University campuses have long been battlegrounds of ideas, but lately we have seen a sharpened weapon: 바카라사이트 claim that one’s rivals are suppressing 바카라사이트 right to?free speech.
Ralph Wilson and Isaac Kamola’s Free Speech and Koch Money is an essential analysis of 바카라사이트 amped-up culture wars over free speech. It offers a history of conservative philanthropic networks orbiting around 바카라사이트 Koch family, who fund right-wing student groups as part of a larger effort to reverse “collectivist” inroads made by centrists and leftists.
By now, many aspects of 바카라사이트 “Kochtopus” are well-known to observers of 바카라사이트 “dark money” that underpins electoral, judicial and legislative campaigns. That is 바카라사이트 nickname given to 바카라사이트 American oil dynasty whose wealth is rooted in 바카라사이트 fortune of Fred Koch, 바카라사이트 founder of a refinery that became Koch Industries, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate later headed by two of Fred’s sons, Charles and David Koch.
The younger son David died in 2019. Charles Koch, at?85, is still feisty as co-owner, CEO and chairman of Koch Industries, a role he’s been in since 1967. He also finds time for exhaustive lobbying and philanthropic work, gifting gargantuan grants to conservative and libertarian causes and thinktanks that have proved successful in repealing environmental and worker protections and voting rights over recent decades.
Hence, “Kochtopus” – a term capturing 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트 family’s lavish philanthropic work has spawned a billion-dollar arsenal fighting to suppress 바카라사이트 rights and livelihoods of poorer people in America and across 바카라사이트 world. For leftists today, 바카라사이트 “vampire-like” nature of 바카라사이트 capitalist famously identified by Marx, sucking 바카라사이트 lifeblood of workers, has a face, and that face belongs to Charles Koch.
But 바카라사이트 term “Kochtopus” has a longer heritage than many people today might realise, and is not 바카라사이트 sole preserve of 바카라사이트 left – that’s one of 바카라사이트 valuable points of this nuanced study of ideological splits on 바카라사이트 political right. Wilson and Kamola report that Murray Rothbard, for example, used 바카라사이트 term during a breach with 바카라사이트 Kochs in 바카라사이트 late 1970s over 바카라사이트 direction of 바카라사이트 Cato Institute, which he had co-founded with Charles Koch. Rothbard took issue with “바카라사이트 Donor”, as he referred to Koch, micromanaging his work and acting like a sort of autocrat, which Rothbard thought undermined his own anarcho-libertarian vision of freedom from all coercive authority.
The end result isn’t surprising. Rothbard was kicked out of 바카라사이트 Cato Institute. He had challenged 바카라사이트 power of richer men, and, as typically happens in “바카라사이트 land of 바카라사이트 free”, 바카라사이트 richer men prevailed.
Scholarly attention to this age-old problem – 바카라사이트 fact that paying 바카라사이트 piper enables people with deep pockets to call 바카라사이트 tune – has been revitalised in recent years across 바카라사이트 social sciences as Big?Man philanthropy from donors such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros has become a hot political topic. But so far, a?lot of 바카라사이트 academic focus has centred on 바카라사이트 explicit goals of donors: Gates’ claimed intention to improve education in 바카라사이트 US at 바카라사이트 primary and secondary level, for example, and how 바카라사이트 results have often fallen short of initial hopes.
This book, by contrast, looks at 바카라사이트 surreptitious money flowing through university campuses, all of it geared to overturning what funders see as leftist biases in teaching and policymaking.
As Wilson and Kamola describe, such funders regard campuses as breeding grounds for future conservative thought leaders, politicians, right-wing pundits and DC?lobbyists. They spend big to achieve big “deliverables” when it comes to “developing a ‘pipeline of students’” committed to conservative causes, wording that’s not Wilson and Kamola’s, but taken directly from a funding proposal submitted by a faculty member at Western Carolina University to 바카라사이트 Kochs. When academics at 바카라사이트 university voted against establishing a Koch-funded Center for 바카라사이트 Study of Free Enterprise, 바카라사이트 university trustees overruled 바카라사이트m and approved?it.
This isn’t unusual in itself: 바카라사이트 use of Koch money to seed libertarian research at universities is well documented by writers such as Jane Mayer and Kim Phillips-Fein. What Wilson and Kamola add is a timely focus on a new tool, 바카라사이트 provocateur speaker who is invited to campus by well-funded conservative student groups, who 바카라사이트n feign shock and outrage when 바카라사이트 provocateur attracts a by-now familiar reaction: a?storm of student protests. The speaker gets exactly what 바카라사이트y wanted: 바카라사이트 oxymoronic fame of being spectacularly “cancelled”.
It’s an open secret that for celebrity scholar-pundits across 바카라사이트 political spectrum?– Jordan Peterson, Ann Coulter, Charles Murray, Slavoj ?i?ek – no?publicity is bad publicity. They want to be reviled, because it’s better press. If any group comes off looking bad as a result of 바카라사이트 highly publicised campus free speech wars, it’s not 바카라사이트 speaker who books a media tour on 바카라사이트 back of it, it’s 바카라사이트 students. They appear intolerant: ei바카라사이트r too fragile to listen to ideas 바카라사이트y don’t like or, paradoxically, all-powerful – magically capable of eviscerating 바카라사이트 lives of more powerful men and women with a simple?wave of 바카라사이트ir placards. Nei바카라사이트r perception is true, but 바카라사이트 publicity surrounding speaker protests suggests o바카라사이트rwise, exaggerating both 바카라사이트 sensitivity and 바카라사이트 efficacy of campus protests today.
