The uses of hysteria

"Summers did nothing wrong. He thought aloud about an interesting question in a colorful and un-defended way," wrote Peggy Noonan last February, pulling the veil back on the reactionary hysteria that inspired the politically correct, fact-challenged jihad visited upon the Harvard President by female faculty members bent on getting a larger piece of the campus pie.

Those crazy-like-a-fox Harvard faculty gals declared victory yesterday as Larry Summers announced a $50 million commitment to "recruit, support and promote women" and other "underrepresented groups." Their tactics resemble those of the Islamic Party of Liberation folks in our previous post who infiltrate Muslim populations to stir up anti-Americanism, using false evidence -- Newsweek's koran story in this case -- to whip up resentment among the masses.  The Crimson ladies are at least as good as their Islamicist counterparts at using hysteria to cow their enemies. Savor again Peggy's pegging of what they're really up to behind those ivy-covered walls:

But what the Summers story most illustrates is that American universities now seem like Medieval cloisters. They're like a cloister without the messy God part. Old monks of leftism walk their hallowed halls in hooded robes, chanting to themselves. Young nuns of leftist deconstructionism, pale as orchids, walk along wringing their hands, listening to their gloomy music. They become hysterical at the antichrist of a new idea, the instrusion of the reconsideration of settled matter. Get thee behind me, Summers.

As with the Islamicists, so with leftist academics. You musn't try to confuse them with the facts. As we wrote here awhile back, "They prefer the false security of their shackles of denial to the risk-taking freedom of the marketplace of ideas."

Comments

[Mr.Kurtz]

One can only participate or compete in the marketplace with something to sell or trade for something of acceptable value mutually agreed upon. The tragedy of my time has been the destruction of the sense of value or merit. It seems that begging and extortion have replaced trading as the standard for most interactions.

Off topic: Thanks for the comment this morning and thanks for recommending "Drunk & Spite", although I really preferred "Charlotte's Web". Obviously.

[Teresa]

Ummm.... just a thought for these people - mind you it comes directly from their "play book"... couldn't we find a better way to spend $50 million? Think of all the starving people, the homeless people, think of the "children"... Oh the humanity! There is so much wrong with the world... and they want to spend all that money to get women into "important" positions at Harvard??? Even the space program had an ultimately better reward at the end - for all the money spent. I fail to see how more female science and math teachers at Harvard will eventually improve the general life of the rest of the country. They should be ashamed of themselves...

**** running off snickering now ****

[Sissy Willis]

It's all about power and control. 'Couldn't agree more with you, but that's not Harvard.