That student who shouted me down in the library last week still bothers me

I was sitting in the campus library on Tuesday, just reading a book on historical free speech cases for my poli sci class. A girl I'd never seen before walked up to my table, saw the cover, and said that book was "harmful" because it included quotes from people who held racist views 100 years ago. She told me I should only read materials that "uplift marginalized voices" and that engaging with old arguments was a waste of time. I tried to explain that understanding bad ideas is how we learn to counter them, but she cut me off and said I was part of the problem. She walked away before I could even finish my sentence, and I just sat there feeling like I'd done something wrong for wanting to learn. Has anyone else had a situation where a single student decided what you could read or study?

3 comments

3 Comments

ivanbell12d ago

lol I had almost the exact same thing happen but with a history of philosophy book that had some Nietzsche quotes in it. Some girl in my dorm actually told me reading Nietzsche was "dangerous" and I should read bell hooks instead. Like ok, I own bell hooks books too, but why can't I read both? The thing nobody talks about is how this actually hurts the people they're trying to protect. My friend is a Black history major and he constantly reads stuff from slave owners and segregationists to understand the arguments they made back then. He says you can't properly dismantle bad ideas if you don't know where they came from or how they were justified. If that girl had her way, he wouldn't be able to do his job.

dixon.james12d ago

Yeah because shielding people from bad ideas has worked out so well historically.

samk7712d agoTop Commenter

Actually read something about this recently from a professor who studies misinformation. She said the best way to fight bad ideas is to teach people how to spot weak arguments, not hide the arguments themselves. @dixon.james that's pretty much what you're saying. Like with my own kid, I'd rather show him a flat earth YouTube video and walk through why it's wrong than just block the channel. That way he learns how to question stuff on his own instead of just relying on me to filter everything.