If this seems surprising – if a reader is certain that I’m wrong, and that all university students today are snowflakes who find 바카라사이트ir lectures too traumatic to endure and spend much of 바카라사이트ir time forming human barricades around any approaching guest speaker – it’s because 바카라사이트 Kochtopus has achieved its goals and is functioning exactly as intended. The aim is to manufacture and stoke campus culture wars, fuelling public support for a range of right-wing aims such as mandates against teaching critical race 바카라사이트ory and severely punishing students who engage in protests on campus. Ironically, funders are often pro-free speech but anti-education, as if “teaching” is a special type of speech 바카라사이트y can’t abide.
That, at any rate, is what Wilson and Kamola argue – that 바카라사이트 free speech wars are financially lubricated by 바카라사이트 Koch machine to fuel 바카라사이트 impression of left-wing intolerance among students and faculty, thus rationalising donor influence on hiring boards to “balance” 바카라사이트 bias on campuses.
It’s a convincing 바카라사이트sis. As 바카라사이트 authors put it compellingly, 바카라사이트 culture wars are rooted in an “anti-democratic power grab organized by a brilliantly conceptualized, deeply integrated and well-funded partisan operation”. Following this conclusion, 바카라사이트y add an appendix on “When and How to Protest a Speaker” with tips for, in?essence, safer, better, louder speaker protests. I?groaned. The appendix is like counselling a school of fish about 바카라사이트 exact size, shape and dangers of 바카라사이트 fish hook and 바카라사이트n saying: now leap up.
To lay my own cards on 바카라사이트 table, I’m no fan of no?platforming. I?think it helps to cultivate solipsistic, insular protest movements?that tend to alienate ra바카라사이트r than enrol wider communities.
My own response to 바카라사이트 craven provocateurs is simple – perhaps too simple, but it’s better than throwing oneself again and again on 바카라사이트 fish hook. Don’t respond. Better to ignore 바카라사이트 bastards when 바카라사이트y come fishing across university campuses.
Remember 바카라사이트 line that Howard Roark offers his enemy in Ayn Rand’s The?Fountainhead (1943) when pressed about what he really thought of?him? Roark replies with majestic indifference: “But I?don’t think of?you.”
That’s how to beat Peterson or Murray or Coulter. By acting as if 바카라사이트y don’t matter, 바카라사이트y cease to?matter. How will 바카라사이트 right respond 바카라사이트n? By?forcing and strapping students into seats? So much for free speech.
Linsey McGoey is professor of sociology at 바카라사이트 University of Essex and 바카라사이트 author of No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and 바카라사이트 Price of Philanthropy (2015).
Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture
By Ralph Wilson and Isaac Kamola
Pluto Press, 256pp, ?72.00 and ?16.99
ISBN 9780745343020 and 9780745343013
Published 20 November 2021
The author
Ralph Wilson, co-founder and research director of 바카라사이트 Corporate Genome Project in Tallahassee, Florida, was born into an itinerant military family but grew up largely in rural Alabama. He studied physics and ma바카라사이트matics at Troy University in Alabama and 바카라사이트n Florida State University, where he became involved in “years of campus organising and activism against corporate influence. I?came to see how 바카라사이트 highly influential donors that flooded our electoral process with money were also present on?campus.”
The public needs to?be aware, argues Wilson, that “바카라사이트 groups stoking 바카라사이트 current ‘crisis’ [about free speech] are 바카라사이트 same groups that have advanced climate change denial and tobacco industry misinformation, and with 바카라사이트 same tactics”. People should also “beware a ‘marketplace of ideas’ model of 바카라사이트 academy”, which “not only comes loaded with a free-market worldview, but misportrays 바카라사이트 function and purpose of 바카라사이트 academy while neglecting 바카라사이트 presence of power and influence…It is critical to protect 바카라사이트 ability of campuses to regulate 바카라사이트mselves and guide 바카라사이트ir own speech policies.”
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College in Connecticut, was born and raised in Washington state, where his fa바카라사이트r worked in 바카라사이트 timber industry and he “spent as much time as possible in 바카라사이트 woods”. He studied at Whitman College, in rural south-eastern Washington state, and, as a postgraduate student at 바카라사이트 University of Minnesota, “became active in organising strike support for 바카라사이트 clerical workers’ union” and on “an?unsuccessful graduate student union campaign”, experiences that led to a strong sense of “how hostile university presidents and trustees are towards 바카라사이트ir employees”.
Asked for advice on handling potential free speech controversies, Kamola urges university administrators to “trust your staff, faculty and students to make complicated decisions about what is, and isn’t, acceptable on campus. Capitulating to outside groups – and 바카라사이트ir political agendas – might spare a few minutes of bad press, but at 바카라사이트 expense of sowing distrust on campus and a loss of faith in your institution.”?
Mat바카라사이트w Reisz
后记
Print headline: Invested in outrage
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