Last week’s DTH cartoon showing Islam in an unflattering (but not untrue) light for the proclivity of many of its adherents to engage in violence has touched off quite a controversy.
UNC officials have rebuked the DTH editors for running the cartoon on the grounds that it was “hurtful and offensive to members of our campus community.” Chancellor Moeser, asked if the paper should issue an apology, said “I think there should be more than an apology. I think there should be a conversation.” The editor has said that he’ll apologize to anyone who was offended, but won’t apologize for publishing the cartoon. (Details about this flap available here.)
What are we to make of all this?
First, we learn something about the nature of UNC officialdom. Universities used to be about the search for truth, but these days you have to walk on eggshells to make sure that something you say won’t be “hurtful or offensive” to some favored group on campus. The university position boils down to saying, “We would prefer that you keep silent rather than utter something controversial that could wound the tender sensibilities of someone in “our community.” The history of ideas is one of repeated clashes that leave some people angry and upset. Mature people deal with it. Concern over bruised feelings of adults should register at zero on the scale of university concerns.
Second, apologizing seems to have become the new national past time. Remember how Bill Clinton went around the globe apologizing for anything that would endear him to an audience? I’m not against apologies, of course, but they are only appropriate in some circumstances. This is not one of them. An apology is in order when you have done something wrongful toward another. A cartoon pointing out that Islam is a religion that provokes many of its followers to unspeakable acts of violence is not wrongful conduct. It is simply criticism. The editor at the DTH no more needs to apologize for criticizing Islam than John Stossel needs to apologize to the head of the National Education Association for criticizing the government schooling system.
Third, we see here how degraded our public discourse has become. Instead of responding to the message of the cartoon with rational argument, all we hear from the Muslim students is that they’re offended. We’re looking for “some tolerance” of our religion, they say. Responses like that show how our education system has been teaching people to elevate their feelings over reason. The right rejoinder to the whining is “Okay, so you feel offended — now do you have an argument against the cartoon’s message?”
Chapel Hill students don’t have to take a course in logic, but they do have to take a course in “cultural diversity.” That fact is suggestive of the problem here.
