just as much of a threat to traditional American liberalism as blood & soil nationalism is to traditional American conservatism.
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I wouldn't call the problems Kristof lists with Progressivism "blind spots." I'd call them old-fashioned, hard-core bigotry.
1
With all respect to the accomplished Mr. Kristof, the idea that "then we have lost our souls" is a fearful concept embedded by the patriarchal christian churches for the maintenance of their well documented exploitation and perversions. The republicans and the right-wing are planning how to win again. The only point of substance in all this is to craft a presentation of liberal values that will win the next elections.
Read Thomas Piketty and his expositions of his U-shaped curves. Look up the latest data points on the Keeling Curve. Listen to Elon Musk tell us that it will be acceptable to turn off the stars in the night sky for his definition of the "greater good" almost as in Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God".
From an intellectual point of view I prefer to consider the best points of any argument rather than inflate the worst views to strengthen my own position. I believe this article is about tolerance of other persons views and their right to express them. More importantly a cautious halt to reaction ism.
Liberals are going to get it wrong from time to time but our youths have gotten the zero tolerance right!! For far too long a nuanced, let's not offend any one has led to a huge misappropriation of truth. Left leaning ideology hasn't made space it's pushed us out of the conversation. Seriously in what universe does being a white male lend itself to the social victimization that Fox news has convinced it's viewership. Now let's add the careful nuanced conversation of the rest of the media that can't even just call a liar a liar.
We are in a period of cultural warfare, that laughably for the first time Liberals didn't start and if the youth of America get that tolerance for intolerance is not going to be tolerated, then it's because the history of tolerance for the sake of tolerance has shown them it's fruits. Trump as president, packed supreme court, voters rights abuses, citizens united, gerrymandering, unnecessary wars, children separation and the list goes on. When you give an inch you lose a mile. One side has completely understood this.
1
The law professor/deam of course has the right to take the case, and Weinstein may have the right to legal representation (and the means to afford it), but your daughter is right. The message matters. Optics...MATTER.
1
I am reminded of the Boston Massacre case. The lawyer for the British was some guy named Adams, as I recall.
Here’s a thought. At both Oberlin and Harvard and in many other similar cases, were seeing liberal activists on campuses pushing their causes. Great. What happened to the adults in the room that they stopped being, you know, adults? Since when did college kids become the ones in charge? Listen to them. Absolutely. Take their positions into account. Always. Agree with them? Sometimes.
1
I have a question for these young progressives. I am a 61 year old American Protestant woman of mixed French, German, Swiss and English descent. I have lived in Austria, Germany, India, Jamaica, India and Pakistan. I know I can't wear dreadlocks, or wear a sari or a salwar kameez, no matter how comfortable or practical. I get that I can't eat or serve a curry, or wear big gold hoop earrings, or braid my hair in certain ways, and that it is probably deeply offensive to practice yoga or speak any Yiddish, despite all my years in Northern New Jersey. But why are you always so negative? Why don't you tell me what I can wear, and how I should wear my hair, and what I should eat, and how I should speak, so as not to cause you offense?
1
I remember hearing so many times, back in the 1960s in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements, "You're only hurting your cause."
We really have gone off the deep end on both sides of the ideological spectrum.
We have a dictator wannabe and his Republican/Russian enablers taking us down one path and the loony left doing and saying ridiculous things.
It's really a very difficult time to be an American who wants fairness, justice and the rule of law to apply to everyone. I'm not sure we'll make it through these next turbulent years intact.
We need leaders. True leaders who believe in American freedom. Not sure they are around any more though. The necessity for a constant gathering of money has driven them away.
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And when someone talks about civility or working with folks who disagree with your viewpoint, it is considered “selling out”.
Yep. For some of these folks, even Obama is a white neo-con. I guess he didn’t shout and posture enough, and only got about five gigantic things done.
This is right on target, Nicholas. Liberals must also have intellectual honesty and toughness.
2
The extremes of the spectrum both devolve to a different side of the same coin. Imagine if you will of a relatively middle ground, on whole perhaps sharing pieces of the elements from far left or far right. Imagine on top of this that is the norm and predominantly this is where most people reside. In this “mean” average you almost certainly would not find any two people who fully and totally agree. In fact, you’d probably find quite a lot of disagreement, nuance, uncomfortable subtle positions. Undoubtedly some hypocrisy, contradiction and positions that are very fluid. That’s the real world. Thats the world the majority of people inhabit. That. Enter in fact becomes more useful as a set of data points and a base rate of opinion and practical reality. Nobody’s exactly happy and no one’s exactly unhappy.
However when we look at the spectacle and theoretical ideologies of (as an extreme) Totalitarianism and Fascism. They are extremes and as Hegel would call it versions of “otherness”. But they are others with ugly ends and violently espoused intolerant positions. These dirty reflections of the worse parts of a corrupt morality. They are also religious ideologies. They each are worshiping to their Church of...[fill in the blank]
While my inclinations are progressive and liberal there are times I am as disgusted with PC Fascism as much as repugnant right wing anti-Humanitarian Totalitarianism. Label or not, I’ll go with Pluralist and then I can change my opinion when required.
1
To young people:
1. One cannot deny or rewrite history.
2. Protests are fine, but do you vote?
3. Lose the single-mindedness and educate yourselves to both sides of any issue.
8
As journalist Joe Queenan once noted, "the left gets Harvard, Oberlin, the twyla tharp DAnce Company, and Madison, Wisconsin. The right gets NASDAQ, Boeing, General Motors, Apple, McDonnell Douglas, Washington DC, texas, Coca-Cola, General Electric, and outer space. Seems like a fair arrangement to me." Now that the Oberlin College administration gets sued when its students choose the wrong protest (Forbes Magazine was more troubled by this legal precedent than other aspects of the case) , I'm hoping to catch a twyla tharp show this year.
1
John Stuart used to do a regular segment "You're Not Helping" which highlighted the most egregious examples of incidents of these knee jerk reactions. He made the point that these became fodder for the right to use to discredit the left. Alas if people had taken him more seriously the term snowflake might not have entered our lexicon!
1
We need to stand up for our values, but first we need to be sure we understand what any particular situation is about, such as the shoplifting black kid being chased by the white baker.
And what about considering the enjoyment of good sushi not cultural appropriation but cultural appreciation. A Korean friend gave me extra homemade sushi after I told her how good it was. Can't we appreciate the best parts of other cultures, be they food or something else?
We've said for years that America's melting pot mentality is one of our best features. Let's not ruin that.
1
In the "Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950, sociologists Adorno, Brunswick, Levinson and Franklin, found that the traits of authoritarians (conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intellectualism, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex. ) are found on both the right and the left end of the political spectrum.
It is well to remember that.
1
Every weapon the Left uses "for justice sake" will be adopted by the Right. That's what people seem to forget. If a professor can lose his job because of the cases he takes, the day will come when a professor will lose his job, not because he chose to respresent a rapist, but because he chose to represent an abortionist, or a Greenpeace activist, or an undocumented immigrant.
If shouting down a speaker with whom you disagree becomes acceptable behavior, then how long before you are shouted down?
1
Please don’t blame Trump for liberal intolerance. His election and continued support is the reaction to it.
1
Yes, if we liberals stoop so low with intolerance, we are just playing into Trump's and Russia's hands. Anger is the easy solution. Polarization weakens us.
1
I totally agree with your points here. The only way I know to hear another person’s point of view is to actually listen to it!
If your intention is to shift perspective you can’t do that without listening! By listening you are NOT agreeing - you are simply trying to understand.
About 6 mos ago I told my husband and close friends to “call me out” when I’m preaching and not listening. It’s hard to do...but I also vehemently believe without shifting our behaviors like this ... everyone stays stuck and no wins!
My advice ... stop trying to win and instead try to listen!
1
Mr. K, I want to get up and sing and dance every time I read a column like this. I, too, become frustrated when I see the overt hypocrisy from fellow liberals who feel they have the moral standing to refuse to even listen to opposing views. Sorry, folks, but you don't.
I spent years as a math teacher trying to get kids to support their conclusions, question their process, and always, always, dig deeper and not be satisfied with the first answer that sounds right. Critical thinking has always been my personal mantra, and my greatest goal when teaching others. I carry that into my political dialogue - if I'm wrong, please present a decent counterargument, with appropriate support. I'm happy to listen. I could be wrong.
I was recently reminded of the gold standard for doing the right thing: 20 years ago the KKK chose Ann Arbor, MI, home of the University of Michigan, to stage a rally. Of course there were many more anti-KKK protesters, and when a KKK member became separated from his crowd he was violently attacked by the anti-KKK crowd.
Keisha Thomas, an 18 year old black girl, didn't like what she saw, and used her body to shield the KKK member from the attacks, and to try to calm down her fellow protesters.
When I saw that, I was deeply humbled. I decided that if I'm not willing to risk my life to protect another human from mob violence - no matter their beliefs - then maybe I'm the one who needs to stop and think about what I believe.
1
I would add that the right wing uses these humorless attacks of self-righteousness against those of us who consider ourselves liberal. When they say that Democrats are trying to ban Christmas, sure, it’s racist, but also directed at the idea that we can’t say certain things any more because this left wing police state thinks it knows better than everyone else.
I am a regular reader of Nicholas Kristof’s newsletter and column, I am by most peoples’ standards a liberal, and I am a 1985 graduate of Oberlin College. I agree with almost everything Kristof wrote in his current column, and I applaud him for calling out liberal intolerance for opposing points of view. I experienced this disturbing trend countless times during my four years at Oberlin. But like George Will last week in the Washington Post, Kristof oversimplified the College’s reaction to the shoplifting incident at Gibson’s Bakery, to the point where Kristof simply misrepresented the College’s response and the policies behind them. I wish he had taken the time to thoroughly research the incident because if he had, he would have written that the College’s reaction was lawful and appropriate. If you are interested in what really happened, check out this FAQ website: https://www.oberlin.edu/sites/default/files/content/office/general-counsel/current-issues/faqs.pdf
1
What makes politically correct, frightened, over sensitive, fragile people liberals?
