Those who read the posts below will note that I criticize Cal State Long Beach Prof. Clifton Snider; in that, I agree with Prof. Mike Adams, and appreciate his having brought up Prof. Snider’s conduct. And yet this argument by Prof. Adams strikes me as mistaken:
You have a serious problem on your hands, Clifton. The problem originates with your apparent adoption of a philosophy of moral relativism. Like your hero Oscar Wilde, who said “I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now” you think that your brand of “tolerance” makes you better than others. But you fail to see the logical contradiction in your position.
Oscar Wilde also said this about making moral judgments: “It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.”
Oscar Wilde wasn’t bright enough to recognize that calling something “absurd” and labeling some people as “common” and others as “charming” are forms of moral judgment. Nor do you seem to possess the intellectual firepower to recognize that referring to my opinions (on “your” website) as “vindictive, rude, unprofessional, inappropriate, unauthorized, and illogical” means that you are engaging in moral disapproval. Whether you like it or not, you have made a series of moral judgments. . . .
This argument that the Leftist excesses in the academy stem from “moral relativism” is one I’ve heard often — but I wonder why we should think that moral relativism is the problem. In fact, as Prof. Adams points out, Prof. Snider’s error is that he’s too morally dogmatic: He’s so wedded to his position being morally right that he blinds himself to the possibilities that (1) he’s mistaken, (2) even if he’s correct, others may disagree with him without being bigoted or foolish, (3) in any event, it may be wrong for him to use his English class to spread his moral views about the Bush Administration or whatever else.
Nothing that I’ve seen in Prof. Snider’s e-mails to Prof. Adams, as Prof. Adams has quoted them, or on Prof. Snider’s site, suggests that “moral relativism” is the cause of Prof. Snider’s mistakes. (He has indeed written about Oscar Wilde, but that doesn’t tell one much, it seems to me.) As I’ve discussed in my GlennReynolds.com “moral relativism” post, I don’t find much reason to think that “moral relativism” is at the root of the errors of liberalism. Likewise, while the academic Left might embrace moral relativism more often than the rest of the liberal and Left movement (I’m not sure of this, but that’s my sense), I don’t think that the intolerance of some on the academic Left “originates with [their] apparent adoption of a philosophy of moral relativism.” In any case, I see no evidence of such a connection here.
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