While I agree with you and the majority of those commenting that Schlafly should not be awarded an honorary degree, I must respectfully disagree with some of your reasoning in both the original post and your responsive comments. I opposed the honorary degree because I think it is an honor being demeaned by the frequency of awards. Reserving the honor for only those truly worthy, whether through service to a variety of causes or the institution, would greatly enhance the proper prestige attendant to honorary degrees.

That being said, I disagree with your sentiments regarding comparison of liberals and conservatives. Equating liberalism with progress and conservatism with preservation of the status quo is not only an oversimplification, it is generally speaking inaccurate. While there will always being those standing in the way of progress, for women or other traditionally disadvantaged groups, because they believe in some way that the inequality is somehow justified, your view tends to assume that all change and all methods of “progressive” change are positive. For example, while no one can seriously doubt the dramatic positive effects of affirmative action in increasing diversity on campus and at the office, AA is hardly free of negative effects that understandably engender reasonable criticism (notably long-term negative effects for some originally benefiting and the negative effect on perception by those unjustifiably hurt by such policies). While change is both necessary and proper, we must always be vigilant in working to ensure that change is both positive in its ends and accountable for its methodology. That, in my mind, sums up at least part of what conservatism (or at least some conservatives) are all about.

So, in summary, should we advance equality on all fronts? Absolutely. Should we work tireless to identify inequality even where hard to detect? Unquestionably yes. Should we embrace all attempts promising progress towards equality despite legitimate doubt as to their effects for good and ill. Never. Schlafly may be rightly blamed for her frequent dishonest and soaring rhetoric, but to turn a legitimate criticism of a power decision by one institution into a more general indictment of conservatism with all of its occasional ills that visit all political positions is wrong in principle and obscures what could well have been a stronger criticism of the nature of the decision made.

Finally, so too in both the article and comments a couple of examples of reasonable criticism of progressive initiatives merits mention (though with the caveat that the availability of a reasonable criticism does not provide cover for all who criticize for obvious reasons). As to universal daycare, reasonable minds can disagree as to whether this is within the proper sphere of governmental action. Surely negative consequences persist in attitudes toward the sexes that leave some mothers either literally unable to work or feeling as though they are burden by responsibilities at home that make that enterprise difficult if not impossible. But could not the same progress be made if we use the authority of government to encourage greater individual choice in shared familial responsibilities? As to women’s issues (and race issues as well), the frequency of usage of those demographic categories of persons is most certainly fair in light of our history. But doesn’t inappropriate usage work to undermine true progress? (i.e. he was prosecuted because he was black, despite evidence to the contrary; gender gaps in professional positions are due to entrenched mysogyny, despite higher rates of matriculation from professional school by women and strong evidence of chosen maternal responsibility in lieu of a career at least for a period)

The debate over progress is as important as it can be tragic when we move too quickly, armed with only the best intentions, in support of flawed proposals that both seek to address legitimate concern and make us collectively feel as though we are addressing legitimate shortcomings in our society. To insist that those opposing any proposals styled as advancing equality oppose the march toward complete equality is as misguided as it is ultimately counterproductive.

Shame on Schlafly. But shame on us for every thinking that all change is good, legitimate criticism of well-intentioned but flawed proposals doesn’t exist, or ever implying that the general alignment of those who would stand in the way of legitimate and necessary progress with one political camp or another could or should color the whole of those believers and consign them to the dreaded status of favoring continued inequality.

Seriously, you guys should avoid driving metaphors for just a little longer. I’d say until January, at least.

Definition of a conservative: someone who keeps the progressive from driving the bus off the road.

Either the ends justify the means or they don’t. If they don’t, then, along with the Duranty fella, you need to dump most of the current US intelligentsia.

And if the answer is “it depends”, then Mr. Duranty had a great case in 1932: after all, he was expecting a workers’ paradise to emerge there soon. What’s a couple of million lives for unlimited happiness of trillions for ever and ever? End of all greed, all evil, all exploitation, all suffering on earth? Easy answer.

A primary focus here is the Left’s or the Progressives’ or whatever the word is moral bona fides. By what authorization do they, do you, hold court, exercise your tout court dismissivenes, your presumptive snark and snide, etc.? Duranty is merely one indicator and reflection, but he is one valid indicator. As such, the analogy serves to inform one aspect of the discussion.

But golly, once again Bérubé, in lieu of any cogency, offers summary judgement and his would-be authoritative dismissiveness. (Does that work with under-grads and grad-students both?) Shocked, I’m shocked there’s gambling going on in this place …

You see, it is quite common, on the Internets, for people to show up in the midst of a discussion of X and demand that the people criticizing X answer his (or her!) peremptory question as to why people are not also criticizing Y. (If only we had a handy term for such people! It would do wonders. Perhaps something that combines an expression of grave concern with an evocation of creatures who live under bridges in certain folktales.) So, for example, when a comment thread is discussing the appropriateness of awarding Phyllis Schlafly an honorary doctorate this week, and someone shows up to ask how many “progressives” joined the campaign to revoke a Pulitzer Prize awarded to an apologist for Stalin seventy-six years ago, the Royal and Ancient Laws of the Internet demand that such a person be mocked. In other words, I was just doing my job.

Now. What decent soul will come forward to denounce the Battle of Teutoberg Forest?

It was the government worshiping modern liberal who murdered 44 million for Stalin, 77 million for Mao, ran the National Socialist gas chambers, ran Pol Pots reeducation camps, and wants to use the police power of government to silence those who think differently in the media, in academia, and in politics.

Jonah! Good to see you at Crooked Timber. Hey, while you’re here, will you take a moment to denounce the apartheid South African regime that American conservatives supported to the very end? And what of Pinochet? And Franco? And—worst of all—Phyllis Schlafly?

Boo.

Yes.