I actually believe they are reactionary, hard core conservatives at heart.
As a Liberal with a capital L I do see Mr. Kristoff's daughter as a one. I do see Mr. Kristoff was one. He weighs the context, he examines the underlying social and political implications. His daughter's knee-jerk reaction is more akin to right wing "lock her up" mentality.
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I'm older but have a lot of friends in their late 20s, and while I am a progressive, there is exactly this knee-jerk reactions in play that Kristof writes about. I get it, I loathe Trump and everything the GOP stands for, but there's also an intolerance on the younger left, a dogma to be adhered to that is frightening to me. There's no wiggle room for dialogue, even amongst ourselves about issues, particularly social issues. They are also always ready with their metaphorical pitchforks at any perceived slight. I find it stifling and short sighted, both personally and politically.
Even among friends that I know are intelligent humans- I see too often a knee-jerk reaction-always assuming that the supposed "underdog is in the right. RE Oberlin- the wine thief was wrong- his color was irrelevant. This is the perfect example of muddied thinking that too often passes for "empathy"- actually its a lack of thinking - of reasoned thought.
I'm with your daughter. An accused serial rapist has a right to a lawyer, but it doesn't have to be the House Dean of undergraduates. That individual should have either referred that case to a colleague, or stepped down from the position that places him in an ethically questionable place at the university. Oh, but, 'ethics?' Who needs that these days?
And, believe me as a member of a faculty in higher ed., I really don't think conservatives have anything to worry about. The Koch Bros are taking good care of their "values," and dumbing down our public institutions faster than you can say, "erase history."
1
If anyone needed more evidence of the phenomenon the columnist is talking about, read the comments.
It’s hilarious and eye opening.
2
"third-rate schools," that's an actual injustice.
Why not stay right in New York City and have a look at why some students are getting a 'third-rate' education, rather than traveling the world? NY spends huge amounts on public education, far more than most other states. And many of those students seem to do just fine in NY schools. Your teachers are well-paid, they are probably no better or worse than average.
Asian-American kids far outperform Caucasian-American kids in NY schools. 72% of Asian-American students are proficient or better in math. Yet only 64% of Caucasian-American students are proficient or better. The Asian kids are generally poor, the Caucasian kids are generally middle class. So the higher scores are not the result of 'white racism.'
Unfortunately, the scores of Hispanic-American and African-America are abysmal, third-rate.
From: NYC Results on the New York State 2013-2018 Math Test (Grades 3-8)
I agree that the results indicate an injustice in public education. Please Mr. Kristof, spend some time looking into exactly why this is the case, it's right outside your front door.
“Dr Peterson said he did not object to trans people or to choosing which traditional pronoun they prefer.” - from the BBC article you reference! Why lie and say he refuses to use people’s preferred gender pronouns?
Trump lies all the time, but he tells the truth when he calls out the media.
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"We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable vviews."
Does Nick Kristof have any idea how patronizing that sounds? Sorry, but being "progressive" does not endow you with some sort of instant intellectual superiority. The so-called progressive candidates come across as annoying and arrogant because they think they automatically have the answers as how to fix everything that's wrong with this country.
Stereotyping conservatives and evangelicals is not the same as stereotyping on the bases of race or sex. The first two are chosen ideologies as opposed to the latter biological facts, not choices. The former made a choice and that informs my opinion about them in a way that the fact of the latter’s biology does not. And yes, the law professor should be allowed to represent whoever he wants, but his choice to represent a serial sexual predator precludes him from being a person undergraduates will feel comfortable discussing their own sexual trauma. He can’t have it both ways. Your daughter is right on that one.
2
Do not Conservatives embrace people who think like them? I didn't know that.
1
What is sad is that young people now have this need to identify themselves by arbitrarily self-imposed categories which are no less crushing than those dictated by society at large. If your mother came from Ireland and your father from Japan, does that mean you are doomed to only eat corned beef and cabbage, and tempura? I thought it was the duty for youth to rebel but instead they're cheerfully strapping themselves into ideological straitjackets and furious at anyone else who refuses to.
1
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.". If Gibson got $44 million dollars from Oberlin College, then law has preserved the balance. But sometimes law does not work or forsee, then "living by merit" is the only rule. According to me, "Living by merit" means when I deal with you, I do not see exactly where you come from, what is your background, predisposition, caste, religion, race etc.. I will try my best to understand you and If you fall into the bracket of the merit, you are on, else I ignore you.
I think George Yancey is a philosophy prof.
Had to read this, driven by a sense of irony. (As a self-described liberal who never reads Kristof precisely because of his over-the-top knee-jerkness, it caught my eye.) So kudos, Nicholas, for at least TRYING to take a non-pandering take on this. But when you say your daughter “has a point”: well, no, she doesn’t, at least not beyond the fact that every statement, viewed through a sympathetic lens, has “a point.” (E.g., the birthers had a point, as in Obama would NOT have been eligible to be President had he NOT been born in the U.S. — sure, he WAS born in the U.S., but you gotta admit they had a point!)
I recognize it’s reached a level of parody to talk about the oh-so-sensitive, delicate genius 20-somethings out there, but that’s because they and the positions they espouse are laughable, not because the parodies aren’t based on truth. The more we allow these noodniks to create “safe spaces” at the expense of true liberal values — convicting the accused without needing evidence, dismissing or silencing people who make them “feel unsafe”, whitewashing historically and artistically important murals because they misinterpreted their meaning — the more we are sewing the seeds of our own destruction (and enabling and empowering the Trumpers).
2
It's not clear to me what the Sullivan-Weinstein case has to do with Liberalism per-se, unless you think that being horrified by sexual assault requires one to be a Liberal. Sullivan was not fired, he still has a good position at Harvard law school. The students lost confidence in him and became uncomfortable with him, so it was not appropriate for him to keep serving as Dean of students.
1
As an aging Berkeley radical of 60’s and the Free Speech Movement, I offer one of my favorite quotations from a very dead, very white male:
“Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”
—Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicenced printing to the Parliament of England
Here here! Finally, some balance and common sense from a NYT opinion writer. I am a progressive, but it has always maddened me how intolerant liberals can be of ideological differences, even as they espouse the importance of tolerance. In our current time, with all of the divisive rhetoric coming from (most of) our leaders and blindly echoed by the masses, Mr Kristof’s perspective here is more important than ever. I just wish his fellow op-Ed writers would follow his lead - most of them are contributing to the divisive rhetoric and fueling it.
1
Bravo. I note liberals attacking Kamala Harris horrified that she was a prosecutor - "the criminal justice system is corrupt!" No, it's not, despite the isolated cases that make the news. The majority of law enforcement officers and prosecutors work to seek justice and convict the guilty to keep our communities safe.
Convictions are a more dangerous enemy of truth than lies are.
Neitzsche
1
It is complicated. Which doesn’t lend itself to tweet but ask your daughter who might be able to provide more insight about rape, professor Sullivan or a professor of chemistry. Whose Rolodex is full of resources dedicated to sex crimes. Sullivan might make you uncomfortable but might also be the best resource Harvard can offer. Shouldn’t our students look a little deeper and deal with some discomfort? So to should the Democratic Party. That said it’s the GOP who has moved way to the right.
The white "store clerk" is the son of the owner of Gibson's. He has martial arts training -- ran after the shoplifter (yes, he shoplifted) and apparently had him in a chokehold (sound familiar?) when the 2 women piled on to help their friend. Watch the police body cam of the incident. Very little interest on the part of the police in hearing an alternative version of the events. A crime was committed. What followed is up for debate. The paper of record (Elyria Chronicle-Telegram) has helped to create the David (Gibson's) vs. Goliath (Oberlin College) story.
Oberlin is an easy target -- and you are a little late to the game, Mr. Kristof, although you write better than George Will.
The Gibson family controls 2 large off-street parking lots in Oberlin and owns storefronts and 2 apartment buildings in addition to their bakery. It's a complicated story.
Lorain County residents have little use for Oberlin -- until recently that has been due in part to the multicultural demographic of the town. Not surprised the jury went the way it did.
The banh mi saga which gets repeated endlessly (again, an easy target) was a complaint raised to the level of a national emergency.
Listen to your daughter.
1
Well, my perspective from abroad is that Americans in general are shockingly ignorant, and what's worse, appallingly intolerant, and intellectually cowardly and dishonest. In five years in Ivy grad schools, I rarely met any "educated" American capable and willing to stand up to an honest argument. What I heard was almost entirely cheap rhetoric and clap-trap. Most Englishmen I know, for example, consider argument a sport, with rules such as respecting facts and conceding better counter-arguments. Americans feel like they have to win every argument, even if they have to lie to achieve "victory."
1
Yeha, repeating a cultural stereotype that’s been around for about 200 hears is really what you call your reasoned argument.
1
Nice piece, Nicolas. Well thought out.
But where does one draw the lines? In France, holocaust negation even expressed as an opinion, as against the law... As it should be, I feel. Are democracy and freedom of speech lessened in doing so?
I, for one, don't have the answer.
Thanks again.
"We liberals need to watch our blind spots."
Mr. Kristof would do well to remember the old Lone Ranger/Tonto joke whose punch line is (slightly cleaned up) "What you me 'we', Kemosabe?"
He would also do well to get back to us when there's a liberal equivalent of Trump and the Republicans birtherism claims that President Obama was a Kenyan impostor rather than a genuine American.
1
Too many ultra-progressives suffer from "straight white guilt".
This relatively new problem is the source of over-compensation creating a brand of identity politics that is turning off a majority of straight, white people. Trump has flipped this script, with his push to make straight, white America feel great again.
