From a lecture to academics in 2004:
"I
now ask you to consider the stifling of opinions on our campuses. When
did you last hear of anyone defending fundamentalist Christianity or the
superiority of Western civilization? Who has been allowed to express
the opinion on our campuses that homosexuality is a perversion, that
there exist racial differences in intelligence, that women’s place is in
the home, that the Holocaust is a fiction, or that America is a force
for the good in a corrupt world?
You
may say that such opinions are justly stifled because their expression
harms others. But if you thought that, you would be well-advised to
think again. For if by harm you mean, narrowly, serious injury, such as
murder, torture, or battery, then neither the opinions nor their
expression harms others. And if by harm you mean, broadly, injury to the
interest of the people affected, then you would have to be opposed to
all laws and regulations which prohibit people from doing what they want
or place burden on them that they do not wish to bear. You would, then,
be committed to the absurdity of having to oppose laws about taxation,
social security, immigration, and health care, since they injure the
interests of those who are forced to pay for them. The truth of the
matter is that the opinions stifled on our campuses run counter to a
prevailing orthodoxy that abuses its power and prevents the expression
of opinions it opposes.
This
coercive stifling of opinion permeates daily life, not just our
campuses. It is very hard to think of an area of life that is free of
the exhortation of intrusive moralizing (bolding mine). We are told what food is right
or wrong to eat; how we should treat our pets; what clothing to wear;
how we should spend our after-tax income; how precisely we should phrase
invitations for sex; what kind of bags we should carry our groceries
in; when and where we are permitted to pray or smoke; what jokes we are
allowed to tell; who should pick the fruit we buy at the supermarket;
how we should invest our money; what chemicals we should use in our
gardens; by what method of transportation we should go to work; how we
should sort our garbage; what we ought to think about cross dressing,
sex change operations, teenage sex, and pot smoking; we are forbidden to
inquire after the age, marital status, drug use, or alcoholism of job
applicants; we are liable to be accused of sexual abuse if we spank our
children or hug our neighbor's; our 19 and 20-year olds are permitted to
fight our wars, but they are not permitted to buy a beer; we are not
supposed to say that people are crippled, stupid, mentally defective,
fat, or ignorant; and we must not use words like "mankind," "statesman,"
or "He" when referring to God.
What
makes this coercive moralizing even worse is the hypocritical
double-talk by which it is presented. For the stifling of opinions is
said to be required by toleration. Its defenders advocate toleration of
discrimination in favor of minorities and women (but not against them);
of obscenity that offends religious believers and patriots (but not
African-Americans and Jews); of unions' spending large sums in support
of political causes (but not corporations' doing the same); of pot
smoking (but not cigarette smoking); of abortion (but not capital
punishment); of the public lies of Clinton (but not of Nixon); of hate
speech against fundamentalists (but not homosexuals); of sex education
in elementary schools (but not prayer); of jobs open only to union
members (but not private clubs open only to males); of lies about
American imperialism (but not the Holocaust); of sacrilegious of
language (but not of language that uses "he" to refer to all human
beings); of scientific research into just about anything (except racial
differences in intelligence); and so on and on.
We are awash in this
ocean of hypocrisy, lies, and falsifications."
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