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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Columbia's Conceit. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.
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Columbia's Conceit by possibly noteworthy at 7:39 pm EDT, Sep 27, 2007 |
On Saturday John Coatsworth, acting dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, made the remark that "if Hitler were in the United States and . . . if he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him." This was by way of defending the university's decision to host a speech yesterday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An old rule of thumb in debate tournaments is that the first one to say "Hitler" loses. But say what you will about Mr. Coatsworth's comment, it is, at bottom, a philosophical claim: about the purposes of education; about the uses of dialogue; about the obligations of academia; about the boundaries (or absence of boundaries) of modern liberalism and about its conceits. So rather than dismiss the claim out of hand, let's address it in the same philosophical spirit in which it was offered.
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RE: Columbia's Conceit by Decius at 10:31 am EDT, Sep 28, 2007 |
possibly noteworthy wrote: n just a few years, some of these men will be rushing a beach at Normandy or caught in a firefight in the Ardennes. And the fact that their ideas were finer and better than Hitler's will have done nothing to keep them and millions of their countrymen from harm, and nothing to get them out of its way.
Clearly there is no point in talking about anything. Problems can only be solved with violence. That is, I presume, why the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board will be closing up shop. The forum they provide for speakers serves no purpose. |
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