This week, the lauded scholar Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. of Harvard gave a lecture entitled “An Address from the Humanities to Science” at the inaugural Eve Adler Memorial Lecture in celebration of the endowment of the Classics Department.
Prior to the event, a number of students and some faculty members expressed concern that Professor Mansfield had been invited to speak, given his unpopular opinions about our increasingly gender neutral society. They said that they were uncomfortable with his presence and the support that Middlebury was giving him in the form of the invitation. On Thursday, Apr. 9, a meeting was held at Chellis House, The Women’s Resource Center, to give those with concerns a forum to discuss their feelings.
At the meeting, the Director of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, Professor Essig, stressed comments that Professor Mansfield had made in the popular press as giving rise to the concern, though she readily admitted that she had read none of his books, including the one to which she objected wholeheartedly. A few students spoke as well, some emotionally, about their feelings related to the impending guest. They objected again to his comments in the popular press as well as to the fact that he did not include much feminist theory in his book on the topic, entitled Manliness. No students claimed to have actually read the book, which I object to, harkening back to the last time I was compelled to write in, when I argued that, as students, we ought to read books with ranging opinions, including opinions with which we do not agree.
Alas, I have not returned to reiterate what I said last year, but to instead raise a different but related point: our education ought to make us uncomfortable at times.
At Chellis House, the word “fear” was thrown around once or twice. While I question how a small-statured, soft-spoken man such as Professor Mansfield could actually invoke feelings of fear, I also question how his lecture—just words, really—could do that. (That his talk was on science and the humanities makes this increasingly doubtable. As does the relative lack of attention Manliness received and the Professor’s marginalization at Harvard, which likely stems from his conservatism as much as his lack of a full-born appreciation for feminism. But that’s another bone to pick.) Pushed further, I might wonder how shaky one must be in their opinions for a visiting lecturer to invoke fear. Again, though, I think a little fear is a good thing.
I readily admit that the thought that our learning process should be one that involves making us uncomfortable was a sentiment expressed to me and to others by Professor Mansfield himself—I certainly make no claim to it. However, it is an idea that I’d like to foster at the College, and choose this platform to do so. Learning is a process of encountering new ideas. We ought not to sit in class and nod our heads at everything we hear; we should ask questions and doubt assumptions. Learning is also a process of finding our beliefs, and sometimes that means encountering other beliefs along the way with which we do not agree. Our minds and our values are evolving constantly—that is not an easy or comfortable situation. If it is, you probably aren’t doing it right.
All that said, I have another aside related to Professor Mansfield’s visit: censorship is never acceptable. That there was even a meeting held in Chellis House means that someone considered revoking the invitation, censoring Professor Mansfield and his views. I am sure some people will not agree with me here, but I would make the case for just about anyone with something scholastically valuable to say to be invited, no matter how many unpopular opinions he held. Freedom of speech is a delicate thing and I worry that once it begins to erode, we will not be able to get it back.
