Dear Professor Hart: I would like to correct what I believe are errors of substance in your letter published in The Dartmouth Monday.
You state that "[Professor Thomas Luxon's] political correctness is so great that he has the arrogance in a public forum at Dartmouth to speak over a sophomore in the kid's [sic] mid-sentence, shouting his own views."
To the best of my recollection, (a) Professor Luxon did not interrupt a student in order to shout his own views; (b) the professor who did interrupt one or more students was myself. Perhaps, in the heat of the occasion, you conflated your own opinion of Mr. Luxon's views with my conduct, which was, as you say, discourteous.
I would like to apologize to Phaedon Sinis '97, for the heat with which I responded to him, and to Andrew Gold '95, whom I believe I interrupted.
The issues over which I transgressed courtesy were not "political correctness," however, but matters of fact, to wit, (1) whether there were "lectures on the Rodney King case" last year in Humanities 1 and 2 (there were not) and (2) the fact that a lecture on the availability of culture for both democratic and totalitarian exploitation, which was illustrated by examples of Ancient Roman, American and Nazi architecture, happened in the course of our study of Tacitus, and not of Homer.
Even those who until today were unaware of the grudge you bear Mr. Luxon now know of it, thanks to your extravagant letter. What they may not know is that, to anyone who has been at Dartmouth more than three years, your letter looks like an attempt to influence the English Department's decision regarding Mr. Luxon's tenure by portraying him as a petty tyrant disrespectful of students.
If you in fact attributed my rudeness to Mr. Luxon because you did not remember well what happened, I am glad to enlighten you. If you do remember what happened, you owe Professor Luxon an apology.
I interrupted those students because of my conviction that facts are important, especially in politically-charged discussions. I should have addressed my remarks to you, because to a great extent they reflected my exasperation with your intellectual sloppiness. Let me now address that issue.
The Dartmouth correctly quoted me the day after your speech as saying it "contained 'rather embarrassing errors of scholarly fact that contradicted the whole premise of the talk.'" What I meant was that certain of your assertions leave me with the impression that you yourself should spend more time with the texts you advise students to read.
To wit: if you are going to tell the students in the same few pages (and aloud in your remarks) both that they should read the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and that Jesus was a hero, you should be aware of what Nietzsche himself said of that idea: "Monsieur [Ernest] Renan, that buffoon in psychologicis, has appropriated for his explication of the type Jesus the two most inapplicable concepts possible in this case: the concept of the genius and the concept of the hero.
But if anything is unevangelic it is the concept hero" (Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books, 1990, p. 154).
Furthermore, although I thank you for telling students they should consult the Dartmouth Dante Project's database of commentaries on the Divine Comedy, you should know that Petrarch did not write a commentary on the poem. In fact, he wrote to Boccaccio in 1359 that he had not read Dante as a youth, and implied that he had nothing but scorn for Dante. Every student who studies either poet knows that. (See Letters from Petrarch, ed. Morris Bishop, Indiana U.P., 1966, pp. 178-79).
By the way, let me add that there is no such phrase as "Ecco Homo"' Ecce Homo means "Behold the Man" in Latin. Ecco is Italian.
Furthermore, if you really meant to say "Quod est demonstrandum" rather than "Quod erat..." you have said not that your point "is demonstrated," but rather, that"It still remains to be demonstrated." Which is how I feel about both your erudition and your accusations against Professor Luxon.
If you believe these are "mere details" and that I have "attacked" you unfairly, then you obviously feel that political orientation is more important than substance in a university context.
Again: thanks for telling the students they should read the classics, but as for your own familiarity with them, "quod est demonstrandum," as you so well say.
Professor Walter Stephens teaches Humanities 1 and 2 at the College.
