jj (02/16/83)
First, I'd like to thank the person who so politely cancelled this article once for me. Those of you who have A-news will find nothing new from the previous article, and those of you who fail to get the cancellation message likewise. Frankly, booing someone off the stage (also chanting them off, threatening them off, etc) is repulsive to me, simply because the hecklers are demonstrating that they do NOT want to hear a discussion, they want to be bullies. Suppose for a minute that the person was trying to set up some perspective for her beliefs and actions. Suppose further that the lecture wouldn't make sense until you heard about her experience, which is, after all, greater than yours. I find the behavior of college students (in my day as well) who "KNOW" the facts in advance, and who KNOW what the speaker is going to say, so incredibly thoughtless and anti-free speech that I lack the ability to make a reasoned argument against them. Totalitarian actions like booing someone off a stage rather than chance having your perceptions of the world changed by someone with greater experience and expertise are not going to change anyone's opinion unless they are so insecure as to feel threatened by your violence. For those of you who have seen it, I would like to see a discussion of the (real, not opinionated) differences between this incident and the "future belongs to me" scene in Caberet. Enough. Don't even mail me unless you can be polite.
bernie (02/22/83)
Not knowing much about Jeane Kirkpatrick or her views, I'm puzzled by the fact that UCB students would try to prevent her from speaking. What *was* she saying that they were so afraid to hear?