Take, for instance, the response to the Ebola outbreak. Millions of people worked themselves into a panic over a disease that has claimed the lives of fewer Americans this year than unsanitary caramel apples.
Or take the many universities so afraid of offending people that they have muzzled the very debate that is reputed to be one of their hallmarks. Perhaps the best example of this was Brandeis University’s reversal of a decision to give an award to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born champion of women’s rights and a fierce critic of Islam. Brandeis couched the reversal in terms of respecting religious values, but it and other universities have long accommodated people hostile to religion — people who don’t happen to elicit death threats the way Ali has.
And, of course, take Hollywood’s cowardly response after hackers broke into Sony’s computers and threatened physical violence against movie-goers if The Interview were released.
Spineless theater chains and even cable companies refused to show the film spoofing North Korea’s leaders. One studio, Paramount, even forbade some independent theaters from showing an alternative spoof of North Korea. New Regency canceled yet another movie, tentatively titled Pyongyang, before filming began.
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