In his Aug. 4 op-ed, “The campus counter-revolt is succeeding,” Hugh Hewitt wrote about the book “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything” by Christopher F. Rufo. Mr. Hewitt explained that Mr. Rufo traces the intellectual history of such terms as “critical race theory” and “intersectionality” and ideas about diversity, equity and inclusion, and environmental, social and corporate governance. Mr. Hewitt also mentioned influential thinkers and academics who spread these ideas over the past 30 years or so.
He wrote as if readers recoil at such ideas and their dissemination and did not explain why it is so terrible that these thinkers and academics had such influence. Mr. Hewitt did not explain what is meant by “critical race theory” or “intersectionality,” seemingly assuming we all know them to be noxious ideas, along with the terrible ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion, among others.
Mr. Hewitt suggested that the country’s revulsion at the murder of George Floyd would have been more tempered had these radical thinkers not indoctrinated us, and he suggested that “identity politics” (meaning that Black people see a difference in how they are treated) is divisive and negative.
I am appalled at the notion that we all agree about how horrible these ideas are and that we should celebrate the countering of these ideas — the “counterattack.”
This is emblematic of the low level of discourse to which our divided country has sunk. We don’t talk about concepts and why we agree or disagree with them; instead, we use catch words and phrases to rile up our sides.
Stephanie Koenig, Silver Spring
