ANALYSIS/OPINION:
As a white man, I have grown weary of charges of toxic masculinity and worse. As a lifelong registered Democrat I am pained to write that the toxicity and harassment (with the possible exception of the commander-in-chief) appears to come from Democrats. (“UGA dean apologizes to Twitter mob congratulating GOP nominee Brian Kemp,” Web, July 30).
I read somewhere that the best strategy for dealing with toxic and harassing Democrats is simply to not apologize. Apologizing leaves the apologizer one down — which is the intent of the social-justice mobs. Such a strategy certainly would be painful in the short term, but in the long term might well serve to detoxify Democrats and attenuate harassment nationwide.
As B.F. Skinner demonstrated long ago with rats, rewarding behavior increases its frequency and not rewarding behavior decreases its frequency. Straight white men apologizing constantly to the mob appears only to reward and encourage more harassment.
And, by the way, if the absence of rewards doesn’t work, there is always traumatic avoidance conditioning.
GORDON E. FINLEY
The letter above was published in The Washington Times on Thursday, August 9, 2018.
NCFM NOTE:
Charles Davis, a journalism professor and dean at the University of Georgia, apologized to a group of immature people who Twittered their dismay over Mr. Davis congratulating his long time friend Brian Kemp for winning the Republican nomination for governor. Apparently, Mr. Davis committed a cardinal sin when he referred to his friend as a “nice guy.” It appears Davis buckled to a hostile crowd determined to destroy concepts of friendship and decency. We’re guessing that the social-justice hostiles were those in need of detoxifying as noted by Mr. Finley above. We’re more disappointed in Davis for apologizing to a group of disrespectful idiots, regardless of political affiliation.
We also note that NCFM is nonpartisan and are beholding to no political party or philosophy.