Can't we all just get along and leave skin color and sexual preference and religion and accents behind us?
1
Good to hear you talking sense today Kristof. It's about time the left took a hard look at itself. It's driving people to Tr for sure.
2
Darn, but I'm getting intolerant of pieces with titles in the imperative voice that order me to stop doing something or other.
1
Regular reader, definitely not appalled. Excellent and necessary column, thank you.
1
As with everything in life...it's a balance.
1
When I was a child, my family was stung by McCarthyism. At the age of 80, I have been especially disheartened by the rise of authoritarianism on the Right. It’s even worse, in a way, to see it growing among young people on the Left.
2
In principle I agree that free expression and openness to new ideas are important. In practice, it's more difficult. As a gay person, must I accept those who promote hatred or even violence against me as just another perfectly valid viewpoint? Do we really have to give creationists a platform on an equal footing with scientists who can cite a factual basis for their views?
We must retain the ability to debate peacefully and explain why we think some patterns of thought are just wrong. You could have explained to your daughter the very important reasons why all accused Americans are entitled to competent legal defense, which have nothing to do with condoning or facilitating the crime.
2
@Jomo The short answer — yes. Provided that they are not violent or directly inciting violence, creationists and those who oppose LGBT rights have every right to speak in the public square. They are not guaranteed a platform everywhere. Most media outlets, including mine, exercise a certain amount of editorial control over letters to the editor and comments on articles. But they can still speak their piece somewhere. The correct response to speech you disagree with is more speech. Speak out yourself, say why you think they’re wrong, let others decide who to listen to and who to agree with.
1
The knee-jerk shut-down-all-coversation dilemma is what is terrifying to young Jewish students enrolling in college. In many colleges, students, and to some degree staff also, support a pro-Palestinian point of view, which is a position that one can take legitimately, whether it is right or wrong. But then they bully and force the administration to prevent spokespeople from the opposite point of view to present a reasoned opposing arguments and to engage in honest debate with the other side. Everyone loses when that happens. In far too many colleges, Jewish students, some wearing yarmulkas, are immediately labeled guilty of genocidal tendencies, are pigeon-holed and shunned by a large number, often a majority, of the self-described progressive student body. Meanwhile, real worldwide problems, tragic ones, such as the murderous hatred of Muslims by Hindus in India are ignored by these same bullying students. Chinese authorities silence opposition - yet the same self-righteous students do not demand their schools, their states or their countries to engage in BDS-type protests against goods manufactured in China. One would think that those imbued with a liberal or progressive ideology would be incensed at Chinese policy towards their own people, but nary a word.
In America we are blessed with having Freedom of speech. Let's stop blocking and start listening.
4
I wholly support the message of this article. I actually run a blog (www.citizenjaneblog.com) where i encourage such ideological diversity. I host debates in a written or video format on myriad topics, with the intent of allowing others to have a disagreement without devolving into personal attacks or overly emotional rhetoric. I believe that the best ideas are born when we can hear from all perspectives, even ones we disagree with. My viewpoints are limited by my own life experiences, and I only gain by hearing others, even if I vehemently oppose. The worst case is I learn to strengthen my own argument. I am always looking for new contributors/debaters if anyone is interested!
I see your point, but it's hard not to fight back against those who want to take my reproductive rights away even if they are "good" people. It's hard to approve of evangelicals that think it's AOK to separate children from their parents and not provide adequate care when doing so. It's hard to accept that these evangelicals support a person who has been credibly linked to assault and rape of women. It's hard to understand why anyone would support a pathological liar that puts our republic and its democratic foundations in danger.
1
I lost friends last election due to my support of Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. Apparently, by speaking my values over blind obedience to the sainted and anointed one makes me sexist and a misogynist.
Funny thing is that so far this election I am a big and vocal fan of Elizabeth Warren and a lot of the feminist friends I lost are also fans of hers.
It doesn't seem to click with them that Clinton and Biden are the policy, background, and ideological equals:
- Both are center-right establishment figures.
- Both burdened with the same past choices that are currently unfashionable
- Both are prone to regrettable political gaffs that they refused to apologize for
- Both were riding the coattails of a more popular president
Whereas Warren and Sanders are both staunch progressives and have a similar ideological outlook.
So I find it funny that to the friends I lost who were so passionately pro-Clinton that they would cast me out over my patriarchical offenses of supporting Sanders are pro-Warren. Obviously, to them, Gender matters more than ideas. Whereas, I who was consistent with my ideological choices, and simply gravitate to the person who represented them best, am the sexist pig.
2
Racism, discrimination and inequality fueled by conservatives are so widespread and pervasive in this country that the knee-jerk liberalism described, however offensive some may believe it to be, is a flyspeck by comparison. Come and talk to me about knee-jerk liberalism when a black person can get a fair shake in this country or a person without a lot of money can get adequate representation in a courtroom or when a person over 40 cannot be fired for his/her age or when a woman can get an abortion in all 50 states. Conservative have done a wonderful job of distracting us from the real evils in society by conjuring up some false equivalencies on the far left.
Oh, and from what I’ve read, Professor Sullivan lost his house deanship at Harvard because he apparently thought it was fine to take on multiple full-time jobs and expect full remuneration for each.
They teach leadership at colleges Oberlin. They will be the government some day. Imagine these students at their future careers at the EPA discovering Oxygen Sickness and their attempt to ban Oxygen. It causes free radicals and humorous masses you science deniers. They're well versed in string theory at Oberon too.
Kristof is sticking his neck out here. Social Justice is more important than the truth, bakeries (their employee's), and Kristof. The writing is on the wall. Look at the younger nytimes opinionators. Leaders all.
You probably should have cut the opening paragraphs. They are the weakest part of this column.
A professor was not punished; a house dean was. If students aren't comfortable talking to a house dean, then the wrong person is in that job, because that *is* the job.
I am a liberal moderate and I agree with this article completely. I am not a progressive but I am definitely a Democrat. I'm left of the middle. As a millennial, I find the progressive movement extreme and annoying. These days, I see extremists on the right AND the left. But of course, I will be voting Democrat in the next election. My generation started to get annoying with the Wall Street sit downs during the financial crisis. It's progressed from there. The stupidity of youth. The Gibson situation disgusts me. But it doesn't surprise me! I'm a biracial cabacha and I'm not minority enough for these progressive ppl. Just like now, like Obama also endured, Kamala Harris isn't "black" enough for African-Americans. No way to win....
A university law professor who has a secondary job as a dorm father thinks he has time for a tertiary job defending somebody in court?
Maybe he should have resigned his secondary job if the offered tertiary job was so appealing. A little reflection on his existing commitments might have helped him to say "no, thanks."
There's more than one good lawyer in the world, and Weinstein can afford anybody, so we don't have to feel sorry for him.
The problem with your thesis is that we are moving backwards in terms of the Overton window. Why should Mexican or Black or LGBTQ people be forced to defens our fundamental humanity again through intellectual discourse? Racism, homophobia, and misogyny should not be up for debate in the first place.
1
@Border Barry And yours is a great example of the type of comment that will help re-elect Trump. As far as I know, very few people dispute the humanity of blacks or Hispanics, Asians or Native Americans, people who are lesbian or gay or transgender. They disagree with you fundamentally over things like affirmative action, reparations, illegal immigration, whether Christian bakers should be forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding, whether transgender girls should compete on a high school girl’s basketball team or change in an open locker room with girls in a high school or middle school gym class or be forced to use a female or third gender pronoun for a co worker or risk being fired. They don’t see why reparations should be paid to people who were never slaves, by people who were never slaveowners, or how they qualify as privileged when they live paycheck to paycheck and are up to their necks in debt. They do so for various reasons, some philosophical, some based on deep religious convictions that are based on traditional teachings. It’s shallow and simplistic to simply shout “racist” or “bigot.” You shut down the discussion before it even starts and get people’s backs up. If Democrats can’t learn better and can’t compromise, they should prepare for defeat.
2
It's already started in the liberal democratic party. Name calling and angry shouting and not letting others talk.
And that's why we will have trump again for four more awful years.
1
It is hard to be progressive. It is easy to not care and be a conservative. What we do not need is progressive circular firing squads. This is precisely what the Putin-plan is: disrupt with confusion and sowing dissent against those who actually care the most. Kids are way less informed these days, I get it. But that does not mean their passions should be ignored. And that includes your daughter, Nick. The point is what is the right path? The wrong path is to be a hateful bigot - which in my view is what most Americans are.
Here's your blind spot. A white shoplifter would have got a good lawyer and probably pled to a lesser charge, or be given some type of alternative disposition or diversion by the court. Not saying that shoplifting is right, and there should have been consequences, but being unable to discern that black people face more severe and damaging consequences for their actions than whites is part of why young activists are frustrated.
If evangelicals kept their religion to themselves, they would avoid prejudice- and we would all be happier.
1
Jordan Peterson argues he shouldn’t be legally forced to use people’s preferred pronouns. He doesn’t refuse to use them.
It’s hard to understand why educated liberals are so committed to mischaracterizing the man’s positions.
1
Examining one's levels of tolerance, or lack thereof, is all to the good. But there is an undercurrent of both-sides-ism herein that obscures a fundamental truth: Many conservative views are obvious horse-puckey, and should be loudly proclaimed as such. Climate change is real. A six-week fetus is not a child. Cutting taxes for Tim Cook and Wall Street doesn't help you or me. Charles Murray and Milo Yiannopoulos are racists. Jordan Peterson's lobster theory is a blend of neurological pseudo-science and pop psychology. .... Second, conservatives of the Trump/McConnell variety will never extend the same ideological tolerance and conversational courtesy to liberals that Kristof demands we offer to them.
