A victory for the liberal ideal at Cambridge University

Most who currently describe themselves as liberals - in that American sense becoming more common in England - will dislike this recent event. We, being actual liberals, applaud it entirely. For it the victory of the base liberal ideal:

Cambridge University dons have prevailed in a free speech row after voting down an attempt by university chiefs to force them to be “respectful of the diverse identities of others”.

The change is from “respect” to “tolerate”.

A group of academics managed to force a ballot on a series of amendments including that the phrase “respectful of” is replaced with “tolerate”.

….

The amendment proposing ‘respect’ should be replaced with ‘tolerate’ passed by 1,378 votes to 208, while the other amendments proposed by Dr Ahmed passed by 1,243 to 311 and 1,202 to 342.

A liberal polity is one in which we all get to do our own thing - absent those third party effects re noses and fist swinging - and everyone else has to put up with our doing so.

To insist that others respect our decisions - or the way we’re made - over sexuality, race, culture, preferences, utility or anything else is not to be liberal. For that is to impose upon the observer a duty which is in itself illiberal. That they have to put up with, tolerate, is the definition of that desired liberality.

After all, if we’ve got to respect someone who believes in some idiocy like Marx’s Labour Theory of Value is to place a substantial burden upon those of us who have grasped the marginalist revolution. That we’ve got to tolerate people who believe idiocies is just part of the human condition.