Propaganda, Patriotism, and the War on Terrorism
On college campuses across the nation, efforts are being made to silence professors who encourage students to probe the history of U.S. foreign policy in the effort to understand the September 11th attacks.
Recent articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education report that students have complained to deans about professors critical of U.S. foreign policy, and boards of trustees, deans, and college presidents have drafted resolutions and issued public statements condemning their views. Professors have been shouted down, received volumes of hate mail and, on some campuses, death threats. In one case, a trustee publicly invited a professor "to take a hike."
Historically, such attacks on free speech have risen sharply in times of national crisis -- precisely when a full range of views is sorely needed. They are particularly disturbing on campuses of higher education that should be strongholds of people who defend independent thinking.
The nature of the arguments offered against these dissenting voices are very troubling; so too their political effects. The arguments fall into two groups. First, professors are charged with showing no concern for the feeling of others: they lack taste and judgment; they are insensitive, self-indulgent and offend others at a time when emotions are raw. In being so inattentive to their students' emotional sensitivities, dissenting faculty violate the trust students place in them. Now is not the time for critique, but for emotional nurturing, reassurance and national solidarity.
Second, professors are charged with offering excuses for the attacks. Their examination of the role the United States may have played in creating conditions that make terrorist acts more likely amounts to a justification of the acts themselves.
There is an emotional tyranny at play here, and its effect is to obstruct processes of understanding that alone will aid us in our ongoing debate over how to come to terms with terrorism. What do I mean by tyranny? In the first instance, we are being told that feelings alone are appropriate now. It is too early, indeed, it is tasteless, to begin to sort through our role in the complex factors that brought these people to their heinous acts.
But understanding is crucial to wise action, and action, as we see in each morning's news, is most certainly being undertaken in our name. While we are being asked just to feel, the administration and its congressional allies hurry to pass laws that threaten our civil liberties at home, and engage in a massive war effort likely to foster greater resentment abroad.
Throughout America, people place a high value in their freedom of speech. This right is protected by the first Amendment and practiced in communities throughout the country. However, a movement has recently gained momentum on college campuses calling for protection from words and ideas that may cause emotional discomfort. This movement is driven mainly by students who demand that speech be strictly monitored and punishments inflicted on individuals who cause even accidental offense. Greg Lukianoff and Johnathan Haidt discuss how this new trend affects the students mentally and socially in their article The Coddling of the American Mind published in The Atlantic Monthly. Lukianoff and Haidt mostly use logical reasoning and references to
In the article “The Coddling of the American Mind” the authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt express that college campuses in America are dealing with emotional discomfort every day. They point out whether we are too emotional on certain topics in our lives or we need to change something on college campuses to have students feel more comfortable. College student have experienced a lot in life so I think that campuses should help college students through traumatic experiences in their past instead of not acknowledging certain topics and banning them to discuss in class like rape and domestic violence which happens in our everyday life. Colleges need to step up and talk about these things so students can feel more comfortable.
Or that free speech can be hate speech which is wrong, and shouldn’t be tolerated, since 40% of college students do not believe in free-speech. While they may have a point, we live in the most accepting country in the world, and people shouldn’t be too sensitive. When you start dwindling away at our freedom it is very dangerous because it could be gone before you know it. It also is our fourth amendment right. Without this the civil right’s movement wouldn’t have happened, freedom of press, speech, etc is what led to the world that we have today. A great quote from George Orwell who predicted a anti speech world “If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell the people what they do not want to hear”. If you don’t believe in it then you don’t believe in the Constitution, and simple human right. I do have a bias that I displayed in this paper. I am against government interaction that is against free-speech, and against other of our rights. This was my bias in the
What stands out about American universities today? Is it the academic opportunities offered to students, experienced faculty, or strong sense of community? Or...perhaps they have lost their focus. It is not uncommon for universities to focus their efforts and budgets elsewhere; by building state of the art gyms, for example, remodeling luxury dorms, grooming campuses, or creating more management positions. College students and professors alike are subject to the nationally occurring changes in higher level education. Colleges are becoming commercialized and tuition is rising, but is the quality of education improving? In “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.”, Fredrik DeBoer is able to provide a personal take on the issue of corporate domination
This source supplies my paper with more evidence of how freedom of speech is in a dangerous place. American has always stood by freedom of speech, and to see how social media platforms try to manipulate and take off as the choose to increase slight bias is unpleasant. The article establishes a worry to the fellow readers that hold freedom of speech so high and that it is at risk. The article manages to explain why freedom of speech is in danger, and why there should be no limits to free speech.
From the opening sentence of the essay, “We are free to be you, me, stupid, and dead”, Roger Rosenblatt hones in on a very potent and controversial topic. He notes the fundamental truth that although humans will regularly shield themselves with the omnipresent First Amendment, seldom do we enjoy having the privilege we so readily abuse be used against us. Freedom of speech has been a controversial issue throughout the world. Our ability to say whatever we want is very important to us as individuals and communities. Although freedom of speech and expression may sometimes be offensive to other people, it is still everyone’s right to express his/her opinion under the American constitution which states that “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press”.
