Another Tragedy at Mac Humanities

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Mar 2017

RE:  Protest is not censorship

An article appeared in the Hamilton Spectator under the headline "Protest is not Censorship".  The author was a self-identified Indian princess who was a student at McMaster University, Humanities faculty.  She said she was visiting the "traditional territory of Dish with One Spoon", which in local Aboriginal lore is the Niagara Peninsula - Hamilton area. 

The idea that ‘democracy requires intense opposition to oppressive ideas’ and to conclude it follows that democracy requires that certain public figures must be prevented from speaking, is incoherent.  Here is another, “The first step,” it is argued without blushing, “toward organized violence is a move to reject the humanity of certain people.”

Hence, if response to the disruption of the Peterson lecture, those wanting to hear him had pulled out their truncheons and beaten the protesters into silence, the author could have nothing to say against it.  She would not even be able to observe the irony.  All she could do is sputter with rage at her own argument turned on her.

The reason for the incoherence of the argument is that the author is trying to justify that might makes right, but for her side only.  As she says, “The idea that a speaker can be paid to deliver a speech and be granted access to power unmolested by public outrage and protest is a distortion of the principle of liberalism."  Speaking is power, therefore stopping from speaking is to deprive of power, in her line of thinking.

It seems never to have occurred to princess that those footing the bill have a right to get what they paid for, and never mind the gross mistake of equating public discussion with an immoral seizure of power.

That princess would venture to say what is or is not a distortion of the principle of liberalism shows a remarkable combination of arrogance and ignorance, to say nothing of cultural appropriation on her part.  That might makes right forms no part of the doctrine of liberalism; quite the contrary.  Princess should consult the works of John Stuart Mill to get informed on the subject, with all the precautionary trigger warnings required nowadays for weakling snowflakes.

To the humanities department of McMaster University, this work product ought to cause alarm and not a little self-examination.

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Vincent J. Curtis is an old white male living in the traditional territory of Lee Enfield.