How To End Academic Suppression of Free Speech

Or, how the more ancient minded Stoics would respond to tyranny

The mural says εὐφρόσυνος, which is roughly translated as, “in good cheer.” From 3rd century BC Roman mural found in Hatay, Turkey.

Stoicism was neither created by nor for intellectuals. It was designed for every man and woman to remain free despite hardship and oppression.

What would an ancient Stoic say to the intellectuals of the 20th century and the totalitarianism they authored — and to those who wish to bring it back today?

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I love the idea of the academy. I love its mission. But when the war between theory and reality sets the horizon on fire, I will always side with reality.   

Harvard University, New York University, and my alma mater Columbia University are now ranked the most intolerant schools for free speech in America¹. Like all academies, these institutions are run by our intellectual class. This authoritarian impulse among intellectuals is significant – and it is not new.

My hunch is that this threat to free speech is merely an effect; the cause, as often seems to be the case, is for political ends.

I am aware that the tyranny of our academies is merely a ripple compared to the tidal wave we are about to measure it against. But all tidal waves are born as ripples. What then happens when everything is viewed through a political lens? And what would a Stoic philosopher of the ancient school say in response?

Let us look to recent history.

One expression of the Communist Khmer Rouge that ruled Cambodia in the 1970’s is most striking: “… all you need is political education.”² Those responsible for spreading this gospel “were urban intellectuals who were in love with rationality and uniformity and convinced of their own omniscience.”

Dikes between rice paddies were destroyed so that “all fields would measure exactly one hectare.” Perfect uniformity was the goal. Equality. I can see a rice farmer standing in knee deep silt with his arm dangling limply at his sides. He knows the paddy was dug in the wrong soil and the wrong irrigation and will never grow a single grain of rice. A few feet above him on a dry mound stands a tiny man with a giant AK-47. The tyrant says, “All you need is political education and the rice will grow.” But reality replied, “Now you will starve,” and the rice did not grow.   

Dams were built by hydraulic engineers and peasants who were not allowed to build them properly. The peasant lying in the mud with a broken back from hauling pipes and digging trenches looks up at the tyrant in a hero pose against the red sunset. The tyrant says, “All you need is political education and the dam will hold.” But reality replied, “Now you will drown,” and the dam was carried away by the first flood.

But broken dams and barren paddies were merely collateral damage. The actual target of political education was the mind, and to control the mind you must first control the tongue. Woe to the victim who questioned the wisdom of the regime. A good citizen is silent. Submissive.

Why do the enforcers of utopia always seem to need AK-47s? My feeling is that the victims of utopia cannot articulate – but know to be true in their bones – that they are witnessing a philosophy of cannibalism disguised as a philosophy of equity. This was not the glorious defeat of foreign fighters who were raping and pillaging Cambodia: this was the systematic slaughter of Cambodians who simply wanted to be left alone. A few rice paddies and a black kettle for tea was heaven on earth. They were not left alone and they starved – and came to know cannibalism. So much for intellectual oversight of agriculture.

The irony is that the political education of Cambodia led to such poor production that they had to save bullets, meaning the AK-47s were mostly for show. Most executions were therefore carried out with “iron bars, pick-axe handles, or agricultural implements.” So much, too, for intellectual oversight of the economy.

When all was said and done, one out of four Cambodian men, women, and children were killed in one of the most methodical mass murders in history for the sake of political education. Reducing all of human activity to political education is to reduce human beings to a mass of mindless slaves or a mountain of bleached skulls. Despite all this, it was not long before intellectuals were saying, once again, “Well, it was a good idea in theory. We will get it right the next time.”  

What then? Is now the “next time”? On the one hand we have Cambodia which crossed the Rubicon. On the other hand we have America which is dipping its toe in the water to check the temperature.

My sense is that what happens in the academy inevitably flows downstream to our doorstep. What does this look like? What would a coach say to a soccer team trailing by one point in the last few minutes of the match? “Just make sure your politics are in order and the ball will find the net.” What about a Marine training his unit for war? “Do not worry about setting up a perimeter, son. All you need is the right political ideas and the enemy will fall at your feet.” What about building a hospital? “Political education.” A bridge? Planes? Terrorism? Cancer? Depression? Food? “Political education.”

It is often said that it is an injustice for students to suffer tyranny at their schools. Actually, they – and we – are financing their tyranny.

But the fact that tyranny is present in our schools is not surprising. The fact that we can end it with a laugh and a “No” is encouraging. The fact that so many are not doing so is bone-chilling. For saying “No,” a Cambodian rice farmer might have had his skull staved in with a shovel-handle, but the Ivy League student might merely be called a few mean words. Why is this not easy? Why follow Cambodia when all we see are ripples at present – and no tidal waves? When all we face are mean words – and no AK-47s?

Let us do a thought experiment and swap the eighteen-year old student with a three-year old girl. What then? Would the child tremble in terror when the teacher says in a silky voice with an upward lilt at the end, “Now we do not think this, do we?” Would she cower from the student with the face mask and the clipboard? Or would she laugh and crawl about on the floor in delight? The problem then is not the tyrant – the problem is our judgment of the tyrant.³

We come to an axiom of the present day: there exists a difference between school and education. The schooling students seek in classrooms is worthless compared to the education from their first exposure to tyranny. Is this not worth every penny of tuition: a safe space to learn how to tell a tyrant to go to hell?

The Khmer Rouge would say that the authorities have “as many eyes as a pineapple.” Is this it then? Is this the chosen image of the intellectual regime that murdered a quarter of its own population? A pineapple?

Now we arrive at the moment of reckoning. Now we come to the question that all free peoples who wish to avoid the black-pitted utopia of intellectuals must ask themselves: what if we do not like pineapple? What if, instead, we judge the fig to be superior? Or cold Concord grapes? Or luscious, beet-red pomegranates?

Stoic-minded Romans kept murals of skeletons on their walls as a reminder to live without fear, since fearlessness belongs to us while life itself does not. Why can we not put skeletons of our own up on our walls? It is possible to look up at that dancing skeleton as the ancient Stoics once did and remember that among the things that are worse than death, one stands above all – a life of submission.

The skeleton might say, “Tomorrow does not exist. Tomorrow may never exist. Why then live like slaves today?”

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1. FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) 2025 College Free Speech Ranking. https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2024/09/2025%20College%20Free%20Speech%20Rankings%20Report%20FINAL.pdf

2. For this and all other Cambodia references: Courtois, Stéphane, and Mark Kramer. The Black Book of Communism : Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999.

3. Epictetus 4.7.1 for inspiration