There are a lot of words, links and thoughts being put out into my Facebook newsfeed with regards to last evening’s Charles Murray event by my Middlebury communities right now. Here is my very long spiel on every step of what has unfolded to be a messy, difficult, complicated process for us all.
Step One: Bringing Charles Murray to this campus. I personally believe that there are other more rigorous, more influential, less condescending and less racist conservative scholars and academics that could have been brought to campus from whom and in conversation with whom I would be happy to learn. If this is intellectual battle, and I am not sure it is, there were more intellectuals to choose from (even from the list of AEI fellows). I am open to a debate about class differences in America, about the bubble we inhabit, about the politics of poverty. When that comes coupled with arguments about genetics, race and culture, I think we lose the entire point of an equal, intellectual debate.
Step Two: ‘Institutional’ Endorsement of Murray. First, I hearken back to my comments about intellectual rigor above. What are the precedents we are setting for a standard of scholarship within this community? Second, I believe that President of Middlebury Laurie L. Patton, Professor of Political Science and Department Chair Bertram Johnson and the heads of the AEI campus chapter are incredibly intelligent, thoughtful people — however, given Mr. Murray’s work, more thought should have gone into the ways this would be interpreted within this community. Here are a few examples of the problematic ways we have been according such time, space and resources to Mr. Murray: having the President introducing him, offering departmental endorsement, setting it up in a space the size of Dana or Wilson, having it be a speech instead of on a panel, having significant police/security presence, widely announcing it merely a week before he was scheduled to speak. I have had to read Murray for class. I will engage with his ideas within the classroom. Bringing him to speak on a stage on campus is different, because it is not a space where we can take pause and respond to his work critically. He has been answering questions about his books for years. Two hours of listening to him, even a week of preparing questions, do not measure up to that — I repeat, that is not an equal exchange. Speakers are teaching moments within an educational setting. I hope you understand how the structure of this event can be seen as an invalidation of some folks’ beliefs (and humanity) and to some others, a provocation. To emphasize his presence in a top-bottom way is, in some ways, to provoke a reaction. I am all for academic distance, theorizing and conversation, but if that seems to come at the emotional cost of some of my peers, I wish that those who made space for Mr. Murray had reflected more carefully on what debate means, and had considered alternative ways of placing him into our campus conversation.
Step Three: Organizing Dissent. Student and faculty activists had about one week to organize. We are not professional organizers. There was no way this would not have been messy. To those who asked if we, the organizers, had even read “The Bell Curve”, you also go to Middlebury. Is it a fair expectation to have everyone read all his prolific writing in a week whilst also being a student here? I personally read about 150 pages of Murray last weekend, and still wanted to listen to him. I agree with many who say that Mr. Murray’s voice and views are a reality in our world. But when I say I wanted to listen, this does not mean I did not want to dissent. The two are not antithetical to one another. If I had complete control of the situation (which I am glad I didn’t because that misses the point of what it means to learn to organize and collaborate), I would have wanted to protest him outside, carry our voices and our signs and our dissent into the space and be allowed to force him into dialogue. If he said something we disagreed with, I would have wanted us to be able to boo at him, shout back, and then, during the Q&A, challenge him and disrupt the idea that this was an equal exchange. I, personally, did not want to shut him down, because I see that as ineffective. To me, that is giving him what he wants from us. That being said, I understand why those who deemed that necessary felt so, and I think we should all pause and reflect upon why some of our peers made that choice.
Step Four: The Fall Out. There are lines, of course. I in no way condone the physical violence against Professor Stanger and Mr. Murray, nor any violence against student protesters. These acts are undeniably reprehensible, and we have to rethink the role played by actors external to this campus, be they security personnel or agitators, in impacting our community. We also have to rethink our reactivity, and the cruelty with which we at times choose to respond. To those who yelled obnoxious, personal, mean things to our classmates who were on that stage, shame on you. Simultaneously, to those who glared at protesters, hurled insults at them and have decided that there is no more to them than hatred and anger, shame on you too. To paint this situation as a binary of anti and pro-free speech, or of anti and pro-white supremacy, as some of my peers have been doing, is to take away from the incredible, beautiful nuance within and beyond the activist community. Mostly, it frightens me when my peers say any form of dissent should be punished. In my view, if you were scared of those who verbally shut down this event, but do not see Murray’s vitriol as equally scary, then you are choosing not to see the harm he perpetuates and misunderstanding why folks like me, who wanted to listen to him, were protesting to begin with. This is not a matter of “us” versus “them.” To create such a dichotomy is to ignore not only the fundamental racism of Murray’s arguments, but also to not see the humanity in each other.
Step Five: Moving Forward. If it is possible, I think we should move away from talking about Charles Murray. He has had his share of attention, and by the looks of it, he has enjoyed it. It seems to me that most of us disapprove of his ideas. We have consensus there. If that is the case, let’s talk about where we disagree with each other. I think we should talk about what civil discourse, resistance and resilience mean for this campus, especially given broader structural inequalities and power differentials here at Middlebury, in the U.S. and in the world. I think we should move, as a professor of mine pointed out, from the rhetoric of resilience, which favors some, to material resilience, which forces us all to be brave. I want us to move from the idea of a debate to the work of fostering connection, empathy and support for one another. Let us treat the aftermath as a learning moment in the same way that some of us treated his coming here. We as a community have a lot of growing to do. I personally believe that I stand to learn more from you, my peers, my faculty and my campus, than I do from Mr. Murray.
Thank you for reading this if you got this far. Let us learn, converse and heal together.
Jiya Pandya ’17 writes on the many facets of last week’s protest.
