Chilling Sommers: Another Blow to Discourse

Mar 8, 2018 by Jill

by Amina Melonic, American Greatness:

Among contemporary public intellectuals, Christina Hoff Sommers is among the most attacked by our illiberal Left. In the latest episode, student groups at Lewis and Clark Law School this week protested Sommers’ Federalist Society talk. Prior to her talk, these groups released a joint statement titled “Refuse Fascism in All Its Forms,” voicing concern over “a troubling event,” (Sommers’ planned lecture) which is “an act of aggression and violence.” The statement urges the school community to join in, “not to facilitate ‘discourse,’ but in solidarity with the voices that are systematically silenced.”

[…] Sommers was polite, gave them time to speak, and then called on them to have a debate and to reason with each other. But she was repeatedly rejected and silenced. These supposedly tolerant individuals were not interested in reasoning or having a dialogue. In fact, they obviously lacked the capacity and the requisite intelligence to reason—otherwise they would have found a different way to communicate with Sommers. It is fairly obvious they would fail spectacularly at reasoned argumentation because their statements are not based on reality or facts. No matter how many times they repeat and chant that “microaggressions are real,” the truth is they are not.

As much as Sommers is used to this kind of treatment, it should not be accepted. The protesters caused a disruption in what was supposed to be a lecture followed by a question and answer session. The Woke-Pod People chose an entirely different form of expression, which is incompatible with an intellectual presentation whose purpose is to create a discussion about the issue at hand.

The wimpy and pathetic cry of the protesters claiming oppression is utterly nonsensical because, in reality, they are the ones engaging in totalitarian tactics to suppress voices other than their own. They rely on twisting the language (in this case, “Sommers is a fascist”) to suit their purpose. But what is their purpose? I don’t think they have one, except to agitate, be “brave,” and feel good about themselves for their alleged “bravery.”

Read here

Read also: Campus Speech Protest Draws Call to Discipline Law Students by Patrick Gregory, Bloomberg

We’re All Fascists Now by Bari Weiss, New York Times