Let's be crystal-clear who the bad guys are, eh? Alabama just sentenced a woman for manslaughter because she lost a preganancy during a shooting, even though she was not the one holding the gun. Mitch McConnell and John Roberts have devoted their contemptuous careers to the destruction of voting rights for minorities and procedural due-process in general. If liberals can't get the candidates who represent our views into office, those ideas are no more relevant than cocktail-party chatter.
Conservatives are not our partners in civic or political discourse. (Barack Obama wasted years on the tomfoolery of a grand bargain with the devil.) I am far less concerned with Jordan Peterson's career prospects than I am with free and fair elections, one man one vote.
1
As an immigrant woman of color, I cringe when I hear... the country isn't ready... debate will win them over. We know that large part of the country wasn't ready for slavery abolition even after civil war (may be some are still not ready for equal rights of colored people)...I have a feeling if civil rights law was put to a referendum it wouldn't have passed either.... the oppressed are tired of debating and pleading and marching and voting and hoping... may be non violent group shaming is the last hope left?
1
Bravo on your column.
You said:
"We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views."
Makes me think of this quote:
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell
2
Agree with everything said here.
In trying to defy the opponent, don't become like them.
But, this has been played in history before... where humans in their self righteousness and zeal for justice overshoot the mark.
Major examples, in giving an answer back to terrorists for 9/11, USA broke its own rules of engagement and committed war crimes. Look at the Iraqi civilian casualty count. Look at Afghan casualty count. History will ask us, how many needed to die to avenge 3000 Americans... how many? 100, 000, 150,000... how many.
These university examples also show the mob mentality.
Oberlin missed a major opportunity.
That truth, no matter how unpalatable or not what-we-want-to-hear, needs to bear witness.
The most difficult to swallow is the "Ideological diversity", in my opinion. You have a conflict of core values. But a civilized society, if it doesn't accomplish that, has no justification to be portrayed as civilized.
As regards conservative opinion writers here on NYT, I do read them... but if you become a purveyor of lies, and ignore history, your own party's diabolical agenda... then don't expect me to respect you.
1
I guess the country has moved so far to the right that the so called “liberals” are authoritarians.
1
You miss the point.
While Evangelicals complain about their lack of freedom, the painful suffering inflicted upon Christians, the intolerance of Liberals; but their stated goal is domination and absolute control.
Their complaints boil down to "If you're so tolerant why don't you tolerate my intollerance?"
Most people want to be respected and left alone, Evangelicals want to run the place and tell everyone how to live. It is a critical difference.
Regardless what Evangelicals say, its every one else who is under attack. These bigots are free to worship, to live, to behave as they please, but that isn't what they want. They are openly and specifically demanding total control.
This Christian persecution hoo-hah is an evil ploy.
There are problems on both sides, but they are in no way equivalent.
I agree with Kristol. There is way to much intolerance and political correctness on the left now. A true liberal will not try to censure or squelch those who disagree with them.
You are so right about this. Thank you for reminding us liberals to be fair and just to everyone.
I wrote this in reaction to Bari Weiss's column about the exact same issue, and I'll write it again: The Koch brothers have spent millions of dollars spreading a completely false myth that young progressives are stifling free speech. Chait, Haidt, Peterson, Weiss, and so forth; they've all been paid a whole lot of money by the Kochs. This almost never happens (which is why every weirdo outlier is breathlessly reported on... Kristof is reduced to still talking about that Oberlin College thing) , and in fact, research shows that young progressives are more tolerant of a wider degree of views than other groups. It's just not true.
If you believe it, you have been suckered by Koch propaganda. Period.
I totally agree with the basc premise of this article. Knee jerk, holier than thou liberalism excludes too many people who would be willing to be sympathetic to the principle being defended. As to the Harvard professor, consider this: no lawyer is obliged to take on any particular defendant. AND the best way for a lawyer to defend a case of violence against a woman is to trash the victim. Weinstein could have found any number of laywers willing to defend him, as is his right, but no single one of them is obligated to do so. We'll see at trial if the Harvard professor defends Weinstein by trashing his accusers in order to make the jury doubt the veracity of their accusations. But having followed many many trials for sexual violence, I don't think there is another way to win. So why would a lawyer who supports women's rights take weinstein on?. Harvard didn't fire the professor - they just, rightly, it seems to me, removed him from being responsible for a dorm.
Nicholas---you are Spot On!!! At Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, they had something called "A Day of Absence" sponsored by non-Whites. Last year, they demanded that the Whites leave campus. A prominent professor refused and riots broke out, campus security said they could not protect him, he received death threats, the whole place degenerated into chaos. The prof and his wife, also a prof. there, were awarded $500k in the lawsuit (should have been 5 million, imho) and have left the College. Registration crashed 30% last fall and resulted in significant layoffs. Same thing happened at Mizzou. Their enrollment crashed.
So, you have identified a serious mental "disease", called Political Correctness. An Aussie has written very cogently on its dangers and effects.
On Political Correctness:
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/pc.htm
Decline of our civilization:
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/signs/chap9.htm
I chuckled that you would make this Very Important Point and then go on vacation. Good move!!
1
Oberlin has always been wacky as can be. I had friends that went there in 1969.
Harvard is also wacky, so glad I never choose that path. My Prep school guaranteed it. I coulda...
Nonetheless, we will either vote for progress or lose to racism.
It's that simple.
VOTE!
Too many points overlooked here.
Why should Oberlin pay $44 million because it chose to do business elsewhere? What ever happened to FREE enterprise?
"Campus activists at their best are the nation’s conscience."
Not since the draft ended in 1973.
The clerk was wrong the moment he left the store and accosted the shop lifter. If nothing else than for his own safety. That is what the police are for. And, don't worry, ever since Trump told the cops it's open season on minorities, the cops are taking it to heart. Especially if you shop lift.
http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-news/family-files-10m-claim-accusing-phoenix-police-of-violating-their-rights
Late last year Catholic Gonzaga U. refused to let conservative inciter Ben Shapiro speak on its campus.
In February Grand Canyon U, the largest private Christian school in the country, refused him also.
But all we hear about is Berkeley or Harvard. Or Oberlin.
Kristoff here sounds like Brett Stephens light. It's all the fault of liberals who just don't understand that they MUST be civil and keep giving their lunch money to the bully until the bully decides to change.
The energized Democratic base scared the pants off the right in 2018 because the right saw how effectively the left co-opted their winning tactics.
So, Kristoff plays right into the hands of those conservative columnists the left knows not to trust when he tells liberals it's OK to bring a gun to a gun fight; just make sure it's not loaded.
If the kids are jumpy these days, it may be in part because we have a man in the White House who has been accused of sexual assault or misconduct by multiple women. Why aren't these women's allegations being investigated?
1
@Judith
Fair point: I think the President has so many "misdemeanors" under his belt that he stains the presidency and on this basis there is sufficient ground for an impeachment, on the simple grounds that Trump is not a gentleman.
To be clear; the House doesn't need a criminal case to impeach, a civil violation of the common code of conduct is sufficient. As a trial run, the House should pitch a single Article (a life-long record of being a lechous anti-gentleman) to the Senate and let them swat it down; just for the political theater of it.
Am in complete agreement with your premise.
We're too trigger happy these days. When Boston's MFA let people try on Japanese kimonos there was a big outcry that I didn't understand. I thought it was wonderful that westerners could embrace another culture.
My granddaughter is ¼ chinese. She looks only beautiful, not necessarily Chinese. If she puts on her other grandmother's traditional clothing, will she be excoriated for "appropriating".
I also wonder about western culture and who's "appropriating" it. All the Chinese and Japanese officials wear western suits. Is this a cultural appropriation? If their wives appear in high heels and dresses, what does one make of that?
Instead of getting pissed over minor details, let's do what Rodney King said, something like, "People, can't we all get along?
It's one thing if something is hateful. It's another thing if it's just daily life. Let's all get along and not sweat the small stuff.
As for Oberlin, wasn't the guy shoplifting? That's just sad. Tell him not to do that. It's not kind, nor is it legal.
I agree with your whole article. So thanks.
Anytime you pack young people, not fully thought out, into a space, you will see mob behavior. Fraternities are a prime example. As individuals, those guys are probably good and thoughtful. Put them into a living situation with only one gender, and you get the mob mentality that often leads to sexual assault, hazing, and other unacceptable behavior.
1
The young progressives see what is being done in the name of America by Trump and the Republican far right, not to mention organized racists and neo-Nazis, and their rage is understandable. But to reflexively censor those who hold views they find distateful is to play into their hands.
To oldsters like us, this may seem obvious, but I think it's partially wisdom born of life experience. My cohort was just as strident and often self-defeating in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
"Debate him - that's how to win the argument...….progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views."
Have you ever tried to debate an ardent Trump supporter by calmly stressing facts, logic, and basic common sense? Talk about blowin' in the wind...….
Marcuse, the famous Maoist philosopher from the 1960s, has won. Today’s leftists and liberals accept without question his argument that the State and other social institutions should repress conservative speech. Most of them aren’t even aware that they are parroting and regurgitating a long dead communist. American secondary and college education deserve the primary blame for the spread of this noxious, thoroughly un-American creed.
1
Bravo for touting viewpoint diversity which is absolutely critical if we're going to be a less polarized nation. There's a level of self-righteous bullying by modern "progressives" that has muted voices of moderates and traditional liberals, who are naturally sympathetic to underlying goals of social justice. The result is that the far left becomes deaf to differing perspectives because the only pushback comes from conservatives. But as a wise man once said, "If you only know your own argument, then you know little of that."
2
Thanks for your article about Professor Sullivan. I have agonized over this issue since first hearing about it. It is somewhat personal inasmuch as I was a tutor in Winthrop House for several years. I lean toward your daughter's view on the argument that the relationship between a House Dean and the students in that house is, to a significant degree, a personal one. I doubt that he would have been appointed to the House Dean position had he been representing Weinstein at the time. All aspects of a candidate for that position matter, including personal characteristics. His all-important faculty position at Harvard is safe, reflecting his right to represent anyone. But he is not entitled to be House Dean with many female students who have been sexually assaulted. Nazis have a right to demonstrate in the streets, but you would not appoint one as House Dean where many Jewish students lived. Thanks again for an interesting article.
