David French on Kyle Kashuv’s Harvard Blacklisting

There are radicals who would like to stamp out Christian liberty. But the Valyrian steel that stops the cultural white walker is pluralism buttressed by classical liberalism, not Christian statism. (Analogy makes sense in the piece): https://t.co/QECVdwBepZ

— David French (@DavidAFrench) May 30, 2019

ICYMI: On @BulwarkOnline podcast, I talked with @DavidAFrench about “Frenchism,” the new illberalism… and whether the bastards are getting him down….. Worth a listen.https://t.co/2PGLKgo0vR

— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) June 17, 2019

The mighty secular institutions of the cultural elite are shedding grace as they shed faith. On a smaller scale, Harvard’s vindictiveness against Kyle Kashuv reminds me of Oberlin’s malice. Self-righteousness untempered by humility makes a country cruel: https://t.co/xhYp31QRey

— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 17, 2019

In light of the Sohrab Ahmari debate and David French’s insistence that the government can do nothing about social media censorship after YouTube demonetized Steven Crowder, I was particularly eager to hear Pastor French’s take on the blacklisting of Kyle Kashuv by Harvard:

“Today, Parkland-shooting survivor Kyle Kashuv tweeted that Harvard University had rescinded his admissions offer after it discovered that he’d made offensive, racist comments in a private online chat when he was 16 years old. I’m not going to repeat what he said, but no one disputes that his comments were egregious and wrong. Kyle doesn’t dispute that fact. He’s apologized publicly, and he apologized to Harvard. He’s done everything we want a young man to do when he’s done something wrong. …”

Is French capable of fighting back against the radicalized Left? Of course not. He begins his argument by ceding the moral high ground to the Left by agreeing with them that something called “racism” is immoral. He calls for mercy and forgiveness from people who reject those concepts.

“I fully recognize that vile speech has consequences. I fully recognize that Harvard is a private institution and can admit who it wants to admit (so long as it complies with applicable law), and that it can advance its own institutional values. Kyle has already suffered the consequence of more public shame and humiliation than most Americans will endure in a lifetime. There are people who will remind him of his bad speech every time he engages publicly, from now until the end of his career.”

But can’t an educational institution understand that children are different from adults and that a truly enormous amount of growth can occur in a short amount of time — especially when that growth is spurred in part by enduring horrific trauma? …”

Kyle Kashuv has committed a gravely offensive and immoral act and has been publicly shamed and humiliated for his naughty words which will haunt him for the rest of his life, BUT … Harvard shouldn’t blacklist him because he was just a teenager and otherwise French will do some performative hand wringing about it in a National Review article. What if you say something as an adult that offends the paragons of morality at The Huffington Post? Are you just f***ed then?

“Woke culture treats a teen like an adult and tries to crush his public reputation when his character is still in in its infancy. … At its heart, the attack on Kyle isn’t about making Harvard safe from racists. It’s not about protecting anyone. It’s about politics.”

Okay, so, the whole case against Frenchism is that the Left has jettisoned traditional morality and is bent on the total destruction of its political opponents which this incident illustrates and which “the Valyrian steel that stomps out the cultural white walker” is utterly powerless to stop.

“But no. The mighty secular institutions of the cultural elite are shedding grace as they shed faith. Unless constrained by law, they’re increasingly vindictive. On a much smaller scale, Harvard’s vindictiveness reminds me of Oberlin’s malice. Self-righteousness untempered by humility makes a country cruel. And that is exactly the nation America’s illiberal ideologues hope to create.”

French is right that the Left has jettisoned the classical virtues and Christianity and replaced these things with the dogmas of political correctness which are held up as “morality” simply because the “mainstream” enforces and punishes people for violating all the -isms and -phobias. He is right there to guard their right flank and tackle anyone on the “gutter right” who would fight back too.