Marketplace of ideas? Why neither side is buying anymore.
Mark Bauerlein has become disillusioned with the political and academic ideal sometimes called “the free marketplace of ideas,” especially in America’s institutions of higher education.
It’s always been a confident and even optimistic ideal, springing from the emergence of Enlightenment liberalism and its emphasis on freedom of speech and individual rights. As its capitalist metaphor suggests, the ideal maintains that only in a free and open encounter of opposing ideas can truth and freedom prevail.
It also presumes a particular danger in the suppression of ideas – even those a majority might consider loathsome or dangerous. Silencing opinions inevitably corrupts an open process of inquiry and discovery, the theory goes, thus privileging only the ideas of those with power.
“You know, the marketplace of ideas is a great concept, but it doesn’t exist anymore,” says Dr. Bauerlein, a conservative scholar who’s helped Florida educators revamp their English language arts standards over the past few years. “The problem is, there’s been a purge of conservatives from higher education for 30 or
