Summers Storm and Harvard Hysterics

Posted January 27, 2005, 12:37 p.m.

Two interesting Op-Eds (the first by Ruth Marcus from last Saturday and the second by George Will today) over on the Washington Post website. They are about Harvard University President Larry Summers’s comments on gender differences, which have raised such a stink in academia.

But the op-eds are about much more than Summers’s comments; they are also commentaries on the intellectual close-mindedness pervasive on college campuses today. (Because God forbid we discuss the scientific possibility that the verified physiological differences between men and women extend to the brain!)

Read the articles, they’re both very good and jive very well with my opinions on this matter.

Summers Storm and Harvard Hysterics (WashingtonPost.com, free registration may be required).

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit ascends to contemplation of truth.

To sit home, read one’s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men’s doing.

For he will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. . . .

Ideas are cheap. It’s only what you do with them that counts.

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.

Beware how you take away hope from any human being.

Always obey your parents when they are present.

We live in an age of artificial scarcity, maintained by ignorance and fear.

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.

To say that we should remain in a false religion because we were born in it is as untrue as to say we should not heal our bodily diseases because we were born with them.

The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the precipitate.

The only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

No other teacher in the world [but Jesus] ever said that it would take a violent death to clarify his teachings.

For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by the arms of a million of men.

One thing I find helpful is growing old. It’s a slow process, but totally worth it compared to dying.

Experience [is] the name men give to their mistakes.

When you’re right, you don’t have to worry too much about stinging political defeats. All you have to do is sit back and let the winners enact their policies. If you’re really right, and they’re really wrong, their policies will fail.

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