Solomonia Archive: Alter Kacker Pinkos

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

I had to laugh when I saw this picture on the front page of this morning's Boston Globe. Commencement ceremonies seem to give some peoples' lives purpose -- either students too young or inexperienced to know better, or their professors with only half the same excuse. The picture above is from yesterday's ceremony at Boston College where Condoleezza Rice spoke and some gray hairs relived the good old days. After much talk of protests, apparently the whole thing went off rather well. Pitty the poor professor who resigned his position rather than suffer at a university that would invite the Secretery of State to speak -- or not.

You may have heard about what went on when John McCain addressed the New School in New York and was treated to some exceptional Generation Y (is that the right expression) navel gazing from the student speaker who should have taken a few more deep breaths before hitting "send" on her speech:

...Finally, Senator Mc Cain will tell us that we, those of us who are Americans, "have nothing to fear from each other." I agree strongly with this, but I take it one step further. We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet. Fear is the greatest impediment to the achievement of peace. We have nothing to fear from people who are different from us, from people who live in other countries, even from the people who run our government...

Even from our government? Well, at least there's that. Of course, fear is also an essential component in the survival instinct. I fear terrorist mullahs with nuclear weapons...but perhaps I should be loving them to death. There's an interlude on a Harry Chapin album where he talks about the horrible song-writing of his youth, saying it was all themed along the lines of, "If only the world were as wonderful as I, it would be a better place..." McCain's speech writer responds in the thread a few comments down (not sure how to permalink a comment at the HuffPo):

...Once upon time, even among the young, the words courage and hero were used more sparingly, more precisely. It took no courage to do what you did, Ms. Rohe. It was an act of vanity and nothing more. And please don't worry about the Senator's discomfort with you. He has managed to endure much worse. McCain was once offered release from imprisonment and torture because of his father's position as a senior military officer. He declined because he would not leave his comrades behind, and thus, willingly, accepted four more years of hardships life will spare almost all of us from. In his political career he has shown the same character he showed as a Navy officer all those years ago. He has, over and over again, risked personal ambitions for what he believes, rightly or wrongly, are in the best interests of the country. What, pray tell, have you risked? The only person you have succeeded in making look like an idiot is yourself.

You took exception to the paragraph in which he lightly deprecated the vanity of youth. Well, Ms. Rohe, and your fellow graduates's comical self-importance deserves a rebuke far stronger than the gentle suggestions he offered you. So, let me leave you with this. Should you grow up and ever get down to the hard business of making a living and finding a purpose for your lives beyond self-indulgence some of you might then know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of living in an echo chamber. And if you are that fortunate, you might look back on the day of your graduation and your discourtesy to a good and honest man with a little shame and the certain knowledge that it very unlikely any of you will ever posses the one small fraction of the character of John McCain.

Rohe continues to dig by reponding to the horrible fact that she herself had to face criticism, here. Note the comment-thread echo-chamber.

OpinionJournal editorializes on the event, here: Days of Rage - John McCain and Joe Lieberman feel the wrath of the antiwar left, and you can read McCain's perfectly appropriate and measured address, here: 'Let Us Argue' - The speech the Angry Left tried to suppress.

Posted by Solomon at 4:12 PM on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 | Comments (4)
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» Moral Narcissism in “High” Places: Professors Protest Condi at the blog Augean Stables

Here you have it. Boston College Professors using the motto of moral narcissism to protest the granting of a degree to Condoleeza Rice. What’s a level-headed undergrad to think? Update: Solomonia also found this picture comical, but it prod... Read More

4 Comments

#1 isirota1965 | May 23, 2006 7:03 PM

No "hat tip" for me on this one? ;-)

#2 Solomon | May 23, 2006 7:35 PM

Here's a tip: Don't take any wooden nickels! Bwahahahaha!

#3 Joanne | May 24, 2006 2:31 AM

"You assume I have taken no risks. I'm curious to see which doors have been permanently closed to me in the future, simply because I've spoken up."

She must be joking. All she'll get is her 15 minutes of fame. Then everyone will forget about her and this incident.

"You assume that I did what I did simply to draw attention to myself...The entire event was stomach-churning and unpleasant because it was something I didn't want to do, but knew I had to out of an obligation to my own values."

This is a bit melodramatic and self-important ("It is a far, far better thing I do"). OK, so she wanted to draw our attention not to her but to her views. Whatever.

"You assume that I have no experience making a living. I have been a full-time college student and have worked a job to pay my own rent and my own expenses for the past two years."

Wow, isn't that the same as working full-time to pay for everything, including a family, mortgage, college tuition, car payments, life insurance, etc? So she has a part-time job. That's great, but I think what McCain was referring to the fact that, given her age, she hasn't yet faced the full responsibilities faced by working adults supporting families, mortgages, tuition, etc. That's different from covering "expenses" and rent, though I'm sure her parents must be happy that she's making her contribution. She really misses the point here.

"You assume that I live in an 'echo chamber' of liberal head-patting, when, in fact, I live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a neighborhood notorious for its cultural diversity and sometimes, conflict. I live in New York City where every human interaction is a test of our willingness to coexist as citizens."

Yes, indeed, living in New York is a constant challenge to someone holding liberal views. Huh? OK...She seems to be referring to conflict in general, i.e., that living in NYC, especially in Crown Heights, gives you experience in facing adversarial people. But that's sidestepping McCain's assistant's point, that she's living in an environment where most people share her views. As far as Crown Heights being "notorious for its cultural diversity" or life in New York testing our willingness to coexist as citizens...what does this mean? Any place aside from a hermit's cave tests our living together as citizens. And how is any of this an example of serious risk to life and limb, comparable to wartime?

OK, I'm being unfair. This is a kid writing. This is very similar to the kind of writing I saw in the NYU student newspaper (where I was a much older grad student). This woman's response is an example of very earnest, overwrought, and immature writing that shouldn't surprise us. It's just the kind of "serious" thinking one hears in student lounges. I'm sure that if I were 19 or 21 again, I would have found her terribly profound.

#4 Solomon | May 24, 2006 9:11 AM

Her writing is full of all that self-absorbed stuff that I hope we all recognize in ourselves when we were that age. As McCain's person hinted, many of us are a little embarrassed about ourselves back then.

She's not Satan, but she's no hero either. The real villains are the people egging her on, rather than advising her to take a step back and a deep breath.