Democracy in Peril
Open Letter to English-Department Professors, Lecturers,
and Adjunctors of the University of Florida:
[N.B: Not one English
professor contacted deigned to respond to this open
letter. The student newspaper editor did
not respond. The dean of students and
assistant dean of students did not respond.
The University of Florida is a PUBLIC university.]
This
open letter, published on The American Dissident blogsite, constitutes a plea
for you to become responsible citizens by removing your heads from the sands of
comfortable, conformist oblivion, then by educating yourselves as to the
unconstitutional policies or speech codes in effect at your very own university
(see http://thefire.org/article/14053.html),
and finally by activating yourselves to vigorously protest against them in the
name of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, vigorous debate, and
democracy. Those enacting such policies and codes should be openly lampooned,
if not demoted or even discharged. Yet
they seem instead to be congratulated and promoted. Because they rescind a policy here or there
does not necessarily mean they have changed their way of thinking.
Such
speech-restricting policies and codes clearly serve the university established
order by reinforcing a generalized state of self-censorship (often referred to
as collegiality and civility) and thus radically reducing the free and open
expression of ideas, as opposed to encouraging it.
This
open letter is a plea for you to consider inserting an instructional component
of democracy and dissidence into your writing and literature courses. Likely, you’ve already been obligated to
include a diversity-multiculti component.
So why not do the same for democracy?
If you would like to constitute an entire course on the subject, see my
attached proposal for an idea of what such a course might comprise. It was created several years ago for Tufts
Experimental College, which sadly is not very experimental at all. The course was rejected without reason,
though evidently due to the fact that freedom of speech and expression do not mix
well with authoritarianism.
Finally,
students should be made aware that criticism of the established order (including
and especially those who created UF’s speech codes) can constitute valid
literature in the form of poetry, essays, and novels. Let students, professors, lecturers, and
adjunctors, poets and writers make waves of democracy, buck the system of
self-censorship, and go against the grain of speech-stifling civility!
Thank
you for your attention.
2 comments:
It seems that most academics are too ambitious to speak out against the corruption among their own kind. I am not saying that being ambitious is a bad thing, if everyone was as indolent as I am then society certainly stagnate, but their ambitiousness has its by-products. If they are going to succeed then they must, as a matter of coarse, turn a blind eye. Consequently we have rampant corruption.
But when it comes to tuition hikes they will gladly march in protest.
They are notorious for protesting against things that are safe to protest, things that they are permitted to protest, things that they can protest and still climb the academic ladder. Thus they are often erroneously considered to be dissidents.
"Likely, you’ve already been obligated to include a diversity-multiculti component. So why not do the same for democracy?"
Nice!
Post a Comment