Victor Davis Hanson on Radical Campus Protests and the Fall of Elite Higher Education
“the protestors, deep down, know they are aligning with the murderers and rapists of October 7 and that their chants are Hitlerian”
Victor Davis Hanson is one of the smartest men in America today. I’m always interested in his opinion and he does not disappoint here.
He writes at American Greatness:
The Disgrace and Fall of the American Elite Campus
Anti-Israel/pro-Hamas campus protests have engulfed hundreds of college campuses. But the more coastal, blue-state, and supposedly elite the campus was, the more furious the violence that sometimes followed these demonstrations.
Even rowdier and more vicious street analogs shut down key bridges, freeways, and religious services. Protestors often defaced hallowed American monuments, national cemeteries, and iconic buildings. Visa-holders were among the worst perpetrators, adding ingratitude to their criminality.
The vast majority wore masks, not to protect from infection but to hide their identities. It is received wisdom, however, that those who wear masks do so for obvious reasons: so authorities cannot identify and punish those who commit crimes (e.g. the Klan, antifa, bank robbers, criminal gangs), or so that anonymity can help incite mob furor, given that participants feel that their vehemence increases once it cannot be traced.
More mundanely, why don’t the students simply identify themselves, insist they want their “resistance” to be known, and then hope their arrests will be proof of their courage to galvanize like-minded people to join them?
Why? One, because the students are sunshine and careerist revolutionaries. They see no inconsistency between shouting “Death to Israel,” “Global Intifada,” or “River to the Sea” one day and then the next, applying for a top spot at Goldman Sachs, a tony university, or a federal bureaucracy. Jacobin professors protest like it is 1793, but when politely arrested, they collapse into fetal positions and scream hysterically that consequences cannot follow their illegality, given they are privileged, superior intellects and moralists, with titles and degrees no less.
Two, the protestors, deep down, know they are aligning with the murderers and rapists of October 7 and that their chants are Hitlerian. And so few wish for their performance-art antics to become part of their public personas.
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Comments
25 years ago Stanford might have been considered the less extreme alternative to Berkeley across the bay. Nowadays Stanford is just as wack. After VDH retires he will be replaced with leftist extremist who checks all the boxes for woke-ism. Stanford has become toxic woke trash dumpster fire, burning out of control.
they are your next senators etc
they will be the next
“Ayres” to the throne
First prize for the most clever commnent.
thanks
That was supposed to be an uptick.
We’ll see if the future hokds any real consequences for vile protestors, uneducated students, and cowardly university administrations.
No … it won’t … in all but rare cases.
I’m glad that actual arrests are happening. The police are heroes, not backing down this time. A rap sheet will stick, even if masks were worn.
Surely these people want to be known for the heroes they are. Even if they don’t think they do, they really do deep-down so we need to help them and ensure they are known by their actions and words.
Oops, unclear writing. The “heroes” in the first paragraph are surely not the sarcastically named “heroes” of the second.
The “Fall of Elite Higher Education” … excuse me … ???
Sure … in the opinions of many people higher education is now an expensive, pointless shit show.
But not for the elites. They will still go to these schools and they will still be given sway over the rest of us by other elites that hold power.
The elite’s aren’t going away and neither are their schools.
This is not over by a long shot.
I pulled Victor Davis Hanson off of a bookshelf, wow 20 years ago.. ‘Who Killed Homer’ was a harsh critique of the state of the classics in universities. I do not believe there has been much improvement.