<p>I find this rather interesting because for all the claims of intellectual given to Swarthmore students I find nothing intellectual about this group’s approach.</p>
<p>I come from a different angle. Adopting Ephman’s phraseology, I am a “committed” conservative and an Amherst alum, albeit, I think, a couple decades or so older than Ephman. At Amherst, I listened to liberal speakers with whom I totally disagreed, BUT I never did something as juvenile and anti-intellectual as clapping them down and shouting so their ideas could not be heard - neither did any of my conservative colleagues. I simply asked pointed, substantive questions during the question and answer sessions. And full props and respect to my liberals colleagues for they quietly let me (and others) speak, as is the intellectual thing to do. I will state I have heard things have deteriorated at Amherst in this regard as well.</p>
<p>This supposed Swarthmore intellectualism has devolved into the most anti-intellectual of constructs - “I am the only correct one here and because my arguments are so weak I must make sure others do not hear your competing arguments.” The bottomline is I have never met one person with convincing arguments and confidence in what he believes needing to shut down the opposite point-of-view via sixth grade bully tactics. Dumb and weak are the terms that comes to mind, not intellectual.</p>
<p>History provides quite pertinent lessons here. In the past, it was the intellectuals who shut down discourse when scientists created new theories that challenged the establishment. Funny, that still happens today. Thought experiment - what do you think liberals would do if someone definitely shows that global warming does not exist? I can tell you - no matter how empirically supported and documented, liberals would do what these supposed intellectuals at Swarthmore are doing; shout them down, regardless of the strength of the data. WW2 was also an intellectuals’ debacle. It was the intellectuals of England who refused to accept Germany’s goals and appeased Hitler, nearly to Western civilization’s demise. I could go on and on with such examples.</p>
<p>Swarthmore really should change its claim to fame from intellectuals to bullies, which is much more befitting at this point.</p>