To be a public servant in America is to contend with a fair amount of trauma. The institutions are collapsing, and public librarians, especially, have a front row seat to the fallout. Every day, the collapse comes to our door and sets up camp. Because when the social safety net fails you—and it will fail you—you can still come to the library. As a result, we librarians are armored up for a job we didn’t expect.
Are you able to describe how you’ve built a sense of morality? Just because I don’t care about someone else’s pain, so to speak, doesn’t mean I want to cause more of it. I enjoy living in this society. I understand that there are rules. I choose to follow those rules because I understand the benefits of this world, this house where I get to live, this relationship I get to have. That is different from people who follow the rules because they have to, they should, they want to be a good person. None of those apply to me. I want to live in a world where things function properly. If I create messes, my life will become messy. I think people are uncomfortable with the idea of, You don’t really care? What does it matter? What does it matter why I choose to help the woman cross the street? Why does it matter why I choose to pick up a wallet and hand it to the person in as opposed to keeping it? It’s not because I’m a good person. It’s not because I would feel shame or guilt. But why does that matter?
revolution in education! A resuscitation of the university mission! To happen in, of all places, not the pompous old northeast or the debauched West Coast, not New York or California but the countr…
In the ensuing Q&A, however, at least one person in the audience evinced disappointment. This student asked Bari Weiss why a school that promised “constructive debate” had failed to invite any speakers who were left-of-center. Weiss had difficulty with that one. Perhaps because it so plainly pointed to what most attendees knew but blithely kept unspoken. UATX quite clearly embraces some “truths” over others, and the discussions it fosters are like those that might take place at the Hoover Institution or a rightwing message board. There was only the most superficial range to the opinions and ideas held. Almost all the speakers droned smugly on about the same points. DEI is ruining higher education. Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies are worthless. “Gender ideology” is destroying America’s social and moral fabric. IQ is the best measure of merit. These positions have as their end the maintenance—the naturalization—of existing race and class hierarchies. Inviting speakers from the left would pose an obstacle to that naturalization.
