Did Charmi Miller and I attend the same lecture?

I was seated in the front of the room and spent most of my time watching the crowd, measuring reactions, and looking for possible reasons to have to call Public Safety—a necessity, given the controversial nature of Dr. Bernstein’s talk and the reactions to objectivist speakers on other campuses. I saw plenty of angry, repulsed, hostile, curious, nodding, and smiling faces. I did not witness any mass of cowering sheep—naïve students shaking in their psychological boots at the big, bad man with ideas they don’t like—that Ms. Miller claims was there. I give more credit to students at RPI than that.

Ms. Miller says: “I don’t believe my own views of the world or my understanding of it put me in a position which is morally or intellectually superior to anyone else’s views or understanding.” Are her attacks on Dr. Bernstein—and, by implication, her cast of herself as his moral and intellectual superior—an exercise in failed integrity, then?

Everyone is not the same as Ms. Miller. We’re all human, but I have no interest in hijacking planes to ram into buildings, murdering thousands of men, women, and children. Nor do I wish to attack the intellectuals who are trying to morally and intellectual defend our country against those, both here and abroad, who would see us brought to our knees for our very virtues of liberty and individualism. Does she? Would she stand by the claim that the individuals who do are the same as her? Go ahead, but don’t claim they’re the same as me!

I will not repeat my previous comments regarding violence. To still maintain that either objectivists or Dr. Bernstein support indiscriminant killing of innocent people is open intellectual evasion. Contrary to killing “thousands, or even millions of people,” we’ve suggested attacking the murderous savages who violated us and those who harbor them. Would Ms. Miller see the villains go free, to kill us again and again and again—our parents, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends, lovers?

I, for one, would not. It is not an idea I am willing to consider. My self-imposed severe constraints limit me to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and their intransigent defense. If this is unreasonable, then Thomas Jefferson and the founders of this country were all veritable neurotics.

I find the view of the world that Ms. Miller describes disgusting, as would any rational person. Terrorists and their supporters are a depraved molehill of humanity that the rest of this beautiful world and its people must be defended against. Ms. Miller must’ve given Dr. Bernstein’s ideas the same kind of attention as the MSA, IranSA, and PakSA.

On a positive note, Dr. Bernstein will be back on campus later this month to give an introductory talk on objectivism. For those interested, watch for fliers and announcements.

Aneel Lakhani