To the Class of 2023: On Self-Censorship
On the eve of his retirement, an important opinion piece by Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard.
“Is anything lost by being woke? Yes, let me suggest there is. Instead of arguing the point, one begins to search for character defects and pounce when they are found. You blind yourself by taking offense because in doing so you are led to simplify the justice you think is so unquestionable. Instead of thinking about what justice might require, you try to shame opposition out of existence.
Believing that justice is easy to think, you begin to believe it is easy to apply. You conclude that slavery was as easy to abolish as to denounce today after it is abolished. You regard those who gave their lives in a Civil War to gain that end as less just than we are now, bravely changing names and pronouns. You agree that Harvard has a legacy of slavery rather than the legacy of anti-slavery you can see every day with a glimpse of Memorial Hall.”
