Word: pappin
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...true irony of the whole Pappin controversy is that, if the BGLTSA and our tolerant tutors were to take down the meaningless signs and go after the substance of Pappin’s letter, they would win. Pappin denounces homosexual acts as “perverted” in support of his larger point: that Harvard College should “act in loco parentis by upholding for us…a moral framework...
...schools, rather than at home under the guidance of family, the obligation of educational institutions like Harvard diminishes once students are adults. We are already responsible for the choices we make, and as a result, Harvard’s role in our intellectual growth does not involve, as Pappin suggests, mandating our definitions of “moral decency.” By now, we should have arrived at those conclusions...
Sadly, it’s not just Pappin, but the outraged crusaders against hate speech as well, who pessimistically assume we are morally deficient. In a letter to The Crimson calling for (what else?) “tolerance,” David M. Thompson, a Physics doctoral candidate, demanded: “How can we ensure that Harvard undergrads…graduate from this university with an appreciation for contemporary morality? In my fantasy, I envision a Core curriculum that includes a mandatory class on the basic issues of human rights and tolerance for others...
...Thompson’s dark fantasy lurks the same suppression of dissent that tolerance classes usually promote. By suggesting that Pappin lacks “appreciation for contemporary morality,” we have to question what exactly Thompson’s definition of “appreciation” is. Since Thompson wrote in the throes of moral indignation that Pappin does not agree with him, “appreciation” clearly means conforming to Thompson’s own views on “contemporary morality,” lest one be labeled an intolerant bigot...
...each of us already has the capacity to identify bigotry where it exists and to distinguish valid argument from hate. We don’t need outspoken proponents of “tolerance” to do it for us. What we do need is dissent from students like Pappin, who challenge us all to examine the limits of our inclusiveness and to question the bitter hypocrisy of whom we choose to tolerate and whom we choose to silence...