I should write something more nuanced, but I’m feeling a bit busy and distracted, so here‘s what I posted on FB about today’s NYT piece “We Study Fascism. And We’re Leaving the U.S.”
This NYT video editorial piece with Tim Snyder, Jason Stanley, and Marci Shore — “all professors at Yale and experts in authoritarianism” — explaining why they’re leaving the US is unpersuasive to say the least. More than that, it strikes me as abject. They come off not as savvy and principled but as self-absorbed and utterly lost in their own discourses. And lost in a very specific way that reminds me of what, on a gut level, I’ve always disliked about Yale: its fear and loathing of the down-and-out urbanity of New Haven all around the school’s little fortresses of privilege. Like, you’re so terrified of the US’s inexorable descent into full-blown fascism that you’re moving to…the other side of Lake Ontario? That’ll protect you. 🙄 I’m not questioning their personal choices — they’re free to do whatever they want for whatever reason they want. But what exactly is the point of this? To convince the masses, or even the mass of prominent, tenured academics to…to do what? To emigrate? That doesn’t even pass the giggle test. Whatever the merits of the academic work or public activities of the these “authorities on authoritarianism” may be, I’ve been deeply suspicious of liberals’ penchant for constantly invoking them. And this vid really seals it for me. Yale is an immensely wealthy, powerful school, and its storied connections to the federal judiciary and foreign policy establishment make it all the more incumbent on the school to take an active stand. Instead we hear a silence that tacitly speaks of corruption and cowardice. And these scholars’ decision to flee can be seen, in large part, as a byproduct of that failure.
This view is informed by my recent experience in pressing for Yale Law School to facilitate discussions about Trump. Chatham House rules prevent me from going into any detail, but I can quote the email I sent to a YLS-related mailing list. (XXX was a specific person, and ZZZ is a specific entity.)
That Yale hasn’t come under attack isn’t very compelling. The time for hard decisions (as XXX put it) doesn’t come when the police knock on your door, it comes when they knock on your neighbor’s doors. If anything, the fact that Yale has been uniquely exempt among the Ivies places a special burden on it to actively facilitate debate. I’d go even farther: the prominence of YLS alumni/ae in constructing and driving these rolling Constitutional crises supports that conclusion.
It isn’t hard to guess why Yale has escaped thus far, much as it is for NYU. There are words for those who benefit from political connections while their peers suffer, and those names aren’t very kind.
Does the ZZZ maintain any mailing lists that are designed for general discussions of politics? If not, then the request that we avoid such discussions takes on a different color, no? And what’s stopping the ZZZ from setting up a new list that is designed for that purpose? Opt-in, of course, so no delicate sensibilities are offended.
Of course I understand that YLS facilitating these debates around its periphery would involve risks, potentially very serious ones. That’s the point. Taking up that challenge should be seen as a badge of honor; and, by the same token, avoiding it might be seen many as a badge of shame.
I doubt that I’m alone on this list in thinking that these issues are of paramount importance, and that reducing them to questions of netiquette is troubling.
If “ZZZ” doesn’t encompass Silicon Valley titans using their wealth to subvert governmental agencies and functions, the explicitly partisan destruction of public research archives, the suppression of official data (environmental, economic, health, police activity, etc.), and so on — this list could go on and on — what exactly does it cover? Job opportunities?
In theory, if there’s a demand, there should be no obstacle to the ZZZ setting up a separate list for discussion of issues that its alumni/ae see as urgent. If there is an obstacle to that, there should be no reason it can’t be stated plainly.
Please consider this a formal request for an ZZZ list designed for discussion of current political events.
The unambiguous answer to the request was: no.