1
@Don Fowler’s. I agree that Dr. Sullivan should have avoided the conflict of his role as house dean and council to Weinstein, but your comment ends with a patently erroneous analogy: Nazis are self-proclaimed anti-Jewish bigots; in our system, lawyers do not assume guilt for the charge against the client they are representing.
As a regular reader of your column - social liberal and fiscal conservative - I am deeply troubled by the fact I am agreeing with you. Discourse is no longer possible when sanctimony infuses differing political viewpoints, and like many “moderates” I find being preached at by progressives unconvincing as well as exhausting. As you describe the Oberlin issue, by example, it was clear the college administration was involved and the jury agreed, yet the responses here show an unwillingness to accept new data and alter opinions. One can only hope others follow the example you set in this column.
6
I think Kristof makes excellent points, but I think the issue comes down to giving someone a platform that would never give you a platform. When liberals give conservatives a platform, they are giving them an audience. However, conservatives do not do this; they never provide a platform for liberals to express their views on equal terms with a conservative. They don't provide an open space for the argument and ideas to speak for themselves. As a result, the conservative bubble remains intact, while the liberal one is infiltrated. As such, liberals now feel compelled to shut out those conservative ideas from their sphere. I don't think this is the right thing, but I do understand the desire to remove the intolerant. In essence, "I will not tolerate the intolerant."
However, it does lead to these cases like the Harvard professor, which I think is ridiculous. Everyone has a right to counsel and no one should be ostracized for representing a horrible person. If Harvey Weinstein had a public defender, none of these people would complain, which speaks to a blindspot, you expect public defenders to have subpar skills in defending a client, which means you in essence have no problem with an inequitable system.
Here here! Well written and a really important message at a time when the excesses of the right, including their inclination to distort facts and fabricate reality, may push liberals and progressives to cross lines of civility. The passion of youth allows for many things to seem black or white while the lessons of experience allow for identifying the various shades of grey. A healthy blend of both is always needed and usually prevails.
2
And perhaps add liberal public shaming and even destroying the reputation of people who are merely accused of bad behavior by someone on the internet. Sometimes the person so shamed appears guilty of this behavior; but the possibility of mass rumor mongering or leaping to a desired condemnatory conclusion is very high indeed. The internet is a poor forum for determining guilt; and it lends itself to a mob mentality to which liberals are as liable as anyone, apparently. We can peer through a lens that confirms our biases without being aware of it as well as conservatives, as the comment here by the evangelical demonstrates.
1
Dear Mr. Kristof,
Thank you so much for this! I'm a teacher at a community college. For a while, I (smugly) thought that this kind of well-meaning but misguided hypersensitivity/intolerance was limited to places of extreme privilege like Oberlin or Yale. But it has arrived at my own school, too. As you did with your daughter, I discussed with my students Harvard's dismissal of the Winthrop dean. I was so surprised when they replied just as your daughter did. Similarly, in a unit about free speech, they basically said, "I'm for free speech, but you shouldn't be allowed to say hurtful, racist things." Recently, it seems like not only students, but also fellow faculty say that disagreement on this front is itself harmful to students of color and makes one complicit in the perpetuation of racism. I think those making this argument don't (won't?) see how their insistence on a kind of vocal purity has a chilling and silencing effect.
4
One of my favorite topics. Thank you.
My niece read a list of pronouns to choose from that her new college provided. I suggested she let it be known she would like to be addressed as “Your majesty”, thank you very much.
6
I think the immigration issue is a liberal blind spot. It is hard to say why or how exactly Trump got elected (especially with ex-prez Jimmy Carter confidently asserting that the Russians threw the election to him with their efforts); but, the immigration issue does galvanize the right wing and the issue certainly gave Trump traction and a great rhetorical prop (build the wall!!).
We have immigration laws, asylum laws, and rules for applying to enter the country temporarily or permanently. There are many people in the middle and right side of the political spectrum that think people should follow the rules when seeking to move to the U.S.A.
People on the left perhaps are more inclined to see immigration rules as a nuisance / formality, and can rationalize that when one is in a state of humanitarian or economic emergency, one should cross the border first, then get processed, get your name in the cue, and find work, and await your fate with the Immigration judge / courts. (Those currently in line...well their turn will come).
By this logic, it would be reasonable to admit 1/4 of the Indian and Chinese and African populations, respectively and simultaneously, given the variety of hardship they all face.
We do have a broken immigration program; liberals (and even the right wing) are blind to fixing it; but liberals are getting blamed, rightly or wrongly.
2
The new Liberal strategy in the competition of ideas is to simply muzzle the other side.
Any idea contrary to The Way is deemed hate speech and all attempts are made to prevent those ideas from even being heard and to make those ideas disappear.
Liberals are the new anti-free speech party and they do this by labeling their opponents with the ism of the day.
Even in the Democrat debate they fell all over themselves calling each other racist.
3
I recently went to what was supposed to be a forum about an online arts journal at the ICI (Independent Curators International). The theme was supposed to be "Patriarchy -- stop the censorship!” As a 63-year-old woman who had a nervous breakdown in 2010 over sexual harassment and abuse I experienced as a 26-year-old at the National Broadcasting Company in 1981 (which caused me to lose my career and aspirations for 30 years), I expected a related discussion. After a 10-minute presentation by the “arts journal,” two “guest contributors” dominated the discussion for the next 50 minutes with political rants ranging from “saving” Brooklyn from “gentrifiers,” to eliminating the NYPD, to returning Manhattan to the Lenape (a tribe chiefly in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario and part of the Delaware Nation.) When my head was ready to explode, as the elder in the room, I said I didn’t mean to be patronizing, but things always moved forward. For some reason I never understood, this resulted in being branded an enemy. When I tried to speak a second time, I was screamed at by the ICI host who yelled, “We’ve heard enough from you!” I sent a stinging email to the organization, but when I tried to post a comment on the blog of the arts journal at the U of Buffalo, it was removed. So much for “stopping the censorship.” ICI’s annual fundraiser has a $1,200 ticket price. (I’ve lived in a tiny studio apartment my entire adulthood.) I will never attend another ICI event; It was a a disgrace.
5
@Sam Katz
Sad: I think yelling is an adopted manner of speech for the "politically correct" mindset when confronted with reasonableness and rationality and logic.
The author uses a few anecdotes to argue liberals aren’t tolerant. One black professor says he faced intolerance as a Christian in academia, so Kristoff presents that as gospel. His daughter agrees with Harvard’s decision to fire a dean who was being paid to defend Weinstein, and he presents that as gospel.
Liberals are far from perfect, but they are hardly intolerant—and certainly not as intolerant as the other side, which is winning on all their policy issues because they’ve rigged the system in their favor, but that still doesn’t seem to be enough for them.
Glad Kristoff admitted his view is tainted because he is a white man. It is. Look, people of color are fighting against a Trump regime that would take us back 50 years and re-institute vestiges of Jim Crow. We are fighting against a mad man who gleefully calls black people low IQ. Women are fighting against a philandering hypocrite who is appointing judges that would institute laws that make it harder to access contraception and impossible to get an abortion. There are no gray areas when it comes to basic human rights. Zero. That media treat Trump as though the word salad that regularly comes out of his mouth makes sense signals that people are a lot more tolerant of the grifting, sexist, racist president than he deserves.
4
I see the same type of behavior with my daughters. They want to cut everyone off and shut down opinions that are outside the path of political correctness which continues to be refined daily with more and more guilt required by white Americans to be able to stay on the path.
The truth is also that this is not a reaction to Trump, it started before that. His style and stupidity has thrown the PC crowd into Hyperdrive. But the drive to exclude and shut down thought different than what is considered PC will get Trump elected again and that is the saddest thing of all.
9
@Dante
Here is a comment to a comment posted to the article about the San Francisco Public School system Board of Directors electing to destroy a historical mural because it "hurts students feelings." FYI, it speaks to the source of our "political correctness" problem.
***
CL
Paris June 29
@Aidan appreciate your comment. Somehow, over the past 30 years or so, the American academy glommed onto a bizarre and distorted interpretation of a strain of Continental Philosophy (postmodernism and "deconstruction") and uses it to justify censorship, puritanism and cultural bullying. A great majority of people just want to get on with lives, keep traditions that they've had for many generations, and not be forced to deal with a constantly shifting rulebook for correct behavior. This majority is certainly not a mass of racist, antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic, etc. people but paradoxically they are now the ones feeling the oppression of a very misguided minority of true believers. Derrida rolls in his grave.
2
Agreed. As Mo Udall said "When the Democratic Party forms a firing squad, we form a circle"
It isn’t wrong to stereotype when it’s a stereotype that has been embraced, willingly, knowingly. I’m tired of articles about liberals worrying about offending conservatives (or other liberals for that matter) by being “too progressive”. The people you’re worried about offending a) aren’t worried about offending you in response with their stultifying conservatism, and b) will use your waffling to their advantage given enough time. This should be obvious from Mitch McConnells’ behavior for anyone who has been paying attention. I’ve lived all my life in conservative strongholds, it’s way past time for the liberals to enact a “scorched earth” policy the next time the worm turns. Don’t pardon anybody, don’t avoid prosecution for crimes (war, financial, treason, et al), prosecute them to the fullest extent possible, and then hold the convicted up as reason not to vote conservative the next election cycle either. I for one am tired of pretending that people who distrust the educated, who think that vaccines are being laced with saltpeter, who think Obama wasn’t born in the United States, who think Donald Trump is fighting for them, etc. deserve even the slightest consideration from me anymore for their willful stupidity.
