They are business and financial geniuses but they don't get
it.
Michael Bloomberg and Charles Koch co-authored a piece
urging America's college presidents, boards, administrators and faculty to do
something about a worrisome trend they see developing regarding the subject of
free speech on campus.
It is a powerful piece that may shake a few things here and
there but, having made the wrong diagnosis, the authors failed to work out an
effective cure for what they perceive to be the ailment.
The piece they wrote came under the title: “Why Free Speech
Matters on Campus” and the subtitle: “'Safe spaces' will create graduates
unwilling to tolerate differing opinions – a crisis for a free society.” It was
published on May 13, 2016 in the Wall Street Journal.
Every subject has a natural starting point from which to
launch a debate about it. So we ask: What is the natural starting point from
which to debate the subject of free speech? And the answer is this: There was a
time during the decade of the 1970's when television had gone a long way toward
“blazing new trails.” Many people did not like what they were made to see and
hear, and they complained about it.
The broadcasters acknowledged receiving such complaints, and
responded. They told their audiences, that if they don't like what they see or
hear, they can always change the channel or turn off the set. In a memorable
response to a medical doctor who suggested that broadcasters should be licensed
to work in their profession the same way that doctors are, the legendary Eric
Sevareid admitted that broadcasters make mistakes, but that's done in the open
for all to see, he said. And that's different from the deadly mistakes that
doctors make, and get buried without someone knowing about them.
What is happening on campus today is that audiences
everywhere took the above advice and turned off the proverbial set. They are
saying to a certain category of people they have had it up to here listening to
them. They don't want to hear from them anymore because their words are not
music to their ears but damaging noise. And if you, my friend, want to know who
the dreaded people of the category are; they are the self-serving members of
the establishment who give out cheap talk and offer it as a bouquet of opium
for the masses to get drugged on it and slump into complacency.
Unlike the young rebels of the 1960s and 1970s who invaded
the spaces of the establishment seeking to shake it and change society to make
it work for them, the young rebels of today chose to go into a defensive mode,
turning into safe zones the spaces in which they happen to stand at any time.
The forceful response of the establishment to the movement calling itself
Occupy Wall Street, may have convinced the youngsters it would be futile to
take on the establishment at this time. This left them with no choice but to
“cocoon” into small zones they call their own and feel safe in them.
Thus, when Bloomberg and Koch – two of the biggest moguls in
the establishment – use the term “so-called” to mock terrified youngsters
trying to protect themselves, the moguls compel those young to hang on even
more tightly to the safe spaces, speech codes, trigger warnings and
microaggressions that annoy the moguls. And when the latter advise the
university establishment to oppose the activities of the young, the latter ask
why that is. They look for an answer and find what disturbs them no end.
Here is a sample of what they find: “As the campus dialogue
fades, it will make material and social progress that much harder to achieve.”
This is precisely what the young fear the most. They always thought that the
establishment wanted to use them as gladiators who will fight each other to
entertain the bigwigs of the establishment, and to generate the new ideas that
will make those at the top gain financially from the material and social
progress that will result from the fights.
In short, the young feel that Bloomberg, Koch and all those
like them want one thing only: to exploit the young and get wealthier still
while they who produced the ideas, get nothing in return.