When you live in a university town, one suspects that it is only YOUR university that persecutes unfairly — sometimes illegally — students, staff and faculty who have crossed some imaginary line. When you see YOUR university violate people’s legal rights, when you witness unconscionable and unethical ( sometimes illegal) behavior, and then see those same individuals proudly promoted, you hope that YOU are seeing only the aberrant behavior of a few individuals in only one troubled university. Reading Greg Lukianoff’s book clearly documents that YOUR university isn’t really alone. What is most disturbing to me is that never is there an ounce of concern or remorse by college faculty or administrators on the harm they inflict to others, the careers they ruin or the families they harm; they are proud because they feel completely justified; they believe they are on the side of the angels following orders from on high.
The university ‘culture’ is not without justifiable criticism. Speakers coming to campus should be allowed to speak; mob rule is not a form of government. Conformity and compliance are the mainstream values of many faculty and administrators and these values are strongly monitored and strictly enforced. I was once told that the university ‘rewards compliance and not achievement.’ We’ve all seen the result of compliance taken to the extreme before; people have claimed to be “Just following orders” to justify doing horrible things. Under the right supportive conditions, horrible things can be done by almost anyone.
Stanley Milgram wanted to see how far you could push people (Americans) to achieve compliance on a task that may result in the death of another. His experiment is legend .
“Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the question: “Was it that Eichmann and his accomplices in the Holocaust had mutual intent, in at least with regard to the goals of the Holocaust?” In other words, “Was there a mutual sense of morality among those involved?” Milgram’s testing suggested that it could have been that the millions of accomplices were merely following orders, despite violating their deepest moral beliefs.” (Wikipedia)
Milgram’s study clearly demonstrated that Germans were not inherently barbarians, but under simple guidance, this barbaric behavior could come from almost anyone, even from Americans.
Greg’s book is a grave warning on the future of American society that blindly complies and allows their ability to speak opposing views restricted. It is chilling to think we are not far from a society where you could be silenced by what you say, or even, by what someone thought you said…. and those in authority would feel no guilt because ‘they we just following orders.’
Buy “Unlearning Liberty” the Book (Amazon) a book everyone going to college and their parents should read!
