In 2023, a Harvard professor was cancelled for having signed a brief for Obergefell stating that states can respect the “equal dignity of all persons” while also promoting “the distinct benefits of a male-female marriage scheme in law and culture,” and for having written some things that signal approval of abortion restrictions.
From his own account, a few details stand out:
At the Epidemiology departmental faculty meeting on April 5th, a central agenda item was “Discussion on matters related to [my] views.” The Department chair allowed me to make some remarks prior to this discussion. I commented that I had real sorrow over the pain and distress in the community…
Throughout this time, I agreed to every request from faculty, staff, or students to meet, either individually or in small groups, to talk through the various issues, or for them to share their pain…
During the week of April 10–14, six more 2-hour circle dialogue listening sessions were scheduled…The University’s Vice-Provost wrote to me stating, “I know I speak for all in the University’s administration when I write that we respect you and your opinions, and your rights to free expression.”…
A week later, on April 21st, I was notified by the Dean that there was to be a cessation of scheduling additional circle dialogues, after the fourteen 2-hour sessions that had occurred; and that the University-wide statement on academic freedom, and University policies on using one’s affiliation, had been distributed the Academic Council and Department chairs; the e-mail also expressed an expectation that in the new academic year there would be additional teaching and learning modules on academic freedom.
It is striking how both the professor and Harvard are so polite here: so very solicitous, even obsequious. Had I been in the professor’s shoes, I would have been sorely tempted to say: “y’all, these are my beliefs, and if you don’t like them, that’s your problem. If you don’t want to take my class, that’s fine. But we’ll be keeping your tuition.” I would have been tempted to be rude: impolite, ill-mannered, disrespectful, and abrupt, come what may.
Rudeness has become very right-coded, e.g.
But a little rudeness — fearlessness, a love of battle, a disregard for norms that favor the status quo — would have gone a long way for Columbia recently (and probably Harvard in the coming weeks). If you can’t tell some public health students to STFU, how are you going to say it to Trump?
Ah, these troubled institutions. They’re so nice. They’re not good, they’re not bad, they’re just nice.1 They want everyone to be heard, everyone to be included.
I, by contrast, am on team pardon my freedom, the libertine wing of the liberal movement, and have been since I was a teenager.2 I think that pleasure is good, in its rudest forms as well. I believe that it is virtuous to put up with people who offend and annoy us.3 And I think that defending these principles sometimes means getting up in people’s faces and telling them that their hurt feelings do not grant them a right to dictate our behavior.4
Nietzsche might recognize this as a kind of extreme version of slave morality, though the mapping doesn’t work perfectly.↩︎
Unlike the protagonists discussed in Pure heroines, my desires have not evolved to fit my life.↩︎
Fran Lebowitz says: “I understand, of course, that many people find smoking objectionable. That is their right. I would, I assure you, be the very last to criticize the annoyed. I myself find many– even most– things objectionable. Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home. I do not like aftershave lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation and putting up signs. In private I avoid such people; in public they have the run of the place. I stay at home as much as possible, and so should they. When it is necessary, however, to go out of the house, they must be prepared, as I am, to deal with the unpleasant personal habits of others. That is what”public” means.”↩︎
HPMOR-Harry says: “The more you try to justify yourself to people like that, the more it acknowledges that they have the right to question you.”↩︎