I have to first start by saying I did not go to see the Coulter talk, but instead read and heard the news coverage about the talk. It is this coverage that prompts me to write today because I am quite embarrassed to once have been somewhat proud of my two degrees from the University of Western Ontario, and am not all embarrassed to say that this is not any longer the case. Bringing Ann Coulter to campus was a ridiculous mistake, and speaks volumes about how the campus community is being ‘dumbed down’ by the ludicrous claims of uber conservative ideologues that they have ‘no voice’ at the university.
It is pretty clear from what has been reported that Ms. Coulter’s talk and answers during the Q and A were representative of what she has to offer to cultural critique, which is very, very little. That this talk was hosted by a university is shocking, not really because anything she has to say is shocking or unsettling, but because it is so utterly free of any kind of intellectual merit or value. Isn’t Coulter better seen as a media pundit and popular author rather than a voice that merits serious consideration? University spaces are simply better than that- are simply meant to be spaces for more difficult work than making jokes based on absurd stereotypes. And there, I said it: universities are spaces for elites, as in those who take seriously the rigors of thinking, formulating ideas and making claims on the truth. People trained and dedicated to intellectual development. There are spaces for people like Ann Coulter: they are called soap boxes.
It is, after all, pretty easy to discredit most of what Coulter says, and most of what she is reported to have said in London last night- she spews junk that on reflection doesn’t even make that much sense. Hardly worth the effort of trying to discredit it, in fact. The only thing she ever says that is quite correct is that there are lots and lots of people who don’t want to hear the kinds of things she has to say. That she mistakes those people’s dismissal of her for people trying to silence her and her opinions is her problem. She, however, quite expertly manages to make this our problem by claiming that we are trampling her freedom of speech. That is, she wants us to believe that her detractors, (who are horrified by her utter lack of responsibility to be respectful of other people, to tell the truth, to approach knowledge production carefully and with hard work) are not just sick and tired of divisive stupidity, but that they are trying to silence her challenging insights.
This trick- of making their problem our problem- will buoy up Coulter’s supporters for some time, and win them some new support now that her talk has been canceled at the University of Ottawa. So the work now is going to be to make very clear the differences between open and honest debate among equals dedicated to the hard work of social and cultural criticism and whatever it is that ideologues like Coulter bring to the table.
Anonymous,
London Ontario