Two professors of different backgrounds, Mike Rose of California, and Gerald Graff, of Illinois, discuss the problems college students face today in America. Though similar in slight variations, both professors view the problem in different regards and prepare solutions that solve what they feel to be the heart of this academic problem.
When a giant explosion ripped through Alfred P. Murrah federal building April 19,1995, killing 168 and wounding hundreds, the United States of America jumped to a conclusion we would all learn to regret. The initial response to the devastation was all focused of middle-eastern terrorists. “The West is under attack,”(Posner 89), reported the USA Today. Every news and television station had the latest expert on the middle east telling the nation that we were victims of jihad, holy war. It only took a few quick days to realize that we were wrong and the problem, the terrorist, was strictly domestic. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Because America jumped to conclusions then, America was later blind to see the impending attack of 9/11. The responsibility, however, is not to be placed on the America people. The public couldn’t stand to hear any talk of terrorism, so in turn the White House irresponsibly took a similar attitude. They concentrated on high public opinion and issues that were relevant to Americans everyday. The government didn’t want to deal with another public blunder like the one in Oklahoma City. A former FBI analyst recalls, “when I went to headquarters (Washington, D.C.) later that year no one was interested in hearing anything about Arab money connections unless it had something to do with funding domestic groups. We stumbled so badly on pinpointing the Middle East right off the bat on the Murrah bombing. No one wanted to get caught like that again,”(Posner 90). The result saw changes in the counter terrorism efforts; under funding, under manning, poor cooperation between agencies, half-hearted and incompetent agency official appointees and the list goes on. All of these decisions, made at the hands of the faint-hearted, opened the doors wide open, and practically begged for a terrorist attack. So who’s fault is it? The public’s for being
In today’s society the word “terrorism” has gone global. We see this term on television, in magazines and even from other people speaking of it. In their essay “Controlling Irrational Fears After 9/11”, published in 2002, Clark R. Chapman and Alan W. Harris argue that the reaction of the American officials, people and the media after the attacks of 9/11 was completely irrational due to the simple fact of fear. Chapman and Harris jump right into dismembering the irrational argument, often experienced with relationships and our personal analysis. They express how this argument came about from the terrorist being able to succeed in “achieving one major goal, which was spreading fear” among the American people (Chapman & Harris, para.1). The supporters of the irrational reaction argument state that because “Americans unwittingly cooperated with the terrorist in achieving the major goal”, the result was a widespread of disrupted lives of the Americans and if this reaction had been more rational then there would have been “less disruption in the lives of our citizens” (Chapman & Harris, para. 1).
The film Declining by Degrees effectively argues its claim that all is not right in higher education. They do this by interviewing countless professors and students that still attend college or that have recently graduated or dropped out. Their use of personal experiences, statistics, and expert opinions helps build their credibility and emotional appeal for the viewers of the documentary. The main audience for this documentary being anyone who cares about college, parents, students, and even the professors and staff at colleges in the United States.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the topic of freedom of speech and free speech zones on college campuses. This paper will answer the questions: Why have so many Universities who protect academic freedom, retreat into fear of freedom? Are school officials afraid of debate and disagreement? Are they trying to keep people (outside the zone) from hearing words that may offend someone? These questions will be answered through analyses of previous court cases, journal articles and news articles.
In the United States, free speech is protected by the First Amendment in which it states, “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion … or abridging the freedom of speech.” Now, nearly 250 years into the future, the exact thing that the Founding Fathers were afraid of is starting to happen. Today, our freedom of speech is being threatened through different forces, such as the tyranny of the majority, the protection of the minority, and the stability of the society. Now, colleges and universities in the United States today are also trying to institute a code upon its students that would bar them from exercising their right to speak freely in the name of protecting minorities from getting bullied. This brings us into
In the beginning, the student movement was largely influenced by the non-violence aspect of the Civil Rights movement. Colleges and universities, at that time, had a view of “In Loco Parentis” ; which means, in place of parents or in other words, the faculty and staff acted as the parents. At University of California-Berkeley , the students were frustrated with having their freedoms restricted; therefore, they started protesting. In the beginning, the University officials took away ...
Earlier this month in April, student protestors rioted at Berkley University because they did not want certain Conservative guest speakers to be able to give speeches at the university due to some of the speakers comments being inappropriate. According to the nonprofit organization committed to defending civil liberties named The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), "One worrisome trend undermining open discourse in the academy is the increased push by some students and faculty to 'disinvite' speakers with whom they disagree from campus appearances" (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). While the protesters were practicing their first amendment right to petition, the students were infringing upon the Conservative speakers freedom of speech which is unconstitutional. Just because the protesters may have disagreed with the speakers comments, does not mean that theys hould have prevented them from being able to express them. This is similar to the novel 1984 because the protestors controlled and censored what was able to be said at Berkeley University, just like how in the novel the Thought Police controlled what citizens said just because The Party disagreed with certain perspectives and didn’t want certain information to be
Light, J. R. (2001). Making the most of college: Students speak their minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.