The Closing of the Liberal Mind

Another day, another denunciation of campus radicalism. This time, liberal commentator Fareed Zakaria takes college students and the universities that bred them to task—for their gross illiberality.

Whereas liberalism used to refer to freedom, especially freedom of thought and expression, today’s radicals refuse to tolerate any ideas that do not fit their belief system.

Obviously, these students are not liberal, in any sense of the word. They are radicals who want to impose their view on the world… and who refuse to hear any dissent or disagreement. One often suggests that submit their ideas to the verdict of the marketplace of ideas, but one knows that they are incapable of discussion and debate. They protest, they rant and rave because that is all they know how to do.

They ought not, Zakaria suggests, preach the gospel of tolerance when they are grossly intolerant of opposing views. One should add that their antics bespeak some very bad manners. Dispensing with decorum to score a political point makes them look like true believing cult followers. Why would any want to hire them:

Here are Zakaria’s thoughts, via Maggie’s Farm:

Fareed Zakaria said Saturday that though many liberals think they are tolerant, often they aren't.

Zakaria noted that "at the height of commencement season," many new graduates across the country had made their political views apparent, from the Notre Dame students who walked out as Vice President Mike Pence gave his commencement address to the crowd members who booed Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos during a speech at Bethune-Cookman University.

"American universities seem committed to every kind of diversity except intellectual diversity. Conservative voices and views are being silenced entirely," Zakaria said.

The CNN host said he found this attitude strange, especially given that these incidents occurred on college campuses that "promised to give their undergraduates a liberal education."

"The word liberal in this context has nothing to do with today's partisan language, but refers instead to the Latin root, pertaining to liberty. And at the heart of liberty in the Western world has been freedom of speech. From the beginning, people understood that this meant protecting and listening to speech with which you disagreed," Zakaria argued.

That means, he said, not drowning out "the ideas that we find offensive."

In addition, Zakaria noted what he called "an anti-intellectualism" on the left.

"It's an attitude of self-righteousness that says we are so pure, we're so morally superior, we cannot bear to hear an idea with which we disagree," he said.

"Liberals think they are tolerant but often they aren't," he added.

No one, he continued, "has a monopoly on right or virtue."

In fact, it is only by being open to hearing opposing views that people on both sides of the political spectrum can learn something, Zakaria said.

"By talking seriously and respectfully about agreements and disagreements, we can come together in a common conversation," he said.

"Recognizing that while we seem so far apart, we do actually have a common destiny."