Deconstructing Eric Zorn: Caving to community pressure
03/31/09
I should begin by disclosing that I regularly read Eric Zorn's Change of Subject blog, and I usually find it to be very interesting. Outside of basic principles, I don't surmise that Mr. Zorn and I agree on much more than intrinsic superiority of the forename "Eric". Today in his "Change of Subject" column, Mr. Zorn sets about trying to demonstrate the wrongheadedness of Naperville North High School canceling an appearance by one, Bill Ayers. Included below is Mr. Zorn's column, with my comments in italics.
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Should officials have invited Vietnam-era radical Bill Ayers to speak to a student group at Naperville North High School next month?
I believe the most comprehensively descriptive term for Mr. Ayers is "domestic terrorist". And the answer is, "no". See, I could have saved Mr. Zorn the labor of the 536 words that follow. Alas, he doesn't have some Eric-to-Eric hotline. Thus, we soldier on.
Maybe not. At this point, Ayers is famous primarily for being a controversial figure in last year's presidential election.
To an extent, yes, he's famous for being a hot topic in the 2008 presidential election. But that completely belies the reason he was such an enduring central figure. He never would have been worth much of a mention if he wasn't truly primarily famous for using terroristic tactics to attempt to drive home his and the Weather Undergrounds points about the unnecessary brutality and senseless violence stemming from America's involvement in Southeast Asia. Using a violence and terrorism visited upon numerous innocents that matriculated at Chicago's Haymarket Riot Memorial, New York Police Headquarters, the US Capitol and the Pentagon as a methodology to protest the horrors of war is a distinction that could only be understood by a leftist radical.
Republicans tried loudly but without much success to highlight a minor association between Ayers and Barack Obama to suggest to voters that Obama was himself a radical with terrorist sympathies.
Minor associations like their work together on several boards, a long documented association between the two that was common knowledge here in Chicago and David Axelrod's admission that they were still exchanging communications as late as 2005, when Obama was a US Senator. Beyond that, there was the problem of Obama's ever-evolving story of their relationship, beginning with Ayers being just a guy he saw walking his dog in his Hyde Park neighborhood to someone he'd collaborated with a number of boards toa guy who he "thought had been rehabilitated". Furthermore, the implication was never that Obama was himself a radical to the degree of a Bill Ayers with similar terrorist sympathies, and to suggest so is a wholly to construct a straw man. The point was that this association, combined with Obama's long-running associations with other more-than-questionable radical figures like Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi posed some serious and substantive questions about the primary characteristic for which we elect a commander-in-chief: their judgment. Inasmuch as Obama was campaigning on the message that his judgment was superior to that of Sen. McCain, his judgment as to his willing associations with these figures was most certainly relevant.
Prior to that, Ayers was well-known only among education experts who followed his work as a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His words and deeds more than 35 years ago as co-founder of the Weather Underground were a fading memory, even though he'd published a provocative book on the subject in 2001.
So, they were a fading memory until Ayers willing resurrected them by publishing an unrepentant memoir ostensibly lauding himself for his past actions? They were dissipating into the ether until Ayers was quoted in the September 11th, 2001 edition of the New York Times as saying, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all again," as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility." But outside of that, yes, he was mostly known for his Marxist/socialist education theorizing.
So I can see administrators deciding against the idea. Since Ayers probably wouldn't have merited an invitation to speak at Naperville North a year ago, his appearance on campus now would amount to a celebrity stunt without enough educational value to be worth the inevitable community uproar.
Yeah, pretty much.
But they went the other way. Supt. Alan Leis OK'd the unpaid appearance for April 8 and publicly defended it as an opportunity for students to meet a genuine historical figure. Such an event "makes textbooks come alive," he told reporters.
So, vis-a-vis the above paragraph, the implication made here is that it's better to stick to one's guns in a wrong decision than to correct the course?
And I can see that, too. Ayers' story raises provocative questions about the limits of acceptable protest in a free society, the informal statute of limitations on serious youthful transgressions and the relationship between repentance and forgiveness. Listening to him and questioning him could be quite a learning experience.
Ayers has been rather unwavering in his lack of regret or repentance over his past actions. Is there any question that the Naperville North crowd could have posed to him that hasn't already answered and that one would have reason to expect that he would somehow, now, answer different? Do they think he would break down, Oprah style, weap and confess regret for his past transgressions after decades of taking some sort of sick pride in them?
To try to mute controversy, the school made the lecture optional and limited attendance to students enrolled in certain classes who had parental consent.
It didn't work. They got trouble right there in Riverwalk City. Every last inflamed allegation and accusation against Ayers that we remember from last fall resurfaced on local online bulletin boards. You'd have thought Naperville North had renamed itself in Ayers' honor, not merely invited him to make a presentation in an academic setting.
Inflamed allegation and accusation? The man is (at the risk of repeating myself) an unrepentant domestic terrorist. He's a left-wing Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. To suggest that there's academic value in bring Ayers to the school to "make a presentation in an academic setting" is to also suggest there would be merit in hearing a similar presentation from McVeigh or Rudolph. The only substantive differences between the Ayers that the latter pair are the latter's "success rate" in their terrorism and motivating political bent, and the former's ability to sing gleefully, "guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country".
So the question on the table now is, Should officials have caved to community pressure, as they did Monday, and disinvited Ayers?
That answer is no.
Again, after admitting this event had little more value than a celebrity stunt, Mr. Zorn's suggestion is to find rationalization to stick with the celebrity stunt because they'd already made a poor decision to green light the freak show?
Once administrators scheduled the event, for better or worse, they planted a flag on top of an important hill. That hill, which is always under attack, stands for the principle that we shouldn't be afraid to expose teenagers to difficult or even wrongheaded ideas, and that we should challenge them to think for themselves, not quake at the thought that they might.
Again I ask, is there really anything to be gained by actually hosting the man as opposed to just discussing his case and his history and the same ideas absent providing him another forum? What new understanding is going to be gleaned from hosting Ayers that hasn't arisen at any previous time about these past transgressions that were "a fading memory".
In disinviting Ayers, they've allowed an angry mob to overrun that hill and rip down their flag.
The communities that support and whose children are educated by the school should have no voice whatsoever in what individuals and views the school is going to countenance? Again, it's not as if Ayers views on his past actions are a big secret. He's rather proud of what he did. Local parents' and community memebers' opinions about the school inviting a man who once planted bombs in public places at government buildings has no weight here?
"It is clear that any value [of the Ayers lecture] to our students would be lost in such a highly-charged atmosphere," wrote Leis in his surrender statement Monday. "Any debate of issues or viewpoints would be overshadowed by media coverage and anger over the event itself."
He's completely wrong.
The more highly charged the atmosphere, the more anger raging in the community that the old radical was allowed to speak, the more students would have learned. About courage. About the occasional discomforts of freedom. About the raw power of ideas.
And perhaps about how wrong Bill Ayers was to try to use the weapons of fear and intimidation to get his way.
Something that could just as easily have been discussed, debated and weighed without that tacit validation of Ayers' views that comes with hosting him as a speaker for a group of high school students.