UW Madison Attitudes

David White at Human Events Online trots our local Moonbat Kevin Barrett onto the national stage. He is using Dr. Conspiracy the correct way. The point is not that a madman is irrational, but that rational individuals discredit themselves justifying a right to madness in public education.

9/11 Conspiracy at Public University: Although few professors agree with Barrett's "inside job" conspiracy theory, nearly all considered it extremely important to stand by his appointment while being interviewed for this piece. Their reasoning breaks down roughly into three camps: The first rejects any judgment of professorial speech. … A second group sees the issue in terms of autonomy for the university. … A third group combines both these arguments. Surprisingly, it includes Donald Downs, president of UW-Madison's Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights—an organization that exists to confront political correctness on campus:

In other words, academic culture is completely infused with the attitude they are above criticism and interference from outsiders. It is a cult of tenure that rewards obedience with lifetime income to pursue fancies and dreams. Noticeably absent is any expressed concern for the pursuit of accuracy and utility in knowledge that differentiates education from superstition and propaganda.

Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543): His investigations were carried on quietly and alone, without help or consultation. … In 1530, Copernicus completed and gave to the world his great work De Revolutionibus, which asserted that the earth rotated on its axis once daily and traveled around the sun once yearly: a fantastic concept for the times.

The difference between Nicolas Copernicus and Kevin Barrett is not the unconventional nature or absurdness of their ideas against the common knowledge of the time. It is that Copernicus works for years attempting to understand why theory does not completely explain observation, until logic and observation force him to consider a new explanation may be possible. Barrett, on the other hand, conceives a story he likes and finds shelter in an institution unwilling to demand any standards of proof and truth in speech. It is a difference between a humble desire for understanding and driving desire to emote loudly from a safe place, with public income.