{"id":16581,"date":"2015-01-03T10:14:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T17:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=16581"},"modified":"2015-01-03T12:31:52","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T19:31:52","slug":"atheist-group-slams-university-in-alabama-because-its-chancellor-recommended-a-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/01\/atheist-group-slams-university-in-alabama-because-its-chancellor-recommended-a-video.html","title":{"rendered":"Atheist group slams university in Alabama because its chancellor recommended a video"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"HBS<\/a>
On the campus at Harvard Business School
(Click to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The video in question is focused on Clayton Christensen, a very well known Latter-day Saint professor at Harvard Business School. \u00a0A link to it can be found in the article to which I provide a link below.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One can debate, of course, whether an official at this particular university should have said the things that Chancellor Jack Hawkins said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I think it quite unjust to say that, in the video, Professor Christensen (whom, for what it\u2019s worth, I\u2019ve known for very nearly 45 years) \u201cdisparaged atheists and non-religious people as a menace to American society.\u201d \u00a0In my view, that\u2019s a substantial distortion of what he actually said \u2014 though it\u2019s a distortion of a particular kind with which I\u2019m personally all-too-familiar. \u00a0(One makes a point about ideas, and certain people, zealously eager to claim victimhood for themselves and\/or others and, thereby, to demonstrate\u00a0one\u2019s\u00a0viciousness and depravity, transmogrify it into a mean-spirited personal attack. \u00a0It\u2019s a tiresome and disingenuous technique, but some plainly never tire of it.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreover, I think we could do with\u00a0fewer claims of being \u201coffended and alarmed\u201d \u2014 \u201calarmed\u201d? really? \u2014 when ideas are uttered with which we disagree. \u00a0Accusations of \u201cintolerance\u201d shouldn\u2019t, in my judgment, be tossed around so lightly. \u00a0There\u2019s a solid and time-honored way of dealing with opinions different from our own: \u00a0Contest them. \u00a0Or, failing that, move on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that spirit, please read this horrifying story<\/a> of how free speech is being monitored for rudeness and offensiveness, and, in some cases, punished . . . in Scotland<\/em>. \u00a0(But it can\u2019t happen here<\/em>, right?) \u00a0And consider the case of the president of Smith College, who had to apologize publicly after issuing a statement\u00a0in which she sought\u00a0to signal her support\u00a0for demonstrations protesting the recent killings, by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York, of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. \u00a0\u201cAll lives matter,\u201d she had said. \u00a0But that was racially insensitive, because the demonstrators had been carrying placards proclaiming that \u201cBlack<\/em> lives matter.\u201d \u00a0(Emphasis mine.) \u00a0Accordingly, she was soon obliged to beg forgiveness for her offensive remark. \u00a0Which led the famous black conservative economist Thomas Sowell to observe that, if you cross a jellyfish with a parrot, you get a college administrator.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Thanks to Jabra Ghneim for calling the Alabama story to my notice.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 The video in question is focused on Clayton Christensen, a very well known Latter-day Saint professor at Harvard Business School. \u00a0A link to it can be found in the article to which I provide a link below. \u00a0 One can debate, of course, whether an official at this particular university should have said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAtheist group slams university in Alabama because its chancellor recommended a video<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    The video in question is focused on Clayton Christensen, a very well known Latter-day Saint professor at Harvard Business School. \u00a0A link to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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