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One thing leads to another. Sometimes the outcome is good. Sometimes the outcome is bad. Sometimes the outcome is downright evil.
An example of the evil variant occurred this week. A United States Senate hearing was held to investigate the conduct of a number of American universities where there have been protests about the war in Gaza that was initiated by Hamas’s pogrom of 7th October.
Senator Elise Stefanik asked the presidents of three leading universities: “At (MIT / Penn State / Harvard) does calling for the genocide of Jews violate (MIT’s / Penn’s / Harvard’s) Code of Conduct regarding bullying and harassment. Yes or No?”
None of the three presidents - Dr Sally Kornbluth at MIT, Ms Liz McGill at Penn State, Dr Claudine Gay at Harvard - would provide an unequivocal “Yes” to the question. All three said it was “a context-dependent decision”.
How could it come to this? How could it be that three leaders at three of America’s - and the world’s - leading centres of academe consider that sanctioning calls for a genocide against the Jewish people is “a context-dependent decision”?
The three leaders, I’m sure, are not bad people. The only conclusion I can reach is that they maybe jumped aboard a bandwagon without fully thinking the whole thing through. The bandwagon is social justice theory and its basis is ‘Equity’. Sounds like a good idea, huh? Truth is, it is very dangerous. Remember Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)? That was all about building equity. It resulted in the death of 100 million people.
So, for Happy Friday, I was looking for something that expressed the idea of different outcomes for different people, and here’s a salutary snippet from the wonderful world of Damon Runyon. I grant you that it is not precisely matched to the catastrophe of social justice theory. But it’s a damn sight sweeter.
One night The Brain is walking me up and down Broadway in front of Mindy’s Restaurant, and speaking of this and that, when along comes a red-headed raggedy doll selling apples at five cents per copy, and The Brain, being very fond of apples, grabs one out of her basket and hands her a five-dollar bill.
The red-headed raggedy doll, who is maybe thirty-odd and is nothing but a crow as far as looks are concerned, squints at the finnif, and says to The Brain like this:
‘I do not have change for so much money,’ she says, ‘but I will go and get it in a minute.’
‘You keep the change,’ The Brain says, biting a big hunk out of the apple and taking my arm to start me walking again.
Well, the raggedy doll looks at The Brain again, and it seems to me that all of a sudden there are large tears in her eyes as she says:
‘Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you, thank you, and God bless you, sir!’
And then she goes on up the street in a hurry, with her hands over her eyes and her shoulders shaking., and The Brain turns around very much astonished, and watches until she is out of sight.
‘Why, my goodness!’ The Brain says. ‘I give Doris Clare ten G’s last night, and she does not make half as much fuss over it as this doll does over a pound note.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘maybe the apple doll needs a pound note more than Doris needs ten G’s.’
This is from Damon Runyon’s Guys and Dolls (1932) and the story’s bittersweet ending involves the death of The Brain and his gratitude towards the raggedy doll. It’s a lesson in equality driven by individual choice rather than equity driven by impressed communitarianism.
Last but not least, if you’re interested in finding out more about the Senate hearing, I recommend checking out this excellent edition of The Rubin Report.
Thanks for reading.