The College of Liberal Farts

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Many, many, many years ago, when most of you were not yet zygotes I took a college entrance exam; I think was the SATs, though my memory is fading like old paint on a dormitory wall.  At the end of the exam there was a one-sentence essay question.  It read, Explain this expression: "If you are too open-minded, your brains might fall out."   

I later learned that the expression had been generously over-attributed to several scientists, including  Richard Feynman and Richard Dawkins - both famous atheists, which is not irrelevant to the subject.  But at the moment all I knew was that I had to get  the answer right.  I did, not because I wrote a brilliant essay but because I had understood the question was metaphorical.  Apparently, many of the high school kids had not realized that and had written things like, "Well, if you are too open minded you might be willing to drive drunk and you might get into an accident and your brains will fall out." 

I rethought this issue yesterday, kind of revisiting my academic past.  There was a story about the recent events involving the management and faculty at a small college in Minnesota so open to the need for nurturing sensitivity that their brains had evidently fallen out.     

I'm not going to dwell on this too much, because you may have already read of it yesterday, and because the issue is way too easy -- low-hanging fruit.   You can read the story here.  It's short. 

Quick summary:  An art history teacher had been summarily fired, and publicly accused of Islamophobia by her employer, because she showed students a famous work of art -- a historical masterpiece depicting the Prophet getting instructions from the angel Gabriel.  There was a point to this lecture: She was pointing out, among other things, the inherent, inevitable  collision of art, history and religion, and how the complexities of the issue must be considered. .  There was also a pertinent background: The medieval-era painting was wrought not by an Islamophobe but by a devout Muslim scholar.    Very sensitive to the religious implications; some Muslims feel that any representation of the Prophet is sacrilege. The teacher had also alerted her students, made the class voluntary, and invited any students to leave before the image was shown, at no penalty to themselves. 

Still, some students complained.  The college management snapped to attention.  Brains splatted onto the pavement.  The president of the college said that sensitivity to religion “should have superseded academic freedom.”  The professor was  gone.

The school has not been getting a lot of support. The Muslim Public Affairs Council yesterday published a statement in support of the teacher, and in favor of robust public religious debate.

I am now going to link to the allegedly offending artwork.   I am going to do so in a manner designed not to give unnecessary offense.  Please understand that if you click on this image, despite what it appears to be, you will not be getting a picture of Mr. Muhammad Ali, a revered Muslim.   You will see a gentle, magnificently rendered, respectful painting attributed to Rashid-al-Din (1247-1318).

I'm writing this essay because I want to make a point.  I think progressivism and liberalism are globally under attack and in jeopardy; right-wing authoritarianism is on the rise.  Liberals -- I have written that I am so liberal I should be tried for treason and executed - should not be split apart by stupid overreactions like this, particularly in academia. And sometimes nonsensical over-sensitivities in a fragile-flower culture.

I am personally an atheist, but don't disrespect religion. But respecting other's religious beliefs does not confer an obligation to adopt the beliefs of all other religions as your own.  I would think it absurd if orthodox Jews picketed a restaurant because it served lobster. 

So anyway, that's it.    On to your questions.