Here.
In accordance with my status as a member in good faith of the lefty blogosphere, I have decided to take up Kathy G.'s (of The G Spot and more recently, Crooked Timber) demand that we speak out over Phyllis Schlafly's coming honorary degree from Washington University (in St. Louis, MO).
Kathy G. has written a number of posts (here, here, here, and here) about Schlafly's utter disregard for reason and academia and the insanity of awarding someone like her an honorary degree. I couldn't agree more. Kathy writes:
But very rarely—in fact, almost never—do you see a great university honor someone who, throughout her public life has shown nothing but contempt for the values of the academia, values such as intellectual honesty and integrity, rational discourse, and the dispassionate pursuit of knowledge. Who has been, not a champion of human rights and human progress, but rather, at every turn, sought to thwart the aspirations of millions of female and nonwhite Americans and deny them equal justice under the law. Who has attempted to leave the world a far worse place than it was when she came into it, and in many ways has succeeded at this.
Ouch. At first glance, she would appear to be little more than a usual conservative nut-job, and conservatives--while they may be wrong about a great many things--aren't necessarily so odious as to be disqualified from receiving honorary degree's. I mean, sure, she liked Tom Tancrado for the Republican nomination; sure, she was a major factor in the premature death of the ERA; sure, she hates the UN and the WTO; and sure she was a vocal opponent to arms control agreements with the Soviets, writing that arms control agreements "will not stop Red aggression any more than disarming our local police will stop murder, theft, and rape."But this is just regular run of the mill crazy conservative.
So, why, then do I believe she would make a disastrous choice for an honorary degree? Succinctly put, because she's an advocate of conspiracy theories and anti-science and anti-epistemological norms.
She believes that the Virginia Tech shootings happened--and I shit thee not--because of the English department. That's right, he read some Lovecraft and Foucault and then shot up a school. Now, I would spend some time further debunking this kind of utter stupidity--on par with the beliefs that professional "musician" Manson somehow was responsible for Columbine--but why bother? Her argument just lists of some of the "weird" things being taught, ignoring that its all speculative, as she's not sure which classes he took.
Let me reiterate, people who don't believe that gender is a construct can get honorary degrees from mainstream institutions. People who don't believe that gender is a construct and blame senseless shootings on learning and reading about androgyny (as Schlafly did) should not.
As a student of academia, I can tell you right now, there is nothing more devistating to academic freedom and free speech then this kind of reducto ad hitlerium--turning important ideas into murderous motive. If Schlafy doesn't like postmodernism, that's fine; as something of a foundationalist, I don't much care for it either. But blaming Lacan and gender theory for mass murder is beyond chilling: it's McCarthyism (this makes sense, as she's quite the apologist for McCarthy).
Oh, but it doesn't stop there. In her words, "The question we should ask our Mexican immigrant friends is, are you assimilating or invading?" She--unsurprisingly--is anti-evolution and falls somewhere between young-earth creationist and IDer. Time Magazine revealed this gem:
[S]aid Schlafly, they should keep in mind that "some women have abandoned the commandments against adultery and fornication," and these temptresses pay the price.
And
Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women, except in the rarest of cases. Men hardly ever ask sexual favors of women from whom the certain answer is no. Virtuous women are seldom accosted.
In a speech to Bates College, she said:
By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape
And, this, of course, is all ignoring her black-helicopter bullshit over the UN and her insane beliefs about the secret communist leanings of the pre-Goldwater GOP. The notion that someone as blatantly as anti-science and anti-intellectual as Schlafly would receive an honorary degree from a respectable institution of higher learning is a slap in the face to anyone who believes that academia should promote free, intelligent thought and responsible epistemology.
Moving away from outrage, I want to briefly discuss the nature of the lefty blogosphere and highlight a few blogs. I've written before on The G Spot, but I'd like to add Crooked Timber to the list of blogs that I read and appreciate. They aren't just news aggregators like so many blogs, nor do they give rather shallow and small commentary lake a great many more, rather, they're almost like magazines, with long, feature-length posts on a variety of quasi-political subjects, ranging from feminism to political philosophy. Neat-o.
Lastly, Last day of classes today. Woot.
UPDATE: Also add Rutbelt Intellectual to the list of blogs I read and like.
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