Dr Larry Arnn, President, Hillsdale College, USA
Students in elite institutions are highly privileged. Why do they not spend this precious time, while they are young and full of energy, learning about the world instead of fomenting riots to change it?
Many of the most prestigious American universities have become dysfunctional during the past month. They have been unable to control violence on their campuses. Several haven’t held in-person classes for fear that some students will be threatened or harmed by others. The immediate cause of these eruptions is the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. As I write this, the situation is going out of control.
A Jewish student has been stabbed in the eye at Yale. Protesters encampments have been set up in Columbia and several other elite universities. In some cases, they are set up along the path that visiting admission candidates take through the campus, and they feature anti-Semitic posters. Groups of students have locked arms across one of the main pathways into campuses holding signs that Jews may not enter. Institutions of higher learning, supposed to be havens of reason and calm, have been taken over by riot and disorder
The immediate solution is clear: students who obstruct academic work of a college/university should be arrested forthwith. Universities have a right to do their work and those who seek to stop them violate that right. At the University of Texas, protesters who disrupted the campus were quickly hauled up by the police. This should be done in all cases.
The causes underlying these protests are deep and grave. Students in elite institutions are highly privileged people. They live in comfort and have tremendous opportunities to learn. Why do they not spend this precious time, while they are young and full of energy, learning about the world instead of fomenting riots to change it?
To condemn Israel, or Hamas, requires one to be aware of facts and principles that universities exist to teach. What is the history of the modern Middle East? How did Israel come into being? How Gaza? How is Israel governed? How is Gaza? What are the stated aims of Hamas? Of Israel? What are human rights? Wonderful things have been written over ages about all these subjects, and an institution of higher learning is the very place to explore these issues.
One fact among many that will emerge from any serious study of the history of the modern Middle East is that most of its countries emerged after World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. During that war, Britain and France made commitments to Arabs and Jews that if they joined the fight against Germany and Turkey, they would be given homelands in the Middle East. Thus Israel and Iraq, for example, were born following these promises. Knowledge of these facts might give violent protesters pause, and that is just one of the many facts the protesters need to know.
These are serious questions and addressing them will lead one to the study of history and political philosophy, fascinating disciplines that offer rich rewards of comprehension. To learn such things is the very purpose of university education. It is the best training for leading a purposeful life.
The very word “college” means partnership. It is not a place of battle, but a place of reasoning together. Human beings are unique in their ability to reason. In ancient Greek, the word for reason is logos, which is also the word for speech. They are from the same faculty. Whatever we can say, we can think; whatever we can think we can say.
Students who realise this don’t go to war with each other over conflicting opinions. Instead, they link their opinions to their knowledge sources. This requires cooperation that draws people together. It takes them away from opinions toward the truth. In ancient western philosophy, philosophy itself is defined as the attempt to replace opinion with knowledge.
Unfortunately, many elite universities in the United States seem to have abandoned purpose of knowledge acquisition for social revolution. This is a tendency in modern philosophy. Machiavelli criticised ancient philosophers for building imaginary republics to establish the ideal. The real work, he wrote, requires repairing the republic in which we live now.
On many elite campuses in America right now, the solution offered is to kill the Jews, drive Israelis into the sea. That would be an exercise of force. The purpose of higher education instead is learning and persuasion. If those capabilities are used first, better judgments will be made about when force must be used, and perhaps how to avoid it altogether. A lower body count will be the outcome.
Hillsdale College where I work is also an elite college. Here we proceed under an honour code that permits us to say whatever we please so long as we say it in a civil and academic manner. We have many disagreements, but they haven’t become violent because we cultivate friendships necessary for learning together. This is the harmony that institutions of higher learning were promoted, millennia ago, to develop. This helps the old and young to learn valuable truths together.
My wish is for students to be able to attend colleges/universities that produce this learning environment.
