Thursday, January 31, 2008

Quote of the NIght

The scholar is protected in his right to think and to say things which might not be tolerated in the marketplace because of the assumption that he is a man devoted to the conservation and the advancement of Truth. If, deserting Truth, he lusts after Power, then he loses his claim to the special freedom of the academy. And as a friend of mine says who has had much experience of American universities, when some professors nowadays talk about academic freedom, language has lost its meaning for them. They really are not talking about academic freedom, but only about academic power. They are very little interested in conserving or advancing Truth, and are still less interested in securing intellectual or academic freedom for others. What they mean, when they say "academic freedom," is power to dominate the wills of their colleagues and to force the minds of their students into an ideology that they happen to fancy. It is because of these persons that academic freedom is endangered today--Rahsaan Russell Kirk, "The American Scholar and the American Intellectual" (1956).

Update: Little joke there. Ha. The real Russell Kirk's wiki.

Update II: "I didn't ask my mother to buy me a trumpet or a violin. I started right on the water hose"--Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

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