Why Can’t Tom Moran Acknowledge the Common Collectivist Base of Affirmative Action and 20th Century Atrocities?

A recent op-ed posted by New Jersey Star-Ledger editor Tom Moran rightfully praised Princeton University for inviting a speaker who was “canceled” by another major university. In At Princeton, an inspiring defense of free speech, Moran writes:

Princeton University just came to the rescue of free speech by inviting a conservative speaker to campus after he was cancelled at MIT by progressives who couldn’t stand his views on affirmative action. 

MIT’s canceled speaker is University of Chicago Assistant Prof. Dorian Abbot. It’s very inspiring to see slow but growing pushback against “cancel culture,” including by Leftists (or “progressives,” as Moran would probably prefer). It’s inspiring to see prominent intellectuals who understand that cancel culture is more than rude -- it’s a major threat to free speech. But I want to focus on an equally important sidebar, Moran’s view of the speaker’s take on Affirmative Action. Moran continues:

The story starts when MIT invited an expert on climate change from the University of Chicago, Assistant Prof. Dorian Abbot, to speak at an event sponsored by MIT and open to the public in Boston. Abbot, as it happens, is an aggressive opponent of affirmative action and has spoken and written about the damage he believes it’s causing to academia.

Americans believe, by a 3-1 margin, that race and ethnicity should play no role in hiring and promotions, and last year even blue California voted against affirmative action by a whopping 12-point margin. So his views are well within the mainstream, at least outside college campuses.

But Abbot expresses them in caustic language that seems intended to provoke. Here’s how he described affirmative action in an article he co-authored in Newsweek in August:

“It entails treating people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century. It requires being willing to tell an applicant, ‘I will ignore your merits and qualifications and deny you admission because you belong to the wrong group.’”

To be clear, I think that’s nuts. You can make a reasonable argument against affirmative action, but that’s not it. Like it or not, affirmative action is an effort to crack open the doors to a more diverse group, a recognition that they have been closed for too long by racism and privilege. Hitler and Stalin had something entirely different in mind.

In fact, Abbot is spot-on, and we ignore his point at our, and America’s, peril. Abbot is referring, of course, to collectivism, the premise that the focus of moral, political, and cultural concern is the group, rather than the individual. Given that America’s foundation is built on collectivism’s opposite, individualism, why can’t Tom Moran acknowledge the common collectivist base that affirmative action and 20th century atrocities obviously share?

True, Hitler and Stalin (and other 20th Century monsters) didn’t have increased educational opportunities for members of minority groups in mind. But Hitler’s racist fascist imperialist dictatorship and Stalin’s imperialistic communist “workers paradise” couldn’t have happened without collectivist rationalizations. And neither could Affirmative Action. 

Moran claims the collectivist argument is not “a reasonable argument against affirmative action.” Apparently, he thinks it’s fine to ignore individual merits and qualifications in order to favor one racial group over another. I think that’s unreasonable -- and immoral. I think Affirmative Action’s racist orientation toward individuals’ immutable group characteristics (skin pigmentation) is grossly unfair. I believe it’s monstrous to penalize today’s non-racial minority students for injustices perpetrated by their racial ancestors against the ancestors of the intended racial minority beneficiaries of Affirmative Action. None of today’s college-aspiring students are either guilty of or victims of historical injustices. To paraphrase the great Thomas Sowell, no one is born with pre-packaged guilt or pre-packaged grievances. To say otherwise is to embrace collectivism.

Moran never explains why he believes Abbot’s argument is “nuts”. But the very next sentence tells it all. Affirmative Action, he says, “is an effort to crack open the doors to a more diverse group, a recognition that they have been closed for too long by racism and privilege [my emphasis].” Closed to whom? To a collection of ancestors, that’s who. That is the exact collectivist justification advanced by Hitler against the Jews—that individual living Jews are guilty because the Jews as a group have always been a plague on humanity. Stalin advanced a similar argument against the bourgeoisie to justify their extermination.

Yes, there are strong reasonable arguments against affirmative action, like its practical failures. But moral fundamentals trump the practical arguments, because bad morals lead to bad practical results. Affirmative Action programs fail because they ignore individual merits and qualifications and focus on group identity—or at least prioritize group identities. That’s the common denominator uniting “the atrocities of the 20th century” and Affirmative Action. Note that Moran places racial diversity over individual merit.

Why can’t Moran see the obvious? Because to acknowledge the evil of collectivism would explode the collectivist essence of his diversity worldview. 

Judging people as members of a group. That’s precisely what Affirmative Action does. And that’s exactly what Hitler and Stalin did. True, as degrees of evil, the Nazis and the Communists were far worse than Affirmative Action, and I don’t believe Abbot intended to say Affirmative Action and its advocates are modern day 20th Century monsters. But ideas are the primary drivers of history. Affirmative Action rests on a philosophical premise that travels a road that, in the distant future, ends with the Hitlers and Stalins of the world.

Philosophy is the engine of history. America was Founded on the individualist philosophic ideals of The Enlightenment. With that beacon of justice shining forward, we got the abolition of slavery, the equality of property rights for women, the end of marriage inequality, the universal voting rights for woman and blacks, the end of Jim crow and legalized segregation, and the receding of racism in America, the reactionary efforts of the neo-racists of the woke “anti-racist” movement notwithstanding. Collectivism is the ideology of and for savages, and the collectivist group diversity movements, like Affirmative Action, is indeed to “repeat the [philosophic] mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century.” Collectivism is always dangerous whenever and wherever it surfaces. Given its terrible track record, it should be called out. Kudos to Abbot for his moral courage in calling out these dangerous ideas. Moran is wrong to poo-poo Abbot’s brilliant observations. It’s his revulsion at Abbot that’s nuts.

Related Reading:

MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me. Let’s make sure my cancellation is the last. That begins by standing up and saying no to the mob.By Darian Abott

Politics 2012: Can “American Individualism” Save the GOP – and America?

Individualism vs. Collectivism and the Neglected False Moral Dichotomy

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

E.J. Dionne Answers the Call With Assault on "Extreme Individualism"

Pope Francis’ Critics Fail to Appreciate the Fundamental Motives Behind His Anti-Individualism

Collectivism Generates Irrational Hatred

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Related Viewing:

Individualism vs Collectivism - Dr. Yaron Brook