...Most of the mobbing targets I have studied were dumbstruck that such impassioned collective opprobrium could be heaped on them. They thought they were doing good work – as indeed they were, by standards broader than those locally in force. They trusted overmuch in reason, truth, goodness, and written guarantees of academic freedom and tenure. They missed the cue for when to shut up...Professors and other workers will continue to be mobbed from time to time. Most will be idealistic high achievers with loyalties higher than the local powers that be. Targets will be humiliated and punished – though less harshly than Socrates was. The academy has in some ways progressed...
Kenneth Westhues
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