Tyranny- From the East to the West; T. Machan

During the last few years, the Eastern bloc has experienced a serious measure of liberation. The uniformity of Communist state indoctrination has gradually given way to a more liberal, pluralistic education for most students. Some Soviet schools are experimenting with Western-style education for even the youngest pupils. They have begun to adopt unique educational methods they have dis covered at Montclair State College in New Jersey, which has an experimental program to teach phi losophy to children starting at the age of 6. The techniques of critical, independent thinking are Professor Machan teaches philosophy at Auburn Uni versity,Alabama. being imparted to youngsters so they can begin to evaluate what others say, to carve their own intel lectual paths. I am not certain how effective such education can be-Aristotle believed that people under 40 can't engage in philosophical thinking. But at least some introduction to critical reasoning and evalu ation may generate independent thought for those exposed to such educational methods. And now some educators from the Soviet Union are exper imenting with this.

Ironically, at the same time Eastern Europe is transforming itself toward a more liberal social order, the opposite seems to be happening on some of America's college campuses. Reports from Tulane, Smith, Harvard, Rutgers, and the University of Northern Colorado, to name just a few, indicate that faculty and students alike are moving closer to demanding a uniform approach to teaching. Even private conversations are moni tored on these campuses, and it is demanded that these conform to "politically correct" language. Teachers and students are being told that they may not speak in waysthat indicate wrong thinking-in one case at the University of Pennsylvania, a col lege administrator deemed the word "individual" in an undergraduate's memo to be inappropriate because he considered it a sign of racism! What's happening here? While in Eastern Europe, South Africa, China, and Latin America the winds of pluralism are blowing, in recognition of the fact that individuals have different needs, aspirations, and talents, in the United States, many intellectuals in powerful administrative and politi cal positions are mandating uniformity along lines reminiscent of the crudest forms of Marxism260 THE FREEMAN • JULY 1991 Leninism. And if you protest that this is tyranny, your remarks are deemed self-incriminating.Even to question the new demands for mandated unifor mity of speech is to invite the accusation that you have subconscious tendencies toward racism, sex ism, and all manner of other intolerable social indecencies.

Karl Marx argued that for socialism to arrive, first a society must experience democratic capital ism. The workers will then vote in socialism when the time comes. In Eastern Europe it has been dis covered that socialism needs to be imposed by commissars and dictators. Such a political econo myjust isn't suited to human beings,and the Marx ian idea that they-or at least "the workers"-will embrace it voluntarily has turned out to be a myth. In America also we are discovering that it isn't "the workers" or "the people," but rather many of the privileged intellectuals who demand that we become fully collectivized, made uniform in conduct and speech. Since such a social life is inherently anti-human, it is no surprise that its champions have to implement it by the threat of force. Nor is it much of a surprise that some of those now embarking on such measures used to be advocates of free speech. At one time, when they lacked power, they defended their anti-individual ist propaganda as fully protected by the First Amendment. Yet, as many critics remarked at the time, they never defended individual freedom -including freedom of speech-for anything oth er than strategic purposes. Once they gained some measure of power, they showed their hands by denouncing liberty as a bourgeois bias and pro ceeded to try to impose their "politically correct"

vision of human behavior. For me it is very sad, not to mention frightening, to see that the country to which I escaped from collectivist tyranny is now experiencing the omi nous winds of collectivist uniformitarianism .. I only hope that it goes no further than the peculiar and unreal regions of American university life. But I am afraid that such hope may be futile. D 261 Elephants and Ivory by Elizabeth Larson W hen government officials arrived in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the biannu al meeting of the Convention on Inter national Trade in Endangered Species in October 1989, they wanted to save Africa's elephants from extinction. They voted to end the ivory trade. Unfortunately, an ivory trade ban may be as good as a death warrant for Africa's elephants. The delegates supporting the ivory trade ban argued that it would eliminate the ivory market. Without a market for ivory, they say, poachers would be out of business. But opponents of the ban maintain that banning ivory willsimply create a black market for elephant products, encouraging poachers to find new ways to beat the system and profit from elephants.