On Princeton’s re-naming the Woodrow Wilson school

I agree with the university’s decision to drop Wilson’s name. The man’s anti-individualism came in many terrible versions: racist, socialist, and statist-democratic. Here’s Professor Wilson, before he became President, endorsing democratic socialism:

‘State socialism’ … proposes that all idea of a limitation of public authority by individual rights be put out of view, and that the State consider itself bound to stop only at what is unwise or futile in its universal superintendence alike of individual and of public interests. The thesis of the state socialist is, that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all just political theory.
Applied in a democratic state, such doctrine sounds radical, but not revolutionary. It is only an acceptance of the extremest logical conclusions deducible from democratic principles long ago received as respectable. For it is very clear that, in fundamental theory, socialism and democracy are almost, if not quite, one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals.”

When one stops seeing individuals as sacrosanct, it becomes only a matter of time and degree which groups demand their allegiance and subordination — the racial group, the conforming majority, the state, the will of the community …

Also important to remember: the USA has already had its first democratic-socialist president.

Source: https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/WilsonWoodrow-Socialism-and-Democracy.pdf.

More: The Atlas University course on Socialism. Woodrow Wilson’s 1917 Ministry of Information.

1 thought on “On Princeton’s re-naming the Woodrow Wilson school”

  1. This trend is worrisome.
    “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
    George Orwell, 1984
    Tags: 1984, future, history, past, present

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