
Remember
The late and still great
"Over the years," as the valiant Mr. Etchemendy told
"The university is not a megaphone to amplify this or that political view, and when it does it violates a core mission. Universities must remain open forums for contentious debate, and they cannot do so while officially espousing one side of that debate.
"But we must do more," he continued. "We need to encourage real diversity of thought in the professoriate, and that will be even harder to achieve. It is hard for anyone to acknowledge high-quality work when that work is at odds, perhaps opposed, to one's own deeply held beliefs. But we all need worthy opponents to challenge us in our search for truth."
Amen. For whoever learned that much from his admirers? It is our critics that oblige us to think our ideas through, and so strengthen us.
Sound familiar? It should. For the views expressed in
"The tendency to look for all causes outside ourselves persists even when it is clear that our state of being is the product of personal qualities such as ability, character, appearance, health and so on. 'If anything ail a man,' says Thoreau, 'so that he does not perform his functions, if he has a pain in his bowels even ... he forthwith sets about reforming -- the world.' "
"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."
"A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed."
"Those who clamor loudest for freedom are often the least likely to be happy in a free society. The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Actually their innermost desire is for an end to the 'free for all.' They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society."
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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.