Interesting piece I read today...
Watch What You Say, The New Liberal Power Elite Won't Tolerate Dissent
I'd love to hear from academics, especially, about this. I know one academic who is incredibly cautious about their online activities not being identified with their professional persona -- not that I personally would think that anything they do online is less than a credit to them as a person and an academic. But, obviously, anyone else can and should chime in... I've seen signs myself, like the aforementioned cancellations of speakers... Nobody is allowed to challenge or offend anyone else's preconceptions, it seems....
Watch What You Say, The New Liberal Power Elite Won't Tolerate Dissent
In ways not seen since at least the McCarthy era, Americans are finding themselves increasingly constrained by a rising class—what I call the progressive Clerisy—that accepts no dissent from its basic tenets. Like the First Estate in pre-revolutionary France, the Clerisy increasingly exercises its power to constrain dissenting views, whether on politics, social attitudes or science.
An alliance of upper level bureaucrats and cultural elites, the Clerisy, for for all their concerns about inequality, have thrived, unlike most Americans, in recent years. They also enjoy strong relations with the power structure in Washington, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street.
As the modern clerisy has seen its own power grow, even while the middle class shrinks, it has used its influence to enforce a prescribed set of acceptable ideas. On everything from gender and sexual preference to climate change, those who dissent from the official pieties risk punishment.
This power has been seen recently in a host of cancellations of commencement speakers. Just in the past few months Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, and former UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, have been prevented from speaking by campus virtue squads whose sensibilities they had offended.
I'd love to hear from academics, especially, about this. I know one academic who is incredibly cautious about their online activities not being identified with their professional persona -- not that I personally would think that anything they do online is less than a credit to them as a person and an academic. But, obviously, anyone else can and should chime in... I've seen signs myself, like the aforementioned cancellations of speakers... Nobody is allowed to challenge or offend anyone else's preconceptions, it seems....