What Should I Ask Chris Rufo?
Now taking requests.
Chris Rufo’s America’s Cultural Revolution, currently #1 on Amazon, releases today. I’ve already finished this surprisingly academic intellectual history of Critical Theory. And in a few weeks, I’m doing a wide-ranging interview with the author himself. If there is anything you’d like me to ask Rufo - anything at all - please share in the comments.
While we’re on the topic, I realize that some of my readers are puzzled, even dismayed, by my pro-Rufo stance. What is wrong with me?
To start, I still maintain that wokeness is far from the most important evil in the world. Immigration restrictions, housing regulation, nuclear power strangulation, and universal redistribution are all far worse in absolute terms. While it is tempting to declare wokeness the “root cause” of all these evils, that’s just not so.
That said, wokeness is a top concern for me personally because I work in academia. This insipid, Orwellian cult really does rule the American university system. The current denial of academic freedom truly is much worse than McCarthyism ever was. And I have seen with my own eyes that woke administrators are plotting, by hook or by crook, to stamp out the last remnants of rational thought in the humanities and social sciences.*
How? By getting a stranglehold over hiring. Woke admins don’t think they can get rid of me. I’ll still be teaching my thoughtcrimes in the 2060s. Mark my words. But if they grab a wee bit more power, they will be able to prevent the hiring of anyone like me in the future. Make no mistake: State-supported DEI is not “free expression.” It is an official effort to crush free expression.
What thrills me about Chris Rufo? He is almost single-handedly blocking - and reversing - this ongoing on-campus woke power grab. Like many other intellectuals, Rufo shines a righteous spotlight on this insipid, Orwellian cult. Unlike almost every other intellectual, however, Rufo miraculously gets politicians to take desirable action.
Even when I question the details of what Rufo’s doing, I’m supremely grateful that he’s on the job. Grateful for myself - and even more grateful for all of the younger dissident scholars who, thanks to Rufo, will be still be able to find work in Texas, Florida, and beyond. A critic accused me of “carrying water” for Rufo, but the reality is that he happily carries water for me - and every reasonable resident of the Ivory Tower - every day. The least we can do is thank him from the bottom of our hearts.
But, you may ask, doesn’t Rufo capitalize on rare, vivid events to whip his fans into hysteria? Point granted. Don’t I normally abhor such tactics? I do. Unlike mainstream media, however, he’s fostering hysteria about a genuinely awful problem that he has thoughtfully analyzed first. The hysteria’s not my style, but unlike me, Rufo’s plainly pushing the world in a better direction.
Last point: For all the Unpopulists out there, pay close attention to the proverbial dog who didn’t bark. Unlike almost every other “populist,” I’ve yet to hear Rufo say one demagogic word against immigration. Upshot: Rufo isn’t just rolling back wokeness; by dramatically changing the subject, he is making conservatives forget to be mad about immigration. Indeed, I suspect that his medium-run plan is to bring immigrants into the grand anti-woke coalition. Now that’s “inclusion" as it ought to be.
P.S. Disagree? To repeat, please share all your Rufo questions in the comments.
* Yes, our education system is a waste of time and money. Yes, austerity is the best remedy. But if you are going to fund this system, at least staff it with reasonable scholars, not woke fanatics.
I own a company and am curious how he thinks I should talk with employees about DEI issues. Many of them are pretty woke. I value what they do and don’t want to chase them off. How do I explains that we strive to recruit the best talent we can find regardless of race, creed, or other non work related factors? I’d also be curious how he reacts to observations like: your leadership team (of four people) are all white. What’s the appropriate response to this statement of fact with obvious implications of wrong doing? It’s a common type of oblique criticism that you get when running a business. The person isn’t going to criticize you directly but are clearly implying something. My response so far has been I don’t know. It just happened that way. Running a business is hard and I’ve hired and fired many people looking for a god combo. I was just trying to keep my head above water.
One of the major standing disagreements between libertarians and other anti-progressives on the right is the question of what uses of state power to counter 'wokeness' would be legitimate. For example, would it be legitimate for the state to prevent the regulation of speech in public institutions, up to an including forbidding professors to impose speech codes for those attending their own classes? Is a law - as already exists in many states - prohibiting a private company from terminating an employee on the basis of speech acceptable? To what extent is the line between the state and the private sector clear or fuzzy, and should the law recognize a hard conceptual border between the two or take into consideration factors such as a company's primary function (e.g., exchange of speech, as with some social media platforms), market dominance, heaviness of regulation and need for government favor, 'soft' influences like extra-legislative 'requests' for 'voluntary' acts from the state? Should there be laws prohibiting any such coordination, direct or indirect, or even non-public communication between any state officials and any large company?