2
These words of tolerance contradict your words about Woody Allen, whom you have convicted, even though no court has.
1
Thank you! I totally agree. Knee-jerk (aka politically correct) liberalism defeats the purpose and damages our fight against inequality in all its forms, as does protesting without knowing the facts.
1
Christopher Hitchens declared it a deformity to attribute the lowest or meanest motive as the authentic reason for a person’s actions. Presuming the worst of everyone ails us all.
2
Ideological purity...
Sounds like something from Mao's cultural revolution or McCarthy's persecutions. It gave us Trump when too many decided Hillary wan't liberal enough. It could give us an antiseptic culture out of some 70's scifi dystopian future movie.
Seems to go hand in hand with the rise of allergies due to limited exposure to dirt.
No one can disagree with the common-sense observations Nick offers in the anecdotal examples he cites of the various excesses of clueless college kids and their enabling deans.
The bakery incident just shows the folly of the so-called wisdom of the crowd and instant twitter judgment culture we live in today. The shameful Jordan Peterson banning is another example of internet mob-rule.
I’d respect these college kids a lot more if they were putting their bodies on the line for the vastly more real and difficult problems of war, economic injustice and voting rights, for example.
The notion of colleges isolated cathedrals of learning, where they reserve the right to police themselves on campus rape— and seem to get it wrong every time—is outmoded and creates the perverse outcomes and micro-environment of solipsistic wokeness we keep seeing. But it does not reflect the thinking of mainstream progressives or the Resistance as a whole. It certainly doesn’t reflect the values of Democrats anymore than the gun-toting looney who barged into a pizza parlor looking for Democratic operatives of a child sex ring represents the GOP or MAGA types.
It’s the Internet, stupid. It’s the tyranny of the viral that’s bringing us down.
1
I'm a life long liberal a decades past post operative transsexual and stealth, which means I actually got to live the life I paid for with my blood and many many sacrifices.
Yet I'm a transsexual and terrified to say boo about "trans" these days even when I know what is said to me to be utter nonsense because of the absolute intolerance of todays reactionary youth. Even were I were to destroy my life and out myself, it would be for naught because anything, even the hard won fruit of experience if it doesn't agree with the canonicals of Tumblr are a heresy and the witch that speaketh them must be not be suffered to live.
Torquemada and Cotton Mather? You've nothing on todays social justice warriors!
2
This story is Malice in Wonderland, read with European eyes.
Theft is theft is theft, albeit, a bottle of wine, is not a major heist. So let the punishment fit the crime.
I'm reminded of England 100 years ago when thousands of convicts were deported to punishment camps in Australia. One such stole a loaf of bread and pleaded guilty because he was hungry; the magistrate peered down at him and said, "I am often hungry, but I don't steal." Sure poverty is the motor of crime - but this doesn't appear to be the case.
If the situation hadn't spun out of control, the guilty student should have been fined a few bucks and given a slap on the wrists.
I was a cop for a few years when I was young and skin colour was never a factor - neither in arrest, nor in justice.
I was also arrested in horrible conditions in Apartheid South Africa.
So, to mis-quote Joni, I've seen the law from both sides...
What would I have done:
Taken the black student to the cop shop, cautioned him, but not pressed charges - provided that accompanied by me, he paid the store and apologised. (Who of us have never nicked something from a shop when we were young.)
And, a complication, having witnessed and read about the massive injustice meted out to black males in the USA, has to be a factor here.
I would have arrested the violent students and charged against them.
$45million for lousy sushi. Insane.
I've looked at America from both sides now, I really don't know America at all.
"...I will defend to the death you right to say it."
And that is where 'tolerance' of racist, homophobic and radical 'religious' speech leads, to death and concentration camps.
Liberal sometimes seem to forget that words matter. Words lead to actions. Words lead to mobs acting out.
"Prickly intolerance" is a mild reaction to those who refuse to acknowledge your existence with a pronoun, cage children and trade the prestige of their institutions to cash in defending a serial rapist or the 'religious' who want to control your body and sexuality while psychologically harassing young gay people into suicide.
No one is embracing or condoning mob violence but tolerance for racism, rapists and radical religionists, whose words and actions lead to suffering and violence, is condoning those words and thoughts as acceptable.
Liberalism is not a suicide pact. Tolerating the intolerable is not a virtue, it just legitimizes the intolerable.
3
I just ordered a box of Gibson’s butter cookies with chocolate fudge to support them! They certainly don’t need my money, if they are ever able to collect even a fraction of this award, but, this family and business were harmed and maligned by an unthinking mob and enabling administration. I hope their award survives the likely appeals and that they collect from Oberlin.
Now retired, I’m left of center on many issues, but live in one of the reddest counties in Colorado. I was educated in the Jesuit liberal arts tradition. I thought a “liberal arts” education was designed to open one’s mind to opposing ideas and train you to listen, ponder, and evaluate. This was mob rule and Oberlin should be ashamed. But, mostly, I fear for the future of the country. Right or left, mobs destroy, and, if this is what we can look forward to, maybe I”ll buy a gun after all!
1
Finally someone who can put into words what so many of us old moderates have been thinking. I despise the KKK, Nazis, White Nationalist and Antifa equally. Violence had no place in the world of ideas. But if someone is holding a rally for something you don't like, the answer is to hold a bigger rally and distribute pamphlets that explain why you don't like it. Every silly little perceived offense to every sensitivity is driving those that truly believe is sexual and racial justice mad. Censorship is antithetical to our belief in freedom of thought. When I was in college we learned about the marketplace of ideas and how it was good for a society to debate ideas and winnow out the ones that were unacceptable. No one wants to be told they are stupid for having an idea. Their idea may be stupid, but they may not be. If the decision is between accepting the narrative of the far left and being called a deplorable for rejecting it, I will pick being a deplorable every time. I don't want to live in a country like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or Turkey where you can be put in prison for criticizing your government. We need to cherish the fact that we are able to think and express ourselves freely because that is something really rare and precious in this world. Remember ideological purity has historically been the rationale for some of the biggest crimes against humanity in history. I too may not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.
5
Boy do I agree. Spot on as far as this 82 year old liberal is concerned.
1
Amen, Mr Kristol. PC culture has reached Puritanical, tyrannical lows. The Democratic debates are becoming depressing displays of virtue signaling and self righteousness that lead the left into the ditch of socialism and identity politics. Who is the oligarch? The racist? The greedy villain? The "sinner" to be condemned, shunned, fired?
John Adams was the lawyer who defended the British soldiers in 1770 regarding the "Boston Massacre" (facts are stubborn things").
The moral absolutism that we see today was on full display at the Democratic debates especially with the Kamala Harris use of it regarding vs. Joe Biden's older construct of finding common ground with people which, outside of that common ground, have not much in common,and then getting-something-done on legislation. to move the ball forward until the day when the dinosaurs are no more.
I hope that the Democratic party does not let the petulant self-righteous lefty- bots loose another election for us.
We need to appeal to the recent Trump voters and be patient.
time and demographics are on our side.
1
Some cases are probably too hot to handle. If you are made of straw, common sense would tell you to let someone made of tin handle the legal defense of the case mentioned in this column.
I don’t know if some of the liberals who are regular readers of The New York Times realize how much of a bubble they live in. The day to day conversation I hear around me is largely opposed to the editorial positions taken on various subjects by the Times — illegal immigration, race relations, LGBT issues, the President, politics in general, global warming, crime, the economy, and yes, free speech on campus — and on the various stories that the Times chooses as meriting attention. I suspect that the number of people who share those opinions across the country will be underestimated by the Times readers right up until Election Day, when there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth when Donald Trump wins another term. I hope I am wrong, though I doubt I am. Democrats seem to have learned nothing since 2015.
7
The Gibson's incident shows a lynch mob mentality. Another example of those who are ignorant of history are bound to repeat it. Why isn't Oberlin teaching this to its students instead of ignorantly following the mob? At best, they can turn this into a teaching moment.
1
Mr Kristoff, a great column, and I'm sure you'll be experiencing the blowback that is now part of the current Cultural Revolution.
If you're not "woke enough," soon enough, you and others will be paraded through city streets, wearing dunce caps on your head and holding placards where you'll be confessing to your supposed "crimes."
2
As long as people think and vote on the basis of labels, rather than issues and facts, demagogues can win.
The NY Times as the “paper of record” and you Mr. Kristof as an intelligent and seasoned journalist ought to recognize this better than anyone else.
2
Intolerance from the left is no answer to intolerance from the right.
Sullivan didn’t lose his tenured job, and Harvard didn’t cancel his contract, it merely declined to renew his (and spouse’s) contract. Also Harvard’s stated reasons, while very possibly pretexts, didn’t mention representation of Weinstein. So how are Kristof’s liberal values even implicated? And is daughter’s opposition just to “perceived” racism and misogyny? Is she mistaken or misguided, whereas Kristofer stands on solid Enlightenment ground?
I agree. In fact, all I want to read from now until the Democratic Convention is articles which begin: "Here are 25 ways this Democratic candidate _____fill in the space____is better than the current occupant of the White House."
It's interesting how respect for human rights and diverse opinions has morphed into an irrational intolerance of others who have different opinions. Perhaps a more appropriate title would have been "Stop the Knee-Jerk Fascism".
2
We already have a Bari Weiss, a David Brooks and a Bret Stephens (wow, when you say it out loud it sounds so much worse, doesn't it?). We don't need another one. Thanks,
3
Oberlin and San Francisco are a very small portion of America, including progressive America. Would love it if the media would stop amplifying the right wing “look at those crazy socialists!” narrative for once. Looking at you, Barry Weiss, Bill Maher and now apparently Nick Kristof, for losing your perspective when the more misguided among us get out over our skis. Donald Trump is an existential threat to the republic and you all get your noses out of joint over every trivial progressive overstep. Move on and don’t let Trump and his enablers take our eyes off the ball.
