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Jewish World Review / April 30, 1998
Thomas Sowell
Recently, as my assistant was walking across the Stanford University
campus, she was startled to see four young women, completely naked and with their
bodies painted various colors, asking one of the men who was passing by to
take a picture of them. He apparently was happy to do so.
This was not a unique incident. On another occasion, my assistant
came upon a
cheering crowd near the campus bookstore. In the midst of that crowd was a
young man, also naked and also with his body painted.
Several years ago, the Stanford student newspaper featured a
front-page
photograph of a group of students, of both sexes, in the shower together.
Since the picture was in black and white, there is no way of knowing whether
their bodies were painted.
The Stanford campus has not become a nudist colony, but neither are
these
episodes of no significance -- especially not when they seem to meet public
approval. Nor are the only implications of such behavior sexual.
Public nudity is just one of the ways of expressing their sense of
their own
wonderful specialness that so many self-indulgent students feel at many
elite
colleges and universities. A Stanford law school student expressed the same
haughty superiority in terms of her work in the "prisoner's rights"
movement.
This law school champion of convicted felons said, "It's precisely
because
prisoners are viewed as the castaways of our society -- that's what draws me
to them even more." In other words, promoting the interests of prisoners is
a
way to be morally one-up on "society."
"We should want to know," she said, "why a person can't function in
this
society, what it is about this society." It cannot possibly be something
wrong
about the person because that would not provide an occasion for
demonstrating
her own wonderful specialness, at least not with her clothes on.
If these were simply the peccadilloes of a few vain and
self-indulgent
adolescents, it would just be part of the passing parade of human folly.
Unfortunately, it is part of a whole mindset that is nourished on many
campuses and which the graduates take out into the world.
Moreover, this is not simply their own personal misfortune. Using
their
gilded diplomas from big-name academic institutions as passes into policy-
making positions, the educated ego-trippers can spend years -- perhaps a
lifetime -- pursuing self-aggrandizement under pious names like "compassion"
or "social justice."
What it all boils down to is imposing their superior wisdom and
virtue on all
the clods they lump together disdainfully as "society." It is all supposed
to
be for our own good, but there is remarkably little attention paid to
evidence
as to whether or not their grandiose schemes work.
These schemes always work in terms of allowing the
self-congratulatory
anointed to feel superior and to feel excitement. Eric Hoffer said that
intellectuals cannot operate at room temperature. Everything must be
"exciting," "innovative," or otherwise cater to their emotions.
The claim is of course made that these busybodies are making the
rest of us
better off. But whether their crusades actually promote the wellbeing of the
ostensible beneficiaries is not a question that arouses any great interest
on
their part.
For example, whether or not racial busing actually helps either
blacks or
whites is not a question that captures their attention. Nor are they
concerned
about studies that show recycling doing more harm than good.
Nor are such people likely to pause during their "global warming"
crusades to
examine scientific evidence as to whether the globe has actually gotten any
warmer or not. Nor are they likely to pause during their "overpopulation"
crusades to consider why Japan is prospering with ten times the population
density of sub-Saharan African nations that are stricken with poverty and
famine.
With all the parading of concern about other people, there is
remarkably
little concern with allowing those other people to live their own lives as
they see fit. On the contrary, ever increasing and ever more minute
regulation
of other people's lives has now reached the point where we cannot even take
a
shower, flush a toilet, or take out our garbage the way we want to.
It is not about us, it is about their own egos. That's the naked
The naked truth
6/11/98: Presidential privileges
6/8/98: Fast computers and slow antitrust
6/3/98: Can stalling backfire?
5/29/98: The insulation of the Left
5/25/98: Missing the point in the media
5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
5/20/98: Smart but silent
5/18/98: Israel, Clinton and character
5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
5/11/98: Random thoughts
5/7/98: Media obstruction of justice
5/4/98: Dangerous "safety"
5/1/98:
Abolish Adolescence!
4/30/98: The naked truth
4/22/98: Playing fair and square
4/19/98: Bad teachers"
4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
3/26/98: "Diasters -- natural and political"
3/24/98: "A pattern of behavior"
3/22/98: Innocent explanations
3/19/98: Kathleen Willey and Anita Hill
3/17/98: Search and destroy
3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
3/6/98: Vindication
3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
2/26/98: The Wrong Filter
2/24/98: Trial by Media
2/20/98: Dancing Around the Realities
2/19/98: A "Do Something" War?
2/12/98: Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war
2/6/98: A rush to rhetoric