3
Apologies to Ms. Weiss for the autocorrect misspelling of her name...
1
Kudos to Kristof for speaking truth to the fascistic power of the militant intolerant rigid Left.
4
The right masks hate with claiming to be anti-poltically incorrect.
The left is on the verge of their own cultural revolution.
we're in trouble.
2
The younger liberal millennials have become increasingly intolerant of differing views in this age of Twitter and Trump. Instead of engaging with conservative voices they shout them out or ban them from speaking. It seems that outrage is everywhere and the world is now full fo social justice warriors. More and more districts across the country are turning red and I don’t think it’s due to Trump but rather those who are against watching every word they say a d holding people accountable for something they said 30 plus years ago. Thirty years ago I was nineteen and I was an idiot. I’m sure I said and did a LOT of really stupid things. Going through that time helped shape me into who I am today but that time in no way REFLECTS who I am today. This generation was brought up not learning how to confront different voices. Someone needs to pop their bubble so they can get some fresh air. For the record I think our current president is not a good fit for the country and also his replacement should not be another old, white man. I think we need someone with a vested interest in the future of our country. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday morning.
2
Kristoff is being easy on neoliberalism. If only some open minded liberals would read this column, he will have made a great contribution to fixing the epidemic.
3
When I was in college there were all sorts of protests, demonstrations, boycotts of this or that instigated by huffy students. I remember gripes about local businesses. Neither college nor professors ever got involved with them.
Oberlin got dragged in by the SJW hysterical self righteous rip tide of today.
Oberlin, the Covington boys incident, and the various attacks by Antifa, are not good for the US. Good thing we have video.
Let's have a third party. Let's call it the Healthcare/Homeless party.
2
You are quite right to point to The Big Picture of what liberalism hopes to accomplish.
There will be individual instances where there are wrongs and injustices committed by liberals.
Periodically I tell people I went to Bosnia with the U.S. Army in 1996 to make the christians stop killing the Muslims.
They look at me as if I have committed a blasphemy and tell me I have the "who was killing who" wrong and reversed. I saw the aftermath of the christian genocide. I went to the concentration camp from WW2 in Auschwitz run by christians. I went to segregated schools. All horribly wrong.
Now we can confront injustice and condemn it. But we should not defend wrongs in the name of liberalism.
Colleges and Universities concentrate like minded students and protect them from physical and psychological harm under Parens Patriae.
But when individuals do wrong they must not be uncritically defended.
Free speech and assembly are liberal values.
What does speech become when it is stripped of everything that may be offensive to anyone.
Speech can be protested and the individuals be asked to account for their statements.
Vietnam Vet
1
I am lifelong liberal who fought old wars against bigotry, intolerance, racism, and injustice. I did not do it to prepare the way for today's touchy self-righteous 'neo Puritanism'. I am appalled by the proud intolerance displayed in the Oberlin bakery episode. I do not want to live in a world where correctness of thought is required, apostasy enforced, and ostracism, shunning or even physical violence are permitted. These are often associated with cults. There was an old saying, origin unknown, 'Beware the aggrieved aggressor'. Look in the mirror, Oberlin. You are becoming the very thing you hate.
4
I whole heartedly agree!!! Thank you for writing this.
1
Can we shut up about identity politics for a couple of decades and focus on improving the lives of the middle and lower classes? Can we rid ourselves of billionaires and the 1% and make extinct the scourge of income inequality? O.K, Kris, yeah we now know that your daughter goes to Harvard and hey nonny no to that and huzzah to your membership in the 1% club. While the #metoo movement was an important battle won, we need to ask why those who started it sat on their hands for so long. Weinstein and the others were doing their dastardly deeds circa 2008? 2008-9 when the great Obama was closely embracing Max Baucus for killing the Public Option and kissing his hand for letting the Health Insurance profiteers write the ACA? Why now? It happened now because it is a silly orchestration by the Corporate Dems to revive identity politics. It is to neuter Bernie and Warren. It is sleight of hand to deflect attention from the groundswell movement against the rapaciousness of Corporations, income inequality, the condescension of the Harvard and Princeton and Yale elites that toppled Hillary in 2016 and continues today. Please be edified and escape that echo chamber of yours now and then. Unemployed youngsters who cannot get married and those living paycheck to paycheck spend don't really care about the football conversations you have with your daughter about identity politics issue involving some elite Professor.
2
"But the road to progress comes from winning the public debate — and if you want to win an argument, you have to allow the argument."
The tragedy is that the same road leads to winning an election and to date the leading indicators for 2020 are depressing. Outside the Rachel Maddow/Michelle Greenberg echo chamber Americans are waiting for a credible alternative to Trump. Instead, they are being asked to choose from a slew of a perfectly respectable and apparently authentic group of candidates who are vying with each other for leadership with platforms that are qualitatively different but share a key element-they are too radical for the Independents who will decide the Presidential Election. Worse, if there is movement in any of their positions it is towards a more progressive (read extreme) stance. So a totally unequipped and destructive President with low approval ratings other than with his base is likely to get another 4 years because Democrats are catering to the most extreme elements of their base, all of who have different priorities, be it minority rights, student debt, inequities at the border or pronoun use or abortion. Sad
4
Lenny Bruce spoke of Liberal intolerance nearly six decades ago: "I'm so understanding, I can't understand anyone not understanding me, as understanding as I am."
5
As kids are starving around the world, our top notch college kitchen staff have to worry about how to accommodate ever growing dietary restrictions -- most of them having no medical basis. As these college students embrace virtues of being gluten free vegans, they are busy denouncing anyone on the other side of social/political spectrum. These fragile snowflakes forget that college is where their minds should be tested, not coddled.
5
The theory of racial justice that is basically the elementary school jibe "how do YOU like it?" writ large, certainly stirs emotions. I think it is a sign of the immaturity of the still young civil rights movement, which continues across the US. The younger generation of minority college students, often people whose parents benefited from affirmative action, feel called to activism, but don't have the experience or context to see clearer goals than the doings on campus. They also, some of them, seem to confuse safety (there is no safety for anyone) for equality. It's important for all college students (and most especially ivy league students) of whatever race, religion, culture or color, to reflect upon the fact that they are a privileged class simply by having the chance at a higher education. Many many kids, kids who are intelligent, who would do well, kids of all races, religions, cultures and colors, don't have that chance. A little humility would go a long way.
2
Knee-Jerk Liberalism becomes the opposite of a reasonable response. It is a 180 degree bounce from an insensitive "Republican" point of view. New PC requires not-thought. Stopping illegal immigration is bad, there for Democrats running for office push open borders, exactly opposite of voter's choice. We have "food fight" Harris, a true racist pushing reparations, accusing a thoughtful liberal of not being true blue.
3
Here in Europe, displays of Nazism is frowned on and in some ways illegal. This does curb its growth here. If it is not possible to eradicate a cancer, then can’t we try to slow it’s spread? Debates can become rallying events for the misguided amongst us.
Yes! Thank you. No one asks "Why wasn't the Oberlin student expelled for stealing?" Wouldn't that be justice? What madness has taken hold when students protest to protect the rights of a thief because of the color of his skin? Isn't that incredibly racist?
10
Any line of logic which leads you to defend the pseudo-intellectual charlatan Jordan Peterson is deeply flawed, Nic. You cannot defeat men like Peterson in debate, cause they do not engage intellectually in good faith. You cannot win an argument with a conman who will defy establish science and facts to make their point. At a certain point, you just have to stop listening. So while you worry about the hypothetical that perhaps my generation isn’t tolerant enough of racism and bigotry, I see your legacy of intellectual and moral half-measures manifested in the worst presidency yet, a decaying social order, and far-right views proliferating. When will you old liberals realize: we have actual enemies, who actually hate us, who will never be defeated by reasoned debate.
3
I'm afraid that the kind of campus-based, cast-the-first-stone liberals described here, and elsewhere, are no different -- and not much better -- than the puritanical, intolerant Taliban that we've been fighting in the Middle East for over a decade now.
If they would stop voguing for each other in displays of their moral purity, maybe they could trade in their self-absorption for greater self-awareness when it comes to what liberalism means.
1
Mr. Kristoff: You badly (and so casually) misrepresent Jordon Peterson’s position on using preferred pronouns. He has clearly stated that his objection is to legislation compelling his speech. This is not the same as “says he will not use people’s preferred pronouns.” You should recognize the important distinction. I think you Professor Peterson an apology.
2
Atticus Finch represented a very unpopular individual. That’s why Mr Sullivan should be allowed to represent an odious man without stain on his own character.
1
There is a reason why some people are disgusted with liberals. Thank you, we will miss you.
2
The saddest part about this column is, that it needed to be written.
5
This strain of illiberal liberalism back in the 60s ultimately shaded over into the self righteous violence of SDS, Weathermen, and their ilk. I met some of these people back in the day. As a volunteer attorney, fresh out of law school for a group called The People's Ballroom, focused on free rock concerts in Golden Gate Park, I met some White Panthers. Ultimately I came to see some of the core leaders as thugs and hustlers. They used the language of liberation and solidarity, but lacked the sincerity of their supposed convictions.
2
Liberals seem to be champions of diversity on every front except diversity of thought.
8
Nicely put.
1
One problem with being a strong partisan (like me, a liberal in the south) is that we can overreact according to tidbits of information and our own steretypes sometimes. I think now of the lionization of Kamala Harris as a symbol of progressivism and defense of the downtrodden. The problem is that this self-presentation and idea in our minds is not correct. I ask, or beg, that you take a moment to read the article below, NYT in January, before we go onward with our knee-jerk reactions to the last couple of days.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html
1
Credit Kristof for a principled stand.
4
Please reprint this every week until the 2020 election. Democrats have ingenious ways to LOSE elections, and catering to the illiberal left. We have a dangerous lunatic in the White House who will stop at nothing to stay there. Everyone needs to cool his and her jets for 17 months. After Trump is gone you can scold me about how it should be "cool THEIR jets."
1
What's wrong with present-day liberalism? It's all about navel-gazing personal issues: moral perfectionism, condescending elitist concern for the lower orders (isn't that really a way of publicly flaunting belief in one's own superiority?). It basically ignores, rejects, the external, material world as beneath consideration; the need to run a successful economy to produce the wealth to make it possible to ignore material limitations. Liberals act like the heirs to a great fortune, that their only job is to spend the money. I once heard a devout liberal say, with real feeling, "money is dirt". Ha! Liberals seem to ignore the need to coexist in a world with people who aren't interested in LGBTQ rights, reparations, abortion, the 'rights' of illegals. Who might these people be? Chinese, Russians, etc.? I guess it's just so satisfying to liberals to look down at the earth sliding by beneath them from the vantagepoint of an ideological hot-air balloon.
4
While I am certain this sort of nonsense goes on in the Right (I'm more Holy than thou), I am more aware of this stupidity on the Left. Kristof is correct; knock it off, people. The drive on the Left to be more PC pure than the next person reminds me of theologians in the Middle Ages having vicious fight over the number of angles on the head of a pin.
PS. Do not ever apologize for being a 'straight white man'. Nobody should apologize for being what they are.
4
Great column. Spot on.
1
"This column will appall many of my regular readers"
Not me.
2
The media feeds knee jerk liberalism- and conservatism - by rushing to hit “publish.” News is released with clickbait headlines and no effort at establishing facts. Most people then only see the clickbait headline and a sentence or two of summary, usually biased towards the clickbait, with actual facts buried so far down that only the few with precious time ever read them. Proper journalism and reporting have died in the face of 3-second sound bites, chyrons, and tweets.
Idiots on the far fringes of both sides ensure that we remain polarized. The vast majority of people are somewhere in the middle, but the two parties are defined by the far side fringes. This could be seen as an ingenious device to thwart the will of the majority, by dividing it and causing people that are actually rather close politically, to divide to seperate polar opposites. Evil genius? Our system itself makes compromise very difficult.
2
Well written, one must balance being progressive and playing the PC Card.
If you go too far on the latter, you hurt the former.
PS: One way to stop knee-jerk liberalism is not to call yourself a liberal, progressive is a better word.
4
The only problem I have with the Times is there blackout of Bernie Sander’s campaign until the 2nd half of December 2015 during the 2016 election cycle.
This lent credit to Trump’s claim of “fake media”, “rigged elections”, “deep state” etc...
The median wage has been flat for 47+ years and that’s given us an opioid crisis, Trump and proto-fascism. Sander’s was the only candidate on the left calling for an end to Reagan Supply Side economics and a return to FDR’s demand side economics, and the Times froze Sanders out. When the time came, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania froze Hillary Clinton out - the very people Sanders’ campaign was trying to address. Some of Trumps presidency is on the Time’s hands
2
It would be so refreshing if the New York Times also published self-critical opinion pieces by far-right columnists about the excesses and abuses by individuals on the far-right of the political spectrum.
Do such critiques exist? Enquiring minds want to know.
1
It would be nice if liberals refrained from walking into caricatures of themselves.
You're a day late and a dollar short, Mr. K. Catch any of the Democratic debate? The candidates are falling over themselves to get to maximum wokeness.
Which will of course hand the next election to Trump.
Extremism in the service of justice is stupidity because it usually backfires.
2
Good article. Don't ever apologize for being a straight white male.
I'm thinking of the incident at Yale U some time back when an employee who was black destroyed an antique window as he felt its decoration was racist. Arrested and fired for vandalism, Yale dropped charges, apologized, to him and reinstated him, Oh yes, the college then purged buiding names and art that might be construed by some as racist? Want to know how to encourage voter backlash? Keep it up.
3
As a thoughtful person and trying to make others more thoughtful I hoped you would have fully read all the reports on Mr Sullivan’s history at school. If you can’t do your homework you lose credibility to me.
I am perplexed by a well meaning group of young people that are so appalled when an unarmed black man is killed by a policeman, that they will take to the streets in protest, and they should! Do speak out about police brutality! That is about 200 deaths per year.
But,how come these same people don't make much noise or do not protest the 500 innocent black children ( under age 15) killed by drive-by shootings every year. Black on black violence.
How come they do not design protests and champion programs to stop the 9000 young black men killed by street violence every year in America, It is 50 times the rate of unjustified police killings. But it is not a fashionable protest position.
Nick, thanks for taking a knee on behalf of liberal jerks everywhere in America...
If the student body at Harvard thought about it – they’d probably disapprove of half the things their faculty advisors and residents work on, think about, or think...
As far as:
“...We progressives should have the intellectual curiosity to grapple with disagreeable views...
With this, you certainly should have the curiosity to grapple with a fellow progressive’s disagreeable views:
https://nypost.com/2019/06/29/bill-mahers-brutal-message-to-mayor-de-blasio-just-quit-race-now/
Since this isn’t getting posted anyway – here’s the sort of disagreeable thing that probably contributes to Bill (Maher’s) seeing things the way he does...
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/06/29/video-two-teens-stomp-on-victims-head-on-nyc-subway-platform/
2
This is a "Eureka" moment for the Times. These blind spots that Kristof is pointing to helped lead to Trump's election. Liberals have become too arrogant, judgemental, inflexible, bigoted and intolerant in recent years...not to mention overcome with with an anger and hatred that used to be the domain of the far right. Time for some soul searching before 11/2020 comes around.
5
Perhaps this is an appropriate time to remember Kirsten Gillibrand leading the parade of flaming torches to the door of Al Franken. (I speak in metaphor of course.)
3
Of course, in a perfect world....the playing field can be leveled. When the rules are typically interpreted as in one side's favor, the natural instict is to try and find another way to level that field. When women are not believed or they are accused of making up the story or the black shoplifter isn't just chased down, but is shot in the back in 'self defense', wouldn't you want to find another way to make sure justice is served? If you, as a woman, make a mistake and wind up in a vulnerable position or the black youth makes a bad choice and shoplifts, you want to know that your error in judgement isn't going to be the defining feature of someone else's exhonoration for even worse choice. And when the system is set up to favor the denier, not the accuser, it is quite understandable that people victimized by that system would want a safe place to live their life. The bottom line is 'It's just not fair' doesn't cut it anymore. And now you have the President, the Supreme Court with not one, but two credibly accused men of sexual abuse, and the majority of police that kill Black men found not guilty, why should it come as no surprise that people want a way to protect themselves even when it's not fair. It is small consolation to have been on the 'right side' after you have been raped or you are lying in the morgue.
1
Lifelong, 60 year old democrat here. The real problem: spoiled, entitled Kids, living in a bubble. Having no conception of the difference between capitulation and compromise. Making demands, and expecting 100 percent satisfaction, NOW.
Grow up, darlings. Life is not a glorious Picnic, every day of the Week. Some days it rains, stay in and rest. Or Work. A couple of Jobs will do wonders for your outlook, and tolerance.
Seriously.
6
From A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (1960):
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
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Perhaps if his generation had not been so tolerant of those of hate and cruelty we would not have much hate and cruelty today. "The only thing evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing." You are incorrect to say that Trump makes it easy for liberals to villify evangelicals. It is the villainy of so many evangelicals that makes it easy to villify evangelicals. They have forgotten the teachings of Jesus and are far more about hate now than love. They try to take away healthcare from 30 million Americans. They make it legal for "christian" businesses to be intolerant. They take babies from their mothers and put them in cages. And what excuse do these evangelicals give for dirty-diapered babies in cages? They broke the law.
I don't think you should call it liberalism when someone reacts to the rumor mill instead of learning the facts.
Mr. Kristof, your articles always teach me a lot and bring me new thoughts to rummage through. If Mr. Sullivan was not involved in the processing etc of student complaints, the I think the college was only covering it’s butt. I am not familiar with Sullivans job. But, if, when asked by Weinstein to represent him, he felt he could do this and handle such a difficult case, then he should be patted on the back. His work is cut out for him.
But, part 2 of the store, I think the theft is not color concerned. But Black Lives Matter comes in directly when the police show up and take the alleged thief away. That is when the treatment shows. There is no mention of the mans treatment, procedures and the end results. This would seem to be a small misdemeanor that would never result in being in jail. And here I bring up a quote from your article: “the legal representation every defendant is entitled to.”. I have never seen this to be true. Sure, if poor and charged, one can ask for an appointed lawyer. This is different per state but often with few, if more than 1, meeting and little help. To have a right to legal help costs a lot of money, mortgages etc. In Mass bail is seldom zero with no bondsmen allowed. I am curious how the young man faired in this situation. The students were right to support
Black rights, but they should have been at the police station, not Gibson’s.
Thank you for your time
Yeah, Kristof! Well said.
I think Nick is that rarest of all breeds: a thoughtful, self critical liberal. But he betrays how far down the progressive rabbit hole he is when he says he “fears Trump has made it easier to hate conservatives and evangelicals”. Note to Nick: liberal activists definitionally hate all conservatives and religious people. Trump is not a needed ingredient. As demonstrated today by the violent attack on conservative writer Andy Ngo (a gay Asian man, BTW) by left wing Antifa thugs, Trump is just an excuse for the natural inclination of all left wing groups to destroy conservatives. The scorpion, after all, can never help itself.
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Blind spots? Liberals need to take a very serious look at their own blind spots. Talk about macular degeneration..........
Wow. Two days in a row from the NYTs articles warning against the utter insanity of leftist run amuck.
This only proves that the radical leftists don’t care about anything. It’s utter nihilism. And even sensible liberals are shuddering at what these miscreants and malcontents are doing.
Also, you can’t be anti-American and run for POTUS. The American voters want a president who has pride and love